{"id":534,"date":"2019-12-03T20:43:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T20:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/?p=534"},"modified":"2023-03-15T11:39:57","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T11:39:57","slug":"theatre-at-the-crossroads-trends-and-challenges-of-georgian-theatre-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/theatre-at-the-crossroads-trends-and-challenges-of-georgian-theatre-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre at the Crossroads: Trends and Challenges of Georgian Theatre Today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Natalia Tvaltchrelidze<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The paper overviews recent tendencies in the theatre life in Georgia. In particular, it presents the latest statistical data and audience research on theatre; it discusses theatre festival life in Georgia and the latest trends in the productions of young directors in the country.
Keywords: <\/strong>Georgia, theatre, festivals, research, statistics, young directors<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Georgia is a small country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia; indeed,\nthe country sat, famously, at an important juncture on the great Silk Roads. It\nboasts of 8,000 vintages of wine, 3,000 years of\nstatehood, saturated with a great number of wars and struggles for survival; a 1,500-year-old capital and a literature of the same age, written in the\nsame language, using three different scripts; and a very distinctive culture\nthat reflects the combination of winemaking, wars, language, literature and\ncrossroads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being at the crossroads, Georgia adopted the experience from the East\nand the West alike. Georgian poetry, for instance, borrows distinctly eastern\nforms of versification to convey strikingly western ideals and philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being at the crossroads turned Georgia into a land of controversies,\nparadoxes even. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Georgian writer Aka Morchiladze. (Georgian<\/a>: \u10d0\u10d9\u10d0 \u10db\u10dd\u10e0\u10e9\u10d8\u10da\u10d0\u10eb\u10d4) is the pen name of Giorgi Akhvlediani (\u10d2\u10d8\u10dd\u10e0\u10d2\u10d8 \u10d0\u10ee\u10d5\u10da\u10d4\u10d3\u10d8\u10d0\u10dc\u10d8) (born November 10, 1966). Photo: Wikipedia <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2018, where Georgia was the Guest of Honour, the well-known Georgian writer Aka Morchiladze said that Georgia was probably the only nation in the world having kings whose main accomplishments were their poems and not their victories on the battlefields or in state business. Likewise, the first Georgian actor we know by name came down to us not because of his perfect acting skills but because of his song that resonated on the battlefield of Krtsanisi,[1]<\/sup><\/a> in 1795, encouraging the Georgian Army to fight against the Persians. Machabela, the aforementioned actor, together with his entire troupe perished in this war and the prospects for the development of a royal professional theatre died along with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do not be misled by the date of the battle. Theatre in Georgia existed\ncenturies before this. It dates back to time immemorial, when different tribes\nliving in this part of the Caucasus engaged into a theatrical masquerade called\nBerikaoba, a Georgian version of Dionysian festivities, dedicated to fertility\nand rebirth. The Berikaoba typically involved men disguised as animals in costumes\nand masks made of animal skin with horns, skulls and bells to add colour. The\nprocession of Berikas was typically accompanied by the sound of traditional\nGeorgian instruments known as stviri[2]<\/sup><\/a> and \u201cused, like Commedia dell\u2019Arte, short storyscenes transmitted from\ngeneration to generation\u201d (Gogoberidze 2015).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another similarly theatrical festivity, Qeenoba, developed a little\nlater and lasted all the way to the preset day in certain Georgian provinces. Qeenoba,\ntaking its name from the word Khan,[3]<\/sup><\/a> was and is staged with the main aim of mocking foreign invaders, which have\nbeen numerous throughout Georgian history. Qeenoba was extremely popular in the\ncapital Tbilisi in the nineteenth century as a form of protest against the\nRussian Empire, which, at that time, incorporated Georgia within its borders (Gogoberidze\n2015).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The professional Georgian theatre, stemming from the folk traditions,\nwas already in place in the fifth century B.C. Although written evidence of the\ntheatrical tradition is quite scarce, the excavations in the ancient city of\nUplistsikhe reveal a fully-fledged stage; theatre masks from Uplistsikhe can be\nseen in the History Museum of Georgia (Gogoberidze 2015).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Georgian theatre, as we know it today, was brought to life at the\nbeginning of the nineteenth century by several Georgian public figures and\nwriters who, in conjunction with the efforts to revive the Georgian language (both\nwritten and spoken)\u2014which was suppressed and forbidden by the Russian empire\u2014founded\nan artistic society, which later turned into Rustaveli National Theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rustaveli National Theatre. Photo: Web<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

All Western theatre traditions follow the development of drama\u2015the Greeks had their ancient playwrights, England had Shakespeare, France had Moliere and so on. Georgian Theatre did not. It was born of political protest, out of a strong desire to preserve a language facing extinction and, I would like to believe, of the very theatrical and emotional nature of Georgians.[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, 46 professional theatre companies perform regularly in Georgia\u2014a\ncountry with a population that slightly exceeds 3.7 million. Twenty of them are\nin the capital, Tbilisi, and the rest in the regions. All of the major cities\nhave their own theatres. The vast majority of the theatres are state owned and\nfunded. Only eight are private. Three state theatres do not perform in the Georgian\nlanguage\u2015namely, the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Griboedov Russian theatres. They\nhave performances in their respective languages and serve ethnic minorities in\nthe country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capital also shelters internally displaced theatres from the\nRussian-occupied territories of Georgia\u2015Tskhinvali State Drama Theatre and\nTskhinvali State Youth Theatre from the Tskhinvali Region and Sokhumi State\nDrama Theatre from Abkhazia. They are funded by the state budget and perform on\ndifferent stages of Tbilisi. Sokhumi State Drama Theatre was granted a\npermanent building in 2018 (Chkhartishvili 2018). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, these 46 theatres played 5,764 performances\u2014a substantial number\nfor a small country\u2014and hosted over 580,000 spectators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly all of the Georgian theatres are repertory companies and employ\nactors on permanent bases, meaning that they are in majority bound to the same\nstage and styles, and receive salaries regardless of whether they perform or\nnot. The long overdue theatre reform is nowhere close to completion, although\nthere are permanent talks about it and the development of performing arts is\none of the main priorities of the government\u2019s Cultural Strategy 2025.[5]<\/sup><\/a>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, theatre life in Georgia is quite diverse. The State funds a variety of festivals, both international and local, to make sure that the performing arts remain on the agenda. There are two major events in the autumn; namely, the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre (which includes a Georgian Showcase in which the best Georgian productions of the season are presented to invited critics and theatre professionals from all over the word); and The Mikheil Tumanishvili International Arts Festival \u201cGIFT.\u201d These festivals were joined by the Batumi International Festival of Theatre, which was inaugurated in December 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The logo of Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre. Photo: Wikipedia <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The City of Batumi, on the Black Sea, is the host of yet another theatre forum\u2015the Mono Performance Festival. Every summer this programme gathers young directors and playwrights who create monodramatic texts especially for the event; this is an important endeavour for the development of the modern Georgian drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Drama Festival, which opened its doors to young playwrights and\ndirectors in 2018, pursues a similar aim to the Mono Performance Festival.\nThrough discussions and performances staged specifically for this platform, the\nNew Drama Festival seeks to find out where Georgian new drama stands today, as\nwell as to support the development of experimental, free and alternative\nprocesses in the performing arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gori Comedy Festival, local at first but acquiring international significance, sprang after the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, during which the city of Gori was the most devastated. \u201cReturn the smile to the war-affected city\u201d was the motto of the Festival founder Soso Nemsadze (Chkhartishvili 2018). The Poti Regional Festival encompasses performances from the Georgian regions and presents them to critics and festival directors from the capital and abroad. It is an important event in an otherwise culturally neglected city, which is home to the largest Black Sea port of Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also festivals that are limited to specific Georgian regions, such\nas the \u201cTheatrical Imereti\u201d programme, which presents both amateur and\nprofessional performances staged in the region of Imereti. In addition, there\nare theatre forums, which are limited in time, like the 24-Hour Theatre\nFestival where participating groups only have one day to work on the text (Chkhartishvili\n2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, in Georgia theatregoers of diverse tastes can find productions\nthat are to their liking; there is no shortage of choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is limited research seeking to determine where the preferences of\nthe audience stand and whether they coincide with the main tendencies of the\nmodern Georgian theatre. Such research was undertaken recently in the theatre I\nwork for, Ilia State University Theatre, one of the few private venues within\nthe industry. The primary statistics emanating from this research indicate something\nthat is obvious as soon as one enters any theatre auditorium in Georgia; namely,\nthe core group of theatregoers in the country consists of the younger\ngeneration. The mean age of the audience of our theatre is 34, with the largest\ngroup (36%) between 21 and 30 years old. This figure is quite promising,\nindicating that live theatre is popular with youth and has a potential of\ndevelopment in future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 1<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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