Tweet
MUCH ADO IN TBILISI
Sunday Herald
October 2, 2011 Sunday
UK
1 Edition
As I arrived in Tbilisi, the beautiful capital city of Georgia,
on Wednesday, I knew that (as a member of the executive committee
of the International Association of Theatre Critics) I was walking
into something of a political storm. In mid-August, Robert Sturua,
the internationally acclaimed artistic director of the Rustaveli
National Theatre of Georgia, was sacked by the Georgian minster of
culture, Nikoloz Rurua, on a charge of xenophobia.
Sturua s dismissal related to a comment he made to a tabloid journalist
about the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, in May of this
year. An outspoken critic of the government, Sturua commented that it
was possible that Saakashvili did not love Georgia because he was of
Armenian descent. It was a reprehensible comment; but one which the
director s supporters insisted reflected, not an underlying xenophobia,
but rather renowned provocateur Sturua s frustration with Saakashvili
(whom the director believes to have been hiding his Armenian heritage).
It was in this somewhat febrile context that my IATC colleagues and
I attended Thursday night s performance of Sturua s production of
Georgian dramatist Tamaz Chiladze s new play The Hunting Season,
after which we were to meet with the director himself. When we met
Sturua backstage, we found him defiant. He had, he said, been sacked
because of his political criticisms of the government. There was,
he continued, no question of him being Armenophobic; indeed, he
had great respect for the immense contribution made by Armenians to
Georgian culture over centuries.
However, I was still troubled by the comment he made back in May. I
pressed him on the matter. Did he believe that he could have phrased
his criticism of Saakashvili in a better way? Did he regret saying
what he said? He nodded vigorously. Yes, he regretted the language
he used. He harbours no xenophobic feelings towards Armenians or
anybody else.
Having arrived at the theatre worried about our meeting with Sturua,
I left relieved. If, in a short meeting, the IATC executive could
get from Sturua a statement of regret and a clear assertion of his
opposition to Armenophobia, how could the Georgian government not have
come to such an agreement with him in the three months between his
statement and his sacking? That question is posed by the statement
of support for Sturua which the IATC released on Friday.
All of which made the work on stage seem almost incidental. In the
end, Chiladze s play (a modishly postmodern, obliquely metaphorical
drama of the personal and the political) did little to enthuse.
Georgia, America and the world unfold from within the life of a
Georgian actress, apparently haunted in her flat. Disney s Snow
White And The Seven Dwarfs is juxtaposed, uncomfortably (and almost
frivolously), with images of the bodies of Nazi Holocaust victims
being shovelled into mass graves. When Prince Charming arrives,
not with a glass slipper but a training shoe, it comes as no surprise.
None of which detracts from the superb acting or the sweeping vision
of Sturua s production. Nor does it detract from the extraordinary
achievement of the third Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre,
which has, political controversy aside, established itself as a major
event in the world theatre calendar.
Sunday Herald
October 2, 2011 Sunday
UK
1 Edition
As I arrived in Tbilisi, the beautiful capital city of Georgia,
on Wednesday, I knew that (as a member of the executive committee
of the International Association of Theatre Critics) I was walking
into something of a political storm. In mid-August, Robert Sturua,
the internationally acclaimed artistic director of the Rustaveli
National Theatre of Georgia, was sacked by the Georgian minster of
culture, Nikoloz Rurua, on a charge of xenophobia.
Sturua s dismissal related to a comment he made to a tabloid journalist
about the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, in May of this
year. An outspoken critic of the government, Sturua commented that it
was possible that Saakashvili did not love Georgia because he was of
Armenian descent. It was a reprehensible comment; but one which the
director s supporters insisted reflected, not an underlying xenophobia,
but rather renowned provocateur Sturua s frustration with Saakashvili
(whom the director believes to have been hiding his Armenian heritage).
It was in this somewhat febrile context that my IATC colleagues and
I attended Thursday night s performance of Sturua s production of
Georgian dramatist Tamaz Chiladze s new play The Hunting Season,
after which we were to meet with the director himself. When we met
Sturua backstage, we found him defiant. He had, he said, been sacked
because of his political criticisms of the government. There was,
he continued, no question of him being Armenophobic; indeed, he
had great respect for the immense contribution made by Armenians to
Georgian culture over centuries.
However, I was still troubled by the comment he made back in May. I
pressed him on the matter. Did he believe that he could have phrased
his criticism of Saakashvili in a better way? Did he regret saying
what he said? He nodded vigorously. Yes, he regretted the language
he used. He harbours no xenophobic feelings towards Armenians or
anybody else.
Having arrived at the theatre worried about our meeting with Sturua,
I left relieved. If, in a short meeting, the IATC executive could
get from Sturua a statement of regret and a clear assertion of his
opposition to Armenophobia, how could the Georgian government not have
come to such an agreement with him in the three months between his
statement and his sacking? That question is posed by the statement
of support for Sturua which the IATC released on Friday.
All of which made the work on stage seem almost incidental. In the
end, Chiladze s play (a modishly postmodern, obliquely metaphorical
drama of the personal and the political) did little to enthuse.
Georgia, America and the world unfold from within the life of a
Georgian actress, apparently haunted in her flat. Disney s Snow
White And The Seven Dwarfs is juxtaposed, uncomfortably (and almost
frivolously), with images of the bodies of Nazi Holocaust victims
being shovelled into mass graves. When Prince Charming arrives,
not with a glass slipper but a training shoe, it comes as no surprise.
None of which detracts from the superb acting or the sweeping vision
of Sturua s production. Nor does it detract from the extraordinary
achievement of the third Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre,
which has, political controversy aside, established itself as a major
event in the world theatre calendar.