Up at 8am, shower, breakfast, and a letter home. 10am, to the coffee shop which has wi-fi to e-mail my letter and a capuccino. 11am rehearsal until 2.30. Lunch and a stroll then rehearsal until 9pm. A beer on the way home, a few words for this blog and then sleep.
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| The view from the back of our flat |
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| The view from the front |
It’s a strict routine – so strict that I go to the same restaurant every day, sit at the same seat at the same table and I always have khingalis. Yes, a creature of habit but an adventurous soul who today, in addition to my regular khingalis, ate a puree of aubergines and walnuts, cheese dumplings, cottage cheese with mint wrapped in a parcel of cheese, (the cheese rolled into a thin layer is used to wrap up whatever is inside and served cold – they look like large ravioli), a pastry stuffed with cheese and a dish of hot smoked spare ribs, all washed down with a bottle of tarragon lemonade. No, I didn’t eat it all on my own. Roger (producer) and Roger (actor) had lunch with me. It’s the only meal of the day and there is time to eat well in between rehearsals. And I do. Those who know Georgia know that it is a gourmet’s paradise – not for its haute cuisine but for the ingredients. It is all home grown in the market gardens that surround Tbilisi. It seems that everyone has a shed somewhere out there in the south Caucuses where they grow tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, and chillies and so on and so forth and they carry the veg into Tbilisi in the morning and set out their produce in cardboard boxes outside little basement shops - apples, oranges, peaches, and I mustn’t forget the corner shops selling cut flowers.
The Georgian creation myth says that when God was making the world and Georgians were queuing up with everyone else to get their land, they became hungry and impatient and went off somewhere to eat and drink. After the meal they fell asleep by which time all the land had been distributed. There was nothing left. At first God was unsympathetic and told the Georgians they shouldn’t have left the queue to eat and drink. The Georgians explained that they were toasting God’s health when one thing led to another and they fell asleep. And God took pity on them, relented, and let them have the land he was keeping for himself. And here we are. There is a MacDonalds here where you can buy the same french fries that you can get in New York and in Tokyo which may or may not contain potatoes. Or you can join me in the Georgian restaurant round the corner for a plate of french fries made from potatoes grown in Georgian soil which cost half the price, and I doubt God eats better chips in heaven.
No wonder people round here live for a long time!
The chap in the theatre who is responsible for explosions is 90. He is a wiry little man with smooth tanned skin and large thick spectacles. He brought the jeep to the stage today – the Italian jeep that gets blown up - and showed us the explosion. Flames leapt out from under the bonnet. He clapped his hands with pleasure and so did we. He had a throat cancer some years ago and the surgeon removed his voice box. He cannot make any vocal sounds but communicates through a series of clicks and tuts which everyone in the theatre understands. He was proposing to detonate simulataneously three more explosions on the driver’s side and the passenger’s side to blow open the doors and one underneath the jeep to blow it up in the air. Health and safety people in the venues which are taking our production may read this with fear and trembling. Be afraid! Be very afraid! There’s the episode when the mine is washed up on the beach… which we haven’t got to yet. That’s an explosion that involves an awful lot of sand! I shall go to bed now and dream about explosions.
More tomorrow.
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