Meet the cast for Captain Corelli's Mandolin part 2

In this post we meet the Iannis family - Dr Iannis and his daughter Pelagia. Our play opens with Dr Iannis talking at the grave of his wife; bringing her up to date on the island's news and events around Europe that would soon have a major impact on life on Cephalonia.

Dr Iannis is played by Mike Maran, who has also written the stage adaptation of Louis de Bernieres' best selling book. Mike has had a long relationship with Captain Corelli having first created a stage version in 1999 for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. That version, which stayed in his repertoire for ten years, had just three people: Mike himself told the story accompanied by Alison Stephens on Mandolin and Anne Evans on piano.

Mike began his career as a folk singer before moving into rock scene and opening shows for groups like Uriah Heap, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Captain Beefheart, ELO and Roy Wood’s Wizzard. In 1977 he opened a show at the Edinburgh Fringe about the life and work of Robert Louis Stevenson and Penny Whistles of Robert Louis Stevenson was bought by BBC2 and shown on Bank Holiday Easter Monday the next year. There followed a stream of plays with music – a new one every year.

In this interview Mike was sitting on the roof terrace outside his hotel room, with panoramic views over the city of Tbilisi. 

Pelagia begins the play as a 16 year old, the island beauty who is sought after by every young man. Dr Iannis has educated her to read and write both Greek and Italian, a skill that he fears will make her an unacceptable wife in the largely illiterate village. When she falls for a local fisherman, Mandras, their time together is cut short by the outbreak of war as Mandras is called up and his inability to read her love letters has disatrous consequences.

Natalie Kakhidze was born into a musical family (her father wrote the music for our production and is Chief Conductor of the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra) but she broke the mould and went into the theatre rather than the concert hall. Her career since then suggests she made a good choice. Invited to join the Marjanishvili Theatre company after graduating from the Rustaveli Theatre University. Her first part was in Levan Tsuladze's award winning production of The Lady With A Dog which, like Captain Corelli, combined live actors with puppets so she has experience of seeing herself portrayed by a puppet. Natalie won the Best Actress Award in 2010 for her part in Medea Redux by Neil Labute.

At the Marjanishvili Theatre Natalie was in a dressing room named after one of the theatre's biggest stars, Veriko Anjaparidze, who joined the company with Marjanishvili in 1933 and stayed there until her death in 1987. Anjaparidze created the part of Yudif in Marjanishvili's 1929 production of Uriel Acosta, a show that is still in the company's repertoire and in which Natalie currently appears.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin opened at the Marjanishvili Theatre on 5 October 2011. It opens at the Mercury Theatre Colchester on Thursday 27 October and plays there until 12 November.  Click here to book tickets

Meet the cast for Captain Corelli's Mandolin

There are five actors and over 30 puppets in this new production of Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The show is a co-production between the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi, Georgia and the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, England. One of the actors is Georgian (Natalie Kakhidze who plays Pelagia) and four are British, three of whom are regulars at the Mercury Theatre.

In this blog we meet the three Mercury regulars.These short interviews were recorded at the start of the rehearsal process when they had just arrived in Tbilisi. Once the show has opened in Colchester we'll get their views again.

Tony Casement has been at the Mercury for twelve years and is now Associate Director at the theatre, responsible for the theatre's community and education programme. He has directed a number of shows at the theatre including The Grapes of Wrath and Journey's End as well as acting in company shows.

As well as acting and directing, Tony also writes and his television piece Turn the World Down, written with Neil Bromley for Channel 4, was nominated for a Golden Rose at the 2002 Montreux Television Festival.

Tony plays the title role in Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Gus Gallagher plays Mandras, a fisherman on the island of Cephalonia who captures the heart of Pelagia. At the outbreak of war he goes off to join the army with disastrous results. Gus was last at the Mercury in Pinter's The Lover, which is where Levan Tsuladze first saw him. Mercury audiences will also remember him from his performance as Romeo in which he tangoed his way into the heart of Juliet and in the title role in Coriolanus.

Roger Delves-Broughton is another stalwart of the Mercury, having worked with the company since its inception. He was last seen in Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge. Roger works all over the country, travelling from his home in rural North Wales, and when not working he is a keen birdwatcher. You can read about his twitching in his posts on this blog as he has taken every opportunity in Tbilisi to get out and enjoy the different variety of birds to be seen in the Caucasus.

Roger is also a regular member of Wildworks, a Cornish-based international company that makes landscape theatre - large scale spectacular performances and artworks that grow out of their locations. He has been in three productions: A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings; Souterrain (co-produced with the Mercury) which played all over the UK and in France; and The Beautiful Journey.

Roger plays two parts in Captain Corelli's Mandolin: the Italian Quartermaster, who has 'access to everything'; and the British Spy, who lands on the island to report back to the Allies.

In the next posting we'll meet Mike Maran who wrote the stage adaptation of the book and plays Dr Iannis, and Natalie Kakhidze who plays his daughter Pelagia

Roger's blog - Khrami River

Been out of touch since the workload increased as the show neared its opening. In the event all passed off as planned and we were greeted with an extended standing ovation, which was gratifying. Then off to a Gerorgian celebratory feast which stretched long into the night!

It was good to finally enjoy a day off (our first since we arrived a month previously), and on Monday I was treated to a day out in the country with one of the puppeteers and her husband who is fascinated by natural history and who is a hunter, snake catcher and fisherman. We drove south from Tbilisi past the Soviet-era steelworks of Rustavi to a stretch of the Khrami River, winding among pebble shoals and mudbanks and flanked by broken woodland, scrub and still pools. Despite the ravages of gravel extraction diggers and lorries we explored the area slowly and were treated to some wonderful views of wildlife: the sky was dotted with Steppe Buzzards, Marsh Harrier, Goshawk, Sparrowhawk and mobbing Hooded Crows and Ravens. Lizards, mice, crickets, butterflies, dragonflies and a Rock Martin drew our attention with flashes of activity, and the weedy dark pools revealed Moorhen, Little Grebe, a score of Kingfishers, a Little Bittern, a mighty chorus of frogs and a stately Nutria (a small kind of Beaver) padding through thick weed. Most unxepected was a Black Stork dropping in amongst the Great White Egrets and Little Egrets in the river shallows, while behind us in the scrub were Robin, Blackbird, Black Redstart, Tree Sparrow and Green Woodpecker. To cap it all, driving away we stopped to admire an Imperial Eagle in a field no more than 50 metres away. A truly memorable outing, and a testimony to the enormous hospitality deluged on us from this amazing country.

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.

Standing ovation for Captain Corelli's Mandolin

The magic of theatre! At midnight on Tuesday people were still changing lights, completing the set and doing running repairs on puppets. But at 8 o'clock on Wednesday a packed house at the Marjanishvili Theatre settled down to see the opening performance with high expectations and those expectations had to be met.



The banner outside
the Marjanishvili Theatre



When I say 'packed' I mean packed. Every seat was taken, extra seats were added at the end of each row (would never be allowed in Britain) and then yet more people stood alongside them. Add to that the several television cameras filming bits of the show and a number of press photographers (would never be allowed in Britain) and you begin to get an idea of the sense of excitement.

A Tbilisi opening is a very special kind of evening. The cream of Georgian theatre turns up to see the work of a colleague and Levan Tsuladze, our director, is one of Georgia's leading artists so a new show by him is always eagerly anticipated. The interest of the media is very high making it difficult to walk round the theatre foyer through the ranks of television and radio crews interviewing the audience before the show, during the interval and especially at the end.

Levan has a tradition of watching a first night from the lighting box with colleagues and a bottle of whisky. Each positive response from the audience is rewarded with a drink from the bottle so he judges the success of the show from the the level of whisky remaining in the bottle at the end. Last night he went on to the second bottle!

The audience don't have whisky to show their appreciation; they just get to their feet and applaud. And applaud. And applaud. The standing ovation went on for over ten minutes but even then they were not satisfied. When the curtain finally came down the audience moved backstage to continue congratulations on a one-to-one level. Eventually they left and the company was able to move on to their celebratory party.

And what a party! A Georgian 'supra' is a feast beyond imagination. The restaurant table was groaning with food when we arrived and that was before any of the hot dishes arrived. Food just kept coming and when there was no space on the table they just piled dishes on top of each other. Vakhtang Kakhidze, who composed the incidental music for the show, was appointed 'Tamada' - toastmaster - and he kept the wine flowing with toast after toast.   Compagnia Finzi Pasca, who are performing later in the festival, joined us as guests and did an impromptu acrobatic show on the table, much to the consternation of the restaurant manager.

A great night all round. The show plays again tonight but then the company have a much earned, but unexpected, four day break. Unfortunately our scheduled performance in Yerevan has had to be cancelled because a landslide has taken away a large section of the Tbilisi - Yerevan highway. A great pity, but after four weeks of non-stop work the rest will be welcome.

Gamarjoba!

Today's Sunday 2nd October, which means we're due to open Corelli in a little over 72 hours. Nevertheless, we are currently enjoying our first morning off together since arriving here over three weeks ago. We'll be back in later on of course - and we've been warned that tonight could be a late finish - probably something in the region of 11pm.

The show's looking pretty good. It's still being chopped and changed and everyone is having to stay extra alert since the language barrier among other factors means you may just have to roll with an alteration in the moment. But it's all to the good, and there is a palpable feeling of trust in the air that Levan's overall view is both sound and one that we can't possibly share from our viewpoint on the ground.

I had an opportunity yesterday to see 'My Hamlet' - a Marjanishvilli show with one actress and five puppeteers. Absolutely fantastic. I was so pleased to get to see it. Tight and funny and sharp and clean. They had the actress disappear through a mirror. Twice. And both times it was a surprise and totally seemlessly executed. Really inspiring stuff.

We passed a landmark earlier this week. The halfway point! We are now able to say that we'll be home in less than three weeks. We've a job of work to do before even thinking of packing up of course, but it does make it easier to imagine that in just over a fortnight, we'll be home.

In the meantime, though, we're all trying to stay fit and focussed and ready for whatever each day might chuck our way. We're tired and homesick but there's a really great work ethic in the room and it's making for an exciting show.

Roll on Wednesday!

Roger DB's blog #3

Still hot and dry - the rain that has been predicted has held off, although the last few days have been very overcast.

Rehearsals continue to be completely absorbing, and the script and story details are in constant flux so close attention is the order of the day. As a rule we have three hours or so free in the afternoons to lunch, learn and relax before the evening rehearsals. Even walking back through the streets you start to notice butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas, small groups of House Swallows and, in the evening, a number of large bats high over the rooftops (no, we're nowhere near Transylvania!). Two or three Common Kestrals seem rather wary of persuing the bats, but there is a charming family of Laughing Doves regularly haunting our area, so tiny and neat and fearless enough to walk literally up to one's feet. Perhaps the grandest sight was a group of Eagles (probably Lesser Spotted) miles high abouve our nearest ridge, effortlessly soaring on their 6ft wingspan and drifting eastwards in the bluest of skies. Magnificant!

Tbilisi traffic is something I'll find it hard to forget. Every other car is a taxi, and a minibus passes every 15 seconds or so, and all of them stop on demand wherever they happen to be. Cars pull out to overtake and block the oncoming lane. Horns immediately blare forth, and what seems like total gridlock somehow magically returns to normal. A manhole cover disappeared from the middle of the road at a busy intersection. A bus became immobilised with a wheel stuck in the hole, and when the bus has been cleared away, two leafy branches neatly marked the still gaping hole until 36 hours later a replacement cover arrived. No-one turned a hair!