Farewell to Tbilisi

Most of the international visitors left Tbilisi after the performance of Doiashvili's Macbeth (or Sturua’s Hamlet) on Monday night. I was in a bar with the cast of Macbeth and other friends, including the Minister of Culture, until 5.00am so my last morning in Tbilisi was spent in bed!

There are two things you can do after a late night in Tbilisi; beer and khingales (a kind of dumpling and a popular Georgian speciality); or khachapuri Adjaruli. Khachapuri, a cross between pizza and cheese pie, is a staple of Georgian cuisine and each region has its own variation, made with its local cheese. Adjara’s version is shaped like a boat and has a raw egg and butter floating on the cheese. Mixing it up as it cooks in the heat of the bread creates a delicious cheesy scrambled egg and is a definite pick me up; it’s probably also instant heart attack but who cares. There’s a fabulous café just next to the Marjanishvili Theatre specialising in the dish so that’s where I had brunch with British actress Linda Marlowe and Beso Kupreishvili (whose Fingers Theatre show had delighted audiences on the first day).

I had a number of missions in Tbilisi: firstly, as a member of the Festival Board, it was to do all I could to help ensure a successful festival; secondly, I wanted to introduce British directors and producers to the Georgian theatre scene, which I think I achieved by having a group of a dozen individuals from the UK at the festival; and thirdly I wanted to encourage collaborative projects between the UK and Georgia.

Thus it was that I’d asked British actress Linda Marlowe to come out to Tbilisi and, thanks to support from the British Council, she was there for four days. Some time earlier Beso had asked me about a project he’d delivered in Lithuania; he’d created a production of Hamlet with a Lithuanian actor plus his puppets and wondered about repeating it in another country. What he wanted was an actor who had never, and would never play Hamlet. This actor would be given the chance to play Hamlet with the puppets playing the rest of the cast. Linda Marlowe struck me as exactly the right kind of person. She’d never played Hamlet (wrong sex) and is a remarkable artist who’s always pushing herself to try new things. It seemed like a great idea for the Edinburgh Festival and she came to Tbilisi to meet Beso and see if they’d get on.

They got on immediately and were instantly throwing ideas around. Linda spent the day with the company on Monday and the chemistry between them was electrifying. This was clearly a project to pursue. I asked if it might be possible to get some photographs of Linda with the puppets and it was arranged to do a full photo call later that afternoon.

Linda Marlowe and the 'cast' of My Hamlet

Another matchmaking exercise was between British storyteller Mike Maran and the creator of the puppets for Lady With a Dog, Nino Namicheishvili. Mike had approached me over a year earlier about an idea he’d had in his head for a while, which he thought could benefit from some puppetry, and I’d floated the idea with Nino. Sometimes things don’t work out and, whilst they liked each other enormously when they met over the weekend and were both enthusiastic about the idea, it became clear that the project wouldn’t work in the way that had been imagined. It could still happen but meanwhile it’s back to the drawing board. And since returning to the UK Mike has come up with another project he’d like to do with Nino…

Nino had also enjoyed the party of the previous evening and her preferred remedy was the beer and khingales route, so while Linda went out to see Mtskheta with members of the Fingers company after the photocall, I joined Nino for more food. Well, it was about four hours since I’d had the khachapuri.


That evening it was back to the international theatre festival with shows from an Armenian company and Gecko, a physical theatre company from the UK with their interpretation of Gogol’s The Overcoat. I stayed with Gecko because it had been my suggestion to Eka Mazmishvili, Director of the festival, that this would make an excellent show for Georgia. Eka saw the show earlier in the year at the Lyric Hammersmith and happily she agreed.                         

It was an expensive show, made possible only be a generous contribution from the British Council, and, because of the expense, Eka had programmed it for three nights – the longest run in the festival. It was also the first time that two international performances had gone head to head as the Armenians were playing the Rustaveli at the same time as Gecko were in the Marjanishvili, and I was slightly worried that it might not attract full houses. Sure enough, there were a few empty seats that night but the response at the end was rapturous. At the post-show party Eka was being plagued by phone calls from people wanting seats for the following two nights; news travels fast in Tbilisi.

 

Gecko describes the show as being ‘inspired by Gogol’ but ‘created by Gecko’. Certainly anybody expecting to see a retelling of Gogol’s short story would be confused. This eye-boggling show takes the spirit of the book and creates a series of astonishing scenes capturing the life of the downbeaten clerk in a Kafkaesque office and his tiny rented room who dreams of the girl at the next desk, unattainable he feels because of his shabby clothes.

The cheers from the audience were still ringing in my head as I made my way to the airport the next morning. Sad, as always, to be leaving Tbilisi I pondered on the impact of the festival. It had been a controversial event in some quarters because the impetus for creating the festival had come from the municipality and it was therefore felt to be a political exercise. Letters were sent to participating companies asking them to boycott the event; happily they ignored the request. It is surely always better to engage and debate than to withdraw and complain.

The festival provided opportunities for audiences and professionals in Georgia to see work from a dozen countries; it brought 50 directors and producers from as far afield as New Zealand, Korea, Europe and the USA to see the work of Georgian theatre companies; it brought theatre companies together from all over Georgia to work together for the common good; it created new friendships and cemented old ones.

The impact of the festival will be felt over many years. International collaboration does not happen overnight; discussions started over a glass of wine in 2009 will lead to activities in 2010, 2011 and beyond; activities not even imagined in 2009 will take root because a seed, not recognised at the time, was planted in Tbilisi.

This has been a great start for a new festival and the planning begins now for 2010. Gaumarjos!

Georgian Theatre Showcase days 3 and 4

Day three began with another forced choice. Happily I’d seen The Sea Which is Far before so my choice was easy – The Landscape Lacks Warmth by Tamar Bartaia. I first came across Bartaia with an early play of hers, The Mirror, presented as part of an evening with four short plays at the Royal District. Her work has been seen in England (Hilary Wood directed The Dress in 2007) and The Landscape Lacks Warmth itself is due to be seen in England in the autumn. This latest play concerns an artist, Nutsa, who is about to discover that her husband has been having an affair with their nanny. Her relative lack of concern at the news changes when she realises how long it’s been going on and that it has resulted in the birth of twins. The play explores attitudes to love in a modern society where self interest scores over concern for others; a landscape that is without warmth.

The Sea Which is Far by Guram Odisharia also explores love and friendship, in this case between a Georgian and an Abkhazian. The Georgian returns to Sukhumi after the war to find his childhood friend but their friendship is in the past and each now has a different view of life; they cannot understand each other, no matter how much they may wish to. What makes this play so poignant is that it is performed by Georgian refugees from that very war. There are over a quarter of a million refugees in Tbilisi and the surrounding area.

I missed a play which was adjudged one of the hits of the festival. The Bedstead of Ex-Lovers by Irakli Samsonadze at the Rustaveli Theatre was set in a railway wagon with two people, apparent strangers, who discover a past acquaintance and their relationship grows during the journey. Eventually they realise that the containers in the wagon are bearing their own dead remains back to Georgia where their spouses, waiting to receive the bodies, have been having an affair. I must make sure I see this production next time I’m in Tbilisi but, to judge from the response, there will be many that hope the production comes to the UK before that.

The Visitor by Eric-Emmanuel Schmidt, also at the Rustaveli, is set in Vienna at the time of the Anschluss. Sigmund Freud refuses to leave but then his daughter is arrested by the Gestapo and a mysterious visitor arrives with some advice. I have no idea what the advice was – there was no synopsis or translation – but it was an engaging performance nonetheless and Bacho Chachibaia gave an excellent performance as Freud. My only gripe was that the Gestapo officer appeared more like a jovial uncle; I like my monsters to be menacing.

The Visitor overlapped the start of the Caucasian Chalk Circle so I missed what colleagues described as an excellent performance directed by Avto Varsmashvili at the Liberty Theatre made particularly memorable by seeing it in the Caucasus.

The last day included a trip out of town to the Rustavi Municipal Theatre. Rustavi is one of Georgia’s oldest towns although it was heavily developed after the war as a steel town. The old town centre revealed itself as a haven of charm among the dreary post war architecture and the theatre a delight, although in need of some urgent restoration. Darispan’s Trouble by David Kldiashvili, a leading Georgian playwright from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is set in an Imeretian village. Two sets of parents try to marry off their daughters to the same good catch, only to discover he’s already promised. It’s a lively comedy and Gocha Kapanadze’s production recognised the historical nature of the piece whilst also bringing out the pathos of the situation. At the end a television camera was thrust into my face ‘Did I find the production sad?’ Well, yes in a way; I really felt for the two girls being dragged around the countryside while adults tried to find them a match. I’m sure that left to their own devices they’d have done fine.

While I was in Rustavi others were seeing a production by the Tskhinvali State Drama Theatre, again in exile at the National Music Centre. I hope they can go home soon. I’ll try to see their show next time I’m in Tbilisi.

A meeting with the Minister of Culture meant that I missed the other shows of the afternoon and I only saw a short part of Creasy Ones 2, described as dramatic circus, before heading to the Music and Comedy Theatre for the much anticipated premiere of David Doiashvili’s Macbeth.

   Three Witches

Getting a buzz going about a show is difficult at the best of times but during a festival with so much on offer and when nobody has seen your show takes some doing. Hats off then to the team from the Music and Drama Theatre; I have rarely experienced such eager anticipation. It was not misplaced. This was a stunning performance.

The Music and Drama Theatre was largely destroyed by fire and the stage and auditorium is no more than a burnt out shell, so performances take place now in what was once the foyer. Clearly, it was a grand theatre because the foyer itself can now hold an open stage and an audience on two levels. For this production Doiashvili dispensed with the lower level and built the stage up to the height of the ‘circle’ so the front row was on a level with the stage, separated by a chasm of some seven metres depth and about five metres width. The staging was truly spectacular and at times terrifying with images I’ll never forget. From the opening this was clearly going to be a different production: the witches were omnipresent and appeared from nowhere; Duncan, so often an almost kindly old gent, is revealed as a monstrous tyrant who tortures his own lieutenants and family for pleasure (and when you think about it, he’d have to be a bit of a tyrant to retain the crown in those times); brutality is everywhere. But the real credit has to go to Lord and Lady Macbeth. Tornike Gogrichiani, still a third-year student at the Rustaveli Theatre University, gave a commanding performance and Nana Kalatozishvili (pictured), such a cool and controlled performance of repressed passion in Lady With a Dog, lets passion rip in this production. The two of them, like some medieval Bonny and Clyde, cling to each other in death at the end, hanging precariously on a stage that has tilted to an angle of 45degrees with a sheer drop to the ground some twenty feet below .

The party at the end of the showcase was also the party for the first night of Macbeth and what a fitting end. It also marked my third meeting with the Minister of Culture, who came along for the party although he couldn’t make the show. Afterwards we all repaired to a jazz café until the early hours. Why can’t we have a minister like that?

1st night/ last night party

Picture shows Minister of Culture (left front) David Doiashvili (3rd left) Levan Tsuladze (centre right)

Meanwhile, the international festival continued with a production by UK company Gecko with their take on Gogol’s the Overcoat. More of that anon.

Georgian Theatre Showcase, days one and two

A 9:30am start for the morning meeting in the Sheraton Metechi Palace might have seemed optimistic given that many international visitors arrived in the middle of the night, but adrenalin and excitement seemed to get most people there and they were well rewarded.



Fifty producers, directors and promoters from all over the world gathered to see a selection theatre from some of the best companies in Georgia. 27 different shows were to be presented from theatres in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Rustavi and Telavi as well as refugee companies from Tskhinvali and Sukhumi and all were represented in the lively trade show on the tenth floor of the hotel. To me, this represented a real ‘coming of age’ for Georgian theatre; never before in my eleven years visiting Tbilisi have I seen such a cooperative atmosphere among theatres. Of course, everybody was trying to attract attention to their own stand but that didn’t stop them helping each other with translation, with introductions and with mutual support. Each day of the showcase began with the morning meeting and it was a bustle of activity, a perfect way to start a busy day.



Of course, with 27 shows to see over just four days, it was impossible to see everything and choices had to be made. What follows are my choices plus, where appropriate, comments from other people on the shows I didn’t see.



I gave the Pantomime Theatre a miss, having seen the company before, not least, earlier that week celebrating the vine at a grape-picking festival. Most of the talk afterwards was not so much about the show but, sadly, about the impromptu extra demonstration that went badly wrong technically. A lesson there – if you’re going to be impromptu, make sure you’ve rehearsed it!
 The afternoon gave a choice of three shows – a mime performance from the Children’s Theatre, The Children of Others by David Gabunia at the Royal District and Faust, a revival of Levan Tsuladze’s Basement Theatre puppet show.


The Children of Others I saw on my last visit to Tbilisi. It was commissioned from the winner of the ARDIfest new writing competition. David Gabunia shows a great degree of imagination and maturity beyond his years in this futuristic vision of a life where procreation is achieved through body parts being created in a number of separate people both male and female, rendering differences between the sexes irrelevant. Directed with great restraint by Data Tavadze and performed with immaculate discipline by the young cast, this is clearly a group to watch.



My own choice was Faust, a production I first saw shortly after its premiere in 2000. The show has been out of the repertoire for some time and this revival has completely new puppets by Nino Namicheishvili. It has lost none of its charm and remains one of my favourite shows of all time. The performance was dedicated to the memory of Goga Khechinashvili, one of the show’s original puppeteers whose untimely death removed the show from the repertoire.



Lighter work followed with the Budrugana Hand Shadows Theatre. It was amazingly talented and clever but ultimately, for a grown-up, a bit repetitive; children were entranced and they were the intended audience so chalk that up as a hit.

The big show for the first day was Robert Sturua’s new production of Biedermann and the Fire Raisers by Max Frisch at the Rustaveli Theatre (pictured right). Any new production by Sturua is a must-see event but this disappointed. This is a powerful play with a strong political message, especially in the current climate; why does Biedermann invite into his house those he knows will cause its downfall – even to the point of giving them the matches to start the inevitable fire? Sturua gives the whole a circus atmosphere but the tricks ultimately overpower the play and it starts on such a heightened plane that the production has nowhere to go.


Day two began with back-to-back puppet shows, sort of. Beso Kupreishvili’s Fingers Theatre doesn’t use puppets so much as make the actors hands into puppets. Against a background of popular music his six actors use fingers, hands, masks and bodies to present a moving tale of love and the barriers that try to come in its way. Enormous fun and surprisingly moving, it was a joyous and uplifting hour.


The Lady With a Dog showed how far Levan Tsuladze has come since his Faust ten years ago. Using the same group of puppeteers, puppets again made by Nino Namicheishvili, this is a far more developed production with both live actors and puppets sharing the same stage. Based on Chekhov’s short story, told in flashback, it tells of a love affair between Dmitri Dmitrich Gurov (Nika Tavadze) and the married Anna Sergeevna (Nana Kalatozishvili) in the seaside town of Yalta. The puppets represent the actors themselves with some sequences told by live actors, some by puppets and on occasion the actors confronted by their own puppets. What is real? What is imagined? What is memory? By moving beyond the confines of the puppeteers’ tabletop this production allows the both large scale actors’ world and small-scale puppet world to coincide. Specially composed music by Vakhtang Kakhidze adds to the atmosphere of a most beautiful, understated production that will surely remain in the repertoire for many years to come.


Clashes again for the late afternoon, so I ducked out altogether to wait for the evening performance of Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano at the Tumanishvili Film Actors Theatre. Due to a little local difficulty the Tumanishvili was not going to be a part of the festival so it was good to see them taking their place alongside all the other theatres. An absurdist play in which nobody appears to listen to each other is a bit of a challenge when you don’t understand the language, or then again maybe that helps! What did stand out was the quality of the acting.

The other evening choices were Dosoevski.ru at the Griboedov Russian language theatre; Anna Karenina, adapted by Giorgi Sikharulidze from the Kutaisi Theatre and My Friend Hitler by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima at the Royal District. Some visitors chose to catch a small bit of two or three performances. The Anna Karenina was judged very successful, although at four hours a bit of a challenge, and Dostoevski.ru was ‘interesting’. My Friend Hitler I had seen before, finally catching up with it in May after a few years missing it. It was well worth the wait, especially for the performance of Nato Murvanidze (one of Georgia’s leading actresses) as Hitler. The play opens with Hitler giving a speech in the background and while he rants, others including Ernst Roehm, juggle for position and power. I had quibbles about historical accuracy – it annoyed me that Murvanidze smoked whereas Hitler was known as a fanatical non-smoker – but they pale into insignificance against a chilling portrayal of power.



Half way through the showcase and energy levels are clearly beginning to flag. Few people turned up for the supra (Georgian feast) that evening but perhaps that’s understandable since it wasn’t due to start until midnight. The previous evening’s supra had been a magnificent affair with unlimited food and wine and a magnificent floorshow of traditional polyphonic singing and breathtaking displays of dancing. Adrenalin can only take you so far, eventually you have to sleep.


More thoughts will follow in the next posting.

A week missing most of the festival

I promised myself that I would write a regular blog while I was in Georgia for the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre. There were three requirements – internet access, time and sobriety. Sadly these three never seemed to coincide while I was there so I’m only now catching up. I’ll split this blog into two parts – the first covers personal time in Georgia during the international festival, when I didn’t see as much theatre as I’d planned, and the second concentrates on the weekend of the Georgian Theatre Showcase.

Families are wonderful things but they can sometimes force a change in your plans. I’ve been visiting Georgia regularly for 11 years but my partner, Ruth Eastwood, hadn’t been there since 2001 and had memories of a very different Georgia so was unsure what to expect this time. Tawana, our 23 year old adopted son, had never been despite numerous invitations to join me on my visits. Suddenly he announced that he wanted to join us on this trip; why the change? The answer is the magic of the internet, or more particularly the magic of chatrooms. It transpired that he’d been chatting to a Georgian girl (inevitably called Nino) for six months and they were keen to meet.

So it was that almost as soon as we got off the plane on Saturday there was an invitation to go to her flat for lunch - ‘my family are waiting for you’ was the actual message. A taxi ride around the endless tower blocks of Gldani finally ended as we spotted two girls by the side of the road and they took us up to their small apartment. Waiting there was mother, grandmother, brother – and a neighbour who was helping to prepare the enormous table of food. How are two young people supposed to meet for the first time with both sets of families watching their every move?

Several hours and many toasts later I realised that there was no way I was going to make the performance of Faust by the Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrosius. Then Nino’s sister, Teo, received a phone call saying she was supposed to be at a festival in Dusheti, about 45 minutes drive from Tbilisi. ‘Let’s all go’ I rather rashly suggested. On the way there Teo spent all her time on the phone before announcing that everything was arranged – we would see the festival, in the evening there would be a supra and we’d stay at her friend’s overnight. Only in Georgia!

The next day the potential lovebirds headed back to Tbilisi alone while the rest of us had a rather more relaxing trip to Kazbegi - magnificent scenery, fresh air to clear a very thick head and snow (picture right shows Ruth outside Tsminda Sameba with the mountain in the background). I gave the Festival’s offering that night, Whirling Dervishes from Turkey, a miss in favour of dinner. A night in the mountains can make you hungry.

Ian Herbert began his workshops on theatre criticism on Monday morning and I was asked to entertain him for lunch – it’s tough being a board member. We decided to take him on a short sightseeing trip – Djvari Monastery with its breathtaking views over Mtskheta, St John’s Monastery (a hairy ride up a hillside repaid with magnificent views over the whole of Tbilisi) and Mtskheta itself (picture right shows Djvari from Mtskheta). Ian had to return for a performance from Azerbaijan but the rest of us stayed in Mtskheta for dinner in one of my favourite restaurants nestling in a gorge running down to the Mtkvari river. I joined Ian for the post show discussion with his students and got the impression that I’d made the right choice.

Ruth and the lovebirds headed off for Telavi the next day (Nino’s father is Production director at Teliani Valley wines) while I had the first of my three meetings with the Minister of Culture - a trip to Sagarejo to celebrate grape picking. Photo opportunities picking grapes was the order of the day, with much drinking of the previous year’s crop to keep the strength up and some delicious mtsvadi (shish kebab), folk singing and a short mime piece by Tbilisi Pantomime Theatre in honour of the vine. Of course, that was not enough food and drink for Georgia so off we headed for an enormous feast in a local restaurant to carry on where we’d left off a short while earlier.

 

I have to confess that I don’t think I gave that evening’s late night performance of So, So…the attention it deserved. A Franco-Croation co-production by Catherine Duflot based on text by Sophie Calle, it was staged in a hotel room at the Marriot. Had the promised subtitles been available I might have had a clearer idea of what was happening but I’m not sure. No matter how stylishly presented (and it was) fragments of memories from interlocking stories after a day in the vineyard was too much for my brain. Apologies to the performers!

I headed off to Telavi myself the next day to join the rest of the family. After waiting for nearly an hour at Isani for a taxi to fill up for the journey I realised that I could pay the whole fare myself and it would still be less than the cost of a taxi home from the station late at night. Strange how quickly you lose sense of the real cost of things. A pleasant couple of days included a visit to the winery (surprisingly uninteresting on a commercial scale - just a series of rooms with large stainless steel vats and a bottling line) and trip to Gremi Monastery with its magnificent views of the mountain pass to Dagestan.

The Philippe Genty company presented an early show, Zigmund Follies from 1984 with Eric de Sarria taking Genty’s role and Philippe Richard in support. This was a beautifully crafted flight of fancy with finger puppets showing how Eric, who begins the show carrying his head around in a cardboard box, arrived at that situation. A simple moral emerges – you have to love yourself before you can love others – but the journey to that conclusion was beautiful, funny and at times disturbing.

The evening rounded off with a supra in honour of the Philippe Genty company at the Old House restaurant. This is a favourite restaurant of mine but I usually sit alongside the river rather than in the main restaurant and for good reason; the band in the main room is deafening and not actually very good. I was appointed Tamada for the evening which meant that during gaps in the music it was my job to propose the toasts – and there were many. Georgians at the table reported that I’d done a good job!

The Brits were due to arrive at 2.45am for the Georgian showcase so it was straight from the restaurant to the airport to meet them. When do you sleep? God, I love Georgia!

Tbilisi International opens

After months of planning and not a little controversy, the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre finally kicked off on 27 September with a performance of Romeo and Juliet directed by the renowned Lithuanian director Oskaras Korsunovas.

It had not been my intention to be in Tbilisi for the opening weekend but a review by Ian Herbert in Theatre Record told me it was a must see show - and he wasn't kidding. I've never seen a production of such exuberance; the fun and humour of the first half emphasising the waste of the final tragedy. The warring families run competing pizza parlours giving rise to battles of flour and dough and much physical action clambering over a magnificent set (designed by Jurate Paulekaite) of two identical kitchens not quite linked by a bridge. It's all a jolly romp, high spritis rather than deep menace, until Mercutio (a fantastic performance by Dainius Kazlauskas) goes head first into a bowl of flour and emerges with a completely white face. A short while later Tybalt, a remarkably brave performance by Darius Gumauskas who was hobbling around on a pair of crutches off stage, suffers the same fate.

Iremember the first R&J I saw in the late sixties (or was it early seventies?). One newspaper review was headlined 'Sad Romeo with a seasick look'. No chance of such a review with this production. Teenage love is full of angst but it's also full of joy and wonder and that's what Giedrius Savickas as Romeo and Rasa Samuolyte captured magnificently. Egle Mikulionyte extracted every ounce of humour from her performance as the Nurse and one moment that will certainly live in my memory is when she hides Romeo in - well no, you had to be there. Suffice to say it was very rude!

This production is now six years old and Korsunovas told me that I need to see his latest production, Hamlet. Soon as I can Oskaras!

The opening production was preceeded by a grand dinner for over 300 people. I wish I'd been told it was a black tie affair! Thankfully the wardrobe department at the Marjanishvili kitted me out with a reasonably acceptable suit if you didn't look to closely. Since I was asked to give one of the speeches I'd have felt very uncomfortable in the light linen suit I'd taken with me. Call me a traditionalist if you like but standards must be maintained. Entertainment was provided by the orchestra and singers of the Paliashvili Opera House.

The dinner was in the newly opened Radisson Iveria Hotel in what is now called Rose Revolution Square. Anyone who's visited Tbilisi in the last fifteen years will remember it as a hostel for refugees from Abkhazia - a bit of an eyesore to be frank. The new hotel is magnificent, affording panoramic views over the city from the floor to ceiling windows in the ultra modern rooms. What happened to the refugees? I hope they have been well housed in more suitable accommodation and I pray that they will eventually be able to return to their homes.