A break in Georgia for Captain Corelli's Mandolin

After a magnificent opening, with a ten minute standing ovation, the company took a well earned rest. Theatre programming in Tbilisi is based on presenting a wide repertoire of shows so any single production rarely plays more than a couple of performances a week. With a four day break the company went exploring. Here Mike Maran describes his adventures

Georgia is a glorious patchwork of old and new.  The old town in Tblisi is a ramshackle collection of  tumble down tenements leaning against each other punctuated by piles of rubble where buildings once stood that couldn’t wait to be demolished, criss crossed by alleyways that are beautifully restored with art galleries, carpet bazaars and open air cafes where you can sip Turkish coffee and smoke a water pipe.  It would take months to explore this beautiful country.  We have made a start with three fabulous days out.

Day 1.



Bodbe Monastery



The first trip was to the tomb of St Nino in Bodbe Monastery, convent building near Signaghi which is about 100km  east of Tblisi,  We took the metro from the centre of Tbilisi to the eastern outskirts and there we found a minibus which we hired for the trip.  The wheels on the bus went round and round but only just.  We squeezed ourselves into the seats and set off eastwards over the cobbles and pot holes without any suspension.  People pay good money at fairgrounds for a five minute ride like this.  We got far better value and had two hours there and two hours back.  What fun! 

St Nino came to Georgia from the Holy Land bringing Christianity in the fourth century.  Georgia is intensely proud of its Christian roots which go back to the very first years anno domini and St Nino’s remains are housed in a beautifully restored convent  which stands in manicured lawns shaded by cypress trees.  I knelt and kissed her tomb with the other pilgrims and looked at the sacred items for sale in the gift shops.  There is none of the tackiness here that you find in Rome or in Lourdes and the air of sanctity is not eroded by clerics greedy to turn a quick buck.  The icons are bought and sold for their sacredness.  Nino was the only female among the early disciples  Most of the women in Georgia are named after her.  There is no point in calling out, ‘Nino!’ backstage.  At least half a dozen women will answer your call.

Then we moved on to Signaghi.  Some of us felt like we were in Italy which is hardly surprising because it is a hilltop town and all the new building was in the old style – as they say in Italy, ‘Dov’ era, com’ era’ – where it was and as it was.  No attempt here to graft modern architecture onto an old walled town.  Much of the building here is new but the design is centuries old and there is a sense of stepping back in time.  I think of Edinburgh and buildings that I remember from my childhood that were demolished and replaced by something entirely different which have themselves been taken down and replaced again by something  different which may very well not be fit for purpose before I die.  Many of us who live in the present inhabit an ever changing urban landscape.  Here you may live in the past. 

The museum here is home to the paintings of Nikolai Pirosmanashvili (known as Pirosmani) who depicts scenes of life on the land growing and tending the fruit and vegetables and animals that supply the tables of Georgian feasts.  I have never been in a Georgian restaurant that doesn’t have at least one reproduction of a Pirosmani canvas on its walls. 

And so to our feast.  The restaurant is at the edge of town and our table on the terrace looks over the valley below to the Caucuses mountains some 50 kilometeres away to the north.  At first I thought they were clouds in the sky  but once I got used to the light I could see the summits were snow capped.  This is a giant wall of Himalayan proportions and forms a natural boundary between Russia and Georgia.  

Roger (producer), Nino (puppeteer), Mike
Tony, Roger (actor), Jill

If only Russia would see it that way!  In generous moments Georgians drink toasts to the culture of their northern neighbours which gave birth to the glory of Chekov and Turgenyev.  In other moments Georgians ruefully observe that Christianity got no further than the Caucuses and that the lands further north are uncivilized.  Our view of the mountains was matched by the meal, plate after plateful of Georgian cuisine wich I washed down with Cha Cha – which is similar to grappa.  We ate goat in honour of the star of our show, vegetables dressed with walnut sauce and bread stuffed with cheese.

Then it was time for the bumpy ride home.  I brought my headphones and CD player with me.  Living in the past?  I hadn’t listened to Dave Milligan’s ‘Unusual Suspects’ yet though he gave it to me months ago.  The first track blew my hair off!  I never got to hear any more as I passed the headphones around the minibus and the others heard it – one at a time – and they bopped all the way home.  Nothing to do with the pot holes.

Could it get any better?

Yes.

Day 2



Chateau Mere



The next trip was to Chateau Mere, the Winiveria winery near to Telavi an hour and a half to the north east of Tblisi.  The winemaker is a patron of the theatre and a benefactor. A gigantic, cheerful man who is hugely pleased with his chateau.  When I saw how the tables were set I knew we were in for a treat.  You see tables set like this, you finger your wallet, it feels it too thin,  and you move on to somewhere cheap and cheerful.  Nothing cheap here and all of it very very cheerful and a gift.  What a meal!  There’s a lot of wine in Georgia but not all of it is made by a master wine maker.  He also makes cha cha.  Yes, I am inordinately fond of this spirit and I know a good one when I sniff it.  There was a huge help-yourself decanter at the door to the dining room on a platter with salted toasted sunflower seeds and walnuts to dip in honey.  I wasn’t sober when I sat down to dinner. 

There were  decanters of the very best red and white wines on the tables with dishes of salads and vegetables and cold chicken followed by barbecued pork, followed by singing and dancing, and more cha cha.  I lost track of whether I was drinking or dancing the cha cha and ended up by a table of Georgian singers answering them with a less than sober rendition of ‘My Love is Like a Red Red Rose.’  Our director, Levan Tsuladze was with us.  He’s a big man in every sense.  He has a lot in common with Carlo and Velisarios.  If you don’’t know what I mean read the book – or better still, come and see the show.  What I wanted to tell you was that we travelled in a minibus that was big enough for him and the rest of us and this was the Rolls Royce of minibuses.  No pot holes on the way to the winery and on the way back to Tbilisi we didn’t drive on a road at all  – it was a magic carpet that floated on a sea of cha cha and wine.  And just in case you’re thinking – don’t these guys ever do any work? – the next day we did a show.  Our Corelli, just like its cast, is becoming well oiled.

Day 3

And today was another day off.  We were taken to the Turkish sulphur baths.  There’s a whole complex of them above a sulphur spring of very hot water in the old town. 

It was here that I learned the meaning of Tbilisi– ‘Hot Water Here.’  Legend tells us that the king who founded the town was out hunting when his falcon brought down a pheasant and when the king’s dog retrieved it the bird, which had fallen into the water, was cooked.  Levan explored the different baths for us and chose the most appropriate ‘hole’.  Well, that’s what I thought he said.  He meant to say ‘hell.’  I thought of Dante, ‘Abandon faith all ye who enter here!’  In we went and stripped off and presented ourselves, naked virgins, to the Turkish bathmasters.  We soaked in the very hot water – no, we cooked.  And when we were parboiled the Turkish bathmaster tenderised us. 

Gus is the young warrior among us and he bravely went first and got slapped and pummelled and stretched.  When I saw the way his masseuse was manipualting his limbs I had to cry a note of caution about the torn cartiledges in my knees and the shoulder I dislocated during a performance of ‘The Little World of Don Camillo’ in Chelmsford.  He let me off lightly.  He slapped me around as I lay on my tummy and then turned me around and did it all over again.  He had a fine disregard for my tender parts and just got on with the job.  Nobody else yelped or flinched and neither did I.  Afterwards we sat on leather armchairs wrapped in white towels and like Roman senators we put the world to rights. 



Levan, Gus, Tony, Tim, Zura, Mike, Crinkie
at the Turkish Sulphur Baths

Levan then took us to a nearby café for beers and Chibureki.  They were like the little khingales that I love, which are small parcels of pasta filled with meat or cheese.  These were much bigger parcels of pasta filled with meat and cheese and these ones were deep fried.  Turkishly bathed and Georgianly fed we felt like a million dollars and if I had that kind of money I would have bought the saddlebags I found in the bazaar on my stroll home through the old town.  They were very old, heavy, woven carpetbags – beautiful tapestries.  I want them for my scooter.  Tim, who has come out to join us from the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, is a biker and I told him about the saddlebags.  They’re for a donkey but hey!  Donkey, Vespa, what’s the difference?  Well, speed for one thing.  Tim was concerned that I might set off down the M11 with my saddle bags flapping in the wind more like Dumbo the flying elephant that Travels with a Donkey.  I’m not convinced.  I’m as stubborn as a mule and if I still feel like a million dollars tomorrow I might go back and buy them and maybe trade in the Vespa for a donkey.