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!