“It Is Not Like This (As It Seems to You)”: premiere at the Von Krahl Theatre

Ingomar Vihmar writes: this play is my declaration of love to the theatre. I began writing it more than ten years ago because I simply could not do otherwise. My passionate relationship with the theatre had to be explained. To myself. Heart to heart.

What is it about? The theatre. The meaning of theatre and its meaninglessness. (The meaning of life and its meaninglessness.) Actors. Playwrights. Directors. Ordinary people. God.

The story raises many questions but answers none. It is full of paradoxes, as I think theatre itself is. A new method rules out the previous one, which in turn rules out the earlier one, and so on, until we come back to the beginning. Nothing can be believed completely, and nothing can be certain a hundred per cent. Every narrative is mocked. Even the meanings of words are called into doubt.

Which is more real: life or theatre? When is an actor more real: when they are acting, or when they simply are? The text examines the actor’s (the person’s) fears: fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, fear of being shamed. In short, fear of being on stage. The play does not know what it wants, but it knows that it wants something!

What is real is not under threat. What is unreal does not exist.

Author and director: Ingomar Vihmar. Artist: Kristel Zimmer. Composer: Hendrik Kaljujärv. Light: Priidu Adlas.

On stage: Juhan Ulfsak, Mari Abel, Ester Kuntu, Kristina Preimann, Karl Birnbaum, Markus Andreas Auling, Herman Pihlak and Edgar Vunš.

Premiere 2 December 2026. Approximate duration 2 hours, no interval.

Time and place: 2 December 2026, 19:00, Von Krahl Theatre, Telliskivi 60a/9, Tallinn.