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.

A double episode from Mike Maran's rehearsal blog

Things are hotting up in Tbilisi where the company are in rehearsals for Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Things are also hotting up in Colchester where bookings have now passsed the 35% mark. The show opens in Colchester on 27 October and runs through until 12 November so make sure of your tickets by calling the box office on 01206 573948 or book online at the Mercury Theatre website by clicking here. Performances in Tbilisi will be on 5 and 6 October as part of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre. Full details are on the festival website here

Today we have two instalments of Mike Maran's rehearsal blog:

Woke up this morning…da da da da dum!

It rained during the night.  This is day ten and last night’s rain was the first to fall since we arrived.  All the wonderful fruit and vegetables growing in the market gardens around Tblisi drank well last night.  So did I.

Our team is growing.  We began with 6 puppeteers and now we are ten.  It’s a labour intensive project.  Six puppeteers manipulate two puppets and I had written scenes that required three. To be perfectly honest, I never had an upper limit in my mind and would have been ready to go back to the drawing board and remove the goat or the pine martin from a scene although it would have broken my heart to fire the pine martin.  Anyway the pine martin had nothing to worry about because, manipulated by one puppeteer, it was good value. 

Levan, our director, wanted crowd scenes, but crowds of individuals.  So when Corelli arrives the Cephalonians line the street to give the Italians an inhospitable and sullen welcome.  Corelli, an actor played by Tony, asks Limone (puppet) the way to the town hall.  She hides behind Velisarios (another puppet).  Corelli crosses the road and asks Father Arsenios (puppet) where he can buy a map of the island and the priest gives him a cold shoulder.  The communist (puppet) lays down a Greek flag, the royalist is there too, other villagers, and a jeep full of Italian soldiers, - all of them reacting to what’s going on.  Ten puppeteers handle this.  And so we are ten - not six.  Nino (puppetmaker) has more costumes to make and Roger (producer) has gone back to the UK to rewrite the budget.



Birthday girl Anna with Director, Levan Tsuladze



One of the new puppeteers celebrated her birthday so rehearsals finished early to party in her honour. The Mercury Theatre actors bought her a birthday cake and so, of course, did all the other puppeteers so there were two enormous cakes. We sang Happy Birthday to Anna in Georgian and in English and then we drank toasts to her.  The whisky flowed.  When Tony had to leave to get back to the flat for a Skype conversation with his children another bottle of whisky was opened for a toast to his children, and when Jill got up to leave another was opened to toast stage managers.  And when another bottle of whisky was opened there were only five of us left and we toasted each other until it was done.  And they weren’t just bottles – they were litres. 



Irina, who's helping with puppet costumes and Crinkie,
puppeteer,  celebrating Anna's birthday.
Clearly neither of them alcoholics



Levan’s (director) definition of an alcoholoic is someone who stops after two or three drinks.  That person is thinking of himself and the acholol – so he’s an alcoholic, unlike those who stay till it’s all gone, caring nothing for the alcohol, they drink for each other.  They are not alcoholics.  I rolled home well after midnight feeling no pain.

Then it rained.  Roger (actor) who shares the flat says the night lit up with sheet lightning and thunder.  I missed it all.

Today’s rehearsal was long – we ploughed through pages of script and the goat stole the show.  First of all Roger, playing the Italian quartermaster, eyes up the goat for dinner.  Then when Corelli arrives the goat nips his finger.  The goat has the same puppeteer as the pine martin and this man has a genius for bringing animals to life.  Then the puppeteers take over the story completely as Velisarios and Carlo smoke together, the Italian jeep is sabotaged, and then blows up killing the young Italian soldier.  Corelli (actor) has to write to the young boy’s mother and weeps as the goat looks over his shoulder.  It is heartbreaking.  There won’t be a dry eye in the house.  Dr Iannis’s (that’s me) special friend today is Father Arsenios (puppet) but when he come knocking on my door with gossip about my daughter and the mandolin playing Italian captain I have a right go at him and send him and his tittle tattle packing.  But, of course, Father Arsenios is only saying what everybody is saying and, however cross Dr Iannis is with the priest, it’s blindingly obvious to him too.  And so the die have been cast.  Mandras has gone off to the mountains to fight for Greece and the enemy is living in his fiance’s house.  Things are going to get worse, a lot worse, better they get better.

Day 11 and today’s rehearsal was electrifying. 

I have lived with this book for twelve years and more, performing Captain Corelli’s Mandolin up until last year in a storytelling musical way in theatres all over the UK.  Pelagia and Corelli inhabit my world.  I know them.  I went back to the book and read it again before making this new adaptation for the stage.  I wrote episodes that we can show on stage that I left  out of the storytelling adaptation, the beach for example where the Italian soldiers dance with the prostitutes and Limone rides on a mine as it drifts ashore – scenes that are better shown than told – and puppetry is a wonderful medium to bring them alive. 

But when two people fall in love it’s actors we need – not puppets.  I never referred to the pages in the book when Corelli tells Pelagia he loves her.  I know them and although I wrote the lines that Tony and Nato spoke to each other this afternoon nothing prepared me for what I saw.  The actors took Louis de Bernieres’ characters off the page and stood them on their feet.  Tony (Corelli), Nato (Pelagia) and Levan (director)  know these people too.  They know the risks you take when you tell someone that you love them – and for Corelli and Pelagia especially – Corelli, the captain of an enemy occupying force and Pelagia, betrothed to a Greek patriot who is fighting for his country.  Tony and Nato took the risks in both hands and the glowing embers burst into flames.  I could not begin to describe that rehearsal for you – and I won’t.  But there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.  And Levan (director) – the man’s a genius – proposes to begin the next scene in the rain with Dr Iannis holding an umbrella, pleading with his daughter to wait until after the war.  I had very little to do today except watch and admire.

I had lunch with Gus (Mandras).  Mandras left the village to go to the mountains and join the partisans and Gus left the theatre to have the afternoon and evening off.  He cheerfully drank two beers while I sipped a bottle of lemonade and went back to work.  Gus went into town with a copy of Hamlet in his back pocket which is more than Mandras can take with him to the mountains.  Mandras is a good fisherman but cannot read or write and one day soon Gus will land the big part that I guess all young actors go fishing for.

Jill Russell (Mercury Theatre stage manager) and I have landed a nice little job. Vato (our music director) is Chief Concuctor of The Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra,  and he has asked us to record the message to the audience before concerts to remind them to switch off their mobile phones.  He wants good English voices (I’m Scottish!) - a male voice and a female voice.  So Jill and I are going to do it for him in a recording studio tomorrow afternoon.  Eat your heart out Sir Ian McKellen!



Roger, Nino and friend, Zura, cheering on Georgia
against Scotland in Oct 07



I notice that Scotland beat Georgia in the Rugby World Cup.  Well, I’m very pleased about that.  But I suspect our producer, Roger McCann who is an Englishman in love with Georgia feels differently.  There are still fond memories here of an international football match in October 2007 when Georgia beat Scotland in a Euro 2008 qualifying match (Roger was there). 

The Tartan Army descended on Georgia in their hordes and watched their team lose before going out on the town.  The locals were delighted by the Scots capacity for alcohol - the Georgian hosts and their Scottish guests fell into each others arms and drank for each other and sang for each other.  You see, Scots don’t only sing when they are winning, and this is true for Georgians too.  Give us a drink and we start to sing.  The Georgians were mighty impressed with the Tartan Army that night and I walk around Tblisi wearing tartan braces to hold my trousers up.

Tomorrow the British will be blockading Cephalonia and everybody is hungry. Dr Iannis suggests that everyone goes to the forest to collect snails.  We are going to rehearse this on stage tomorrow where Levan has arranged a forest  covered in snails.  I have eaten snails in Italy.  My dinner companion showed me how to flick them out of their shells with a toothpick.  You must flick them towards yourself, not your date, otherwise she will get your snails in her blouse.  I learn something new every day.  Gus showed me how to use Skype and we skyped each other across the table at lunch.  Who says the art of conversation is dead?

Ciao! 

Mike

Mike Maran's Captain Corelli Rehearsal Blog #2

Day 6 and I’m getting into a groove.
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.


The view from the back of our flat




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.

Gus reflects on a week away from home

I thought I should pen something to mark our first week out here. Having been lucky enough to have had this evening off, it turns out I am not needed until 3pm tomorrow either! And so it is that I find myself at my computer at the highly unprofessional school night hour of six whole minutes past midnight. My two flatmates - Tony and Jill - are hopefully sound asleep and not being disturbed by my tap tap.

Anyway, this is about the time that we arrived here in Tbilisi a full seven nights ago. I can't tell plainly whether it feels longer or shorter than that. I have become increasingly homesick over the past few days, and that can't help but drag. On the other hand, I can't quite grasp that we've already had seven of our precious rehearsal days - and we won't ever get them back again!

The show's coming together well. It's very strange seeing the whole picture mounted around you - lights, sound, costume, props - but I like it. Among other things, it forces the actor to make bold choices. After all, a whole sequence might be suddenly thrown together before your very eyes based in some small part on your particular reading of the given situation - so you'd better have something good to put up there!

We seem to be settling into our Tbilisi life comfortably enough too. Our Georgian hosts have been so kind and remain on hand to help with anything we might need, but we have enjoyed exploring our new temporary home for ourselves in the past week. Perhaps predictably, we seem to have honed in on a couple of places in particular - The Arts Cafe (get us!) for an after-work cheeky, and Prospero's Books (spot the actors) for a pot of Earl Grey and a naughty bit of carrot cake - and a decent internet connection.

So so far so jolly good. But I know we all miss our lovely loved ones back home. My beautiful bride to be and I haven't managed to find our Skype rhythm quite yet, but we did manage an all too brief face-to-face on Sunday. It was wonderful to see her - even if it wasn't quite the same. But I think of her lots and like to think that we're creating something she'll enjoy sometime in November, in a garrison town far far away.

Until then, thank God for Wi-Fi!



Relaxing after rehearsals in the Art Cafe
From Left: Roger (producer) Gus, Jill (Stage Manager), Roger (actor) and Tony
Mike is taking the picture



Hands and Feet for Captain Corelli

Booking is now open for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester from 27^th October to 12^th November.

You can book online by clicking here Mercury Theatre box office or telephone +44 (0)1206 573948. Performances are at 7.30pm Monday to Friday with matinee performances Thurs 2^nd and 10^th November at 2.00pm and Saturday 5^th and 12^th at 2.30pm.

The show is a co-production between the Mercury Theatre Company and the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi, in association with NFA International Arts and Culture. Four actors from the Mercury will be joined by one actor and six puppeteers from the Marjanshvili in a production directed by Levan Tsuladze.

This is the fourth post on the blog charting the progress of the production. To see them in chronological order, click on the links on the right, starting from July!

You Need Hands

In the last blog we showed how the heads were being made for the production of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Several of the puppets will be representations of real actors in the show, and are therefore carefully modelled from reality whilst others appear only as puppets, giving greater design freedom. But all of them need hands and feet, meaning 32 pairs of hands and 32 pairs of feet.

The hands are made from a special substance that can be worked and modelled like clay but dries in the air into a hardened substance that can be carved and used like wood. Each hand takes about half a day to make although with drying time at each stage it mounts up to several days. The feet are less complex and are carved from wood.

The picture on the left shows the basic structure of the hands. They may look like egg whisks but these show the palms of the hands with the wires ready to become fingers. You’ll notice how the thumbs are placed on the top and the fingers come from the centre of the 'palm'. Each hand is operated by a rod, which will be added at a later stage. They are not actually directly attached to the body, although it will look as though they are.

The next stage, shown in the picture on the right, is to build up the fingers using the special ‘plastic wood’. This is a long process as it has to be done with a small piece at a time because the material dries in the air; simply rolling up a piece of the material and sticking it to the wire won’t work because it would just crumble. Once the basic finger is made it is further modelled with extra pieces of plastic wood being added in a painstaking process. In this picture you can see one pair of hands with just the palms and wire, one pair with the fingers partly made and two pairs of children’s hands – too small for individual fingers!

Sanding down the rough work makes a smooth, realistic hand, another time consuming process. Each hand is then individually painted in a neutral colour and hung up to dry.

This video shows you the process. Nino is making adjustments to the fingers; Ani is rubbing them down and painting; and finally, Maia is putting finishing touches to the feet.

Next step will be making the bodies and putting the puppets together. And of course there are the various animals to be made. Watch this space!

Are you in Edinburgh for the festival?

You can catch Mike Maran Mike Maran, who has written the stage adaptation and is playing Dr Iannis, in Edinburgh where is performing 3 of his shows at Valvona and Crolla (venue 67): A Funny Valentine, about the life of jazz musician Chet Baker; Did You Used To Be RD Laing, about the controversial Scottish psychaiatrist; and Italia ‘n’ Caledonia, the story of the early immigrants from Italy who settled in Scotland, not least Mike’s own family and that of Philip Contini who now owns Valvona and Crolla. Full details are here on Mike Maran's website

You can also see another production from the Mercury Theatre, Wretch by Gari Jones at the Gryphon Point Hotel (venue 109a)  Full details can be found here

32 heads for Captain Corelli's Mandolin

It’s astonishing to see how much work goes into making a puppet. Nino Namicheishvili is responsible for designing and making the puppets for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, a process that will take over six months. Working from her tiny workshop in the Marjanishvili Theatre she is helped by a small group of trusted friends but she’s the only one who’s there in the morning and still there at midnight.  

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin opens at the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi as part of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre on 5 October. It opens at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester on 27 October and runs there until 12 November. Booking for the Colchester performances is open now – www.mercurytheatre.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)1206 573948

At the end of this post you’ll find a link to a video where Nino introduces the main characters but before you go there, spare some time to look at the process.


All the puppets for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin will be rod puppets. They are made up of six main sections – the head, the body, two hands and two feet – each controlled by a rod. Since puppeteers only have two hands, each puppet is operated by three, and sometimes four, manipulators.

An added attraction with the puppets for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is that many of them are based on the real actors who will be playing the characters. Sometimes the audience will be watching the actors, sometimes the puppets take over. The first challenge for Nino was therefore to make puppets that would represent the real actors and that’s more difficult than it appears. It’s not simply a matter of making an accurate copy.

This is not Madam Tussaud’s; the puppets have to display a character of their own and that must be achieved without any change in facial expression.

This series of photographs of Tony Casement, who plays Captain Corelli, gives an idea of the attention to detail. There will be two Corelli puppets – one for during the main setting of the play and one showing him many years later (forget the film – read the book!) but both need to be identifiably him. The same is true of Natuka Kakhidze who plays Pelagia.

For this production the puppets heads are moulded using a special substance that’s a bit like glue when it’s soft and stone when it hardens. Once out of the mould the head is finished by hand and given its distinctive character.

It feels almost painful to see it but each head is then drilled with two holes to enable the controlling mechanism to be inserted and the operation is done with all the care of a brain surgeon.

The heads are painted in a neutral colour to finish them off rather than having a face painted on; it’s lighting that brings them to life. Hair is added at the end.

At the last count there were 32 puppets in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin but there’s always the chance that director, Levan Tsuladze, will demand more so Nino has made a couple of spares. And that’s before you count a goat, a pine marten and 2 dolphins. Making heads for characters that are not also represented by live actors gives more scope for creativity but, of course, they still have to fit within the overall style of the show.

32 puppets means 64 hands and 64 feet! Each single hand takes about half a day to make and is in itself quite a complex process. More of that in the next blog.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin opens at the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi as part of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre on 5 October. It opens at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester on 27 October and runs there until 12 November. Booking for the Colchester performances is open now – www.mercurytheatre.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)1206 573948

Here's the link to YouTube with Nino introducing the cast



Mike Maran reflects on Corelli old and new

I wrote an adaptation of 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' in 1999 with my friend, Philip Contini. We took our show on the road with Ali Stephens on mandolin (and guitar, trumpet, and tuba!) and Anne Evans on flute and piano. Ruth Barrie painted the floor and backcloth, and Jock Brown built the set and designed and operated the lighting. We toured the show for ten years and did over 600 performances growing into a closely knit family. We were bereft when Ali got cervical cancer and died in October 2009. Her mandolin is now silent but Captain Corelli's Mandolin has risen from the ashes. I went to Tblisi to write this new adaptation with Levan, the director at The Marjanishvili and Nino, the puppet maker. Levan and Nino wrote a document for Ali in Georgian and English dedicating this new production to her which I was able to take to her in the hospice along with a bottle of Georgian wine. My trips to Tblisi to work with Levan and Nino have been life enhancing - and also my new relationships with the actors of The Mercury Theatre in Colchester who have joined the Marjanishvili Theatre in this co-productions. The Mercury have welcomed me into their company and last week I took part in their 'development days,' - three days of workshops led by Peta Liley in which we explored clowning. My inner clown is about to reveal herself...

Roger McCann introduces the project

A new production of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, adapted by Mike Maran from the book by Louis de Bernières, opens at the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre on 5th October before moving to Colchester Mercury Theatre from 27 October - 12 November. This blog will follow the production on its journey.In this first blog, Roger McCann gives the background to its creation. 

I think the story began in 2007 when Nino Namicheishvili, the puppeteer, was in England to see a production she had directed in Georgia and I took her to visit the Edinburgh Festival and we stayed with Mike Maran, a master storyteller whose version of Captain Corelli's Mandolin had been in his repertoire since 1999. The following year Nino and Mike met again at a party at my house and Mike began to think about a new show that he was planning to produce with a guitar accompaniment; would it work better with a third element - puppets?



The Marjanishvili Theatre, Tbilisi

I took Mike to the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre in 2009 so that the two of them could discuss the idea further. They got on immediately, with a common understanding of how to approach the project. But one night it all changed when Mike saw a production of The Lady With A Dog, directed by Levan Tsuladze, at the Marjanishvili Theatre. This captivating version of Chekhov's short story combined live actors with puppets, with many of the puppets being smaller versions of the actors. Mike's mind began working. Could we do a new version of Captain Corelli in a similar style, combining actors with puppets? He met Levan - and the original project that he’d gone to discuss moved to the 'back boiler'.  But as this was the last day of his visit there could be little more than an acknowledgement of a shared interest in pursuing the idea.



Nino Namicheishvili in her workshop with
puppets from The Lady With A Dog



Mike returned to Tbilisi in spring 2010 to start some serious discussions with Levan and Nino. There was a complete meeting of minds. This would be a joint production with the Marjanishvili, written by Mike, directed by Levan with puppets by Nino. The talk was of a full scale production on the main stage with many actors and 'hundreds of puppets'. Leading Georgian composer and principle conductor of the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra, Vakhtang Kakhidze, would be commissioned to write an original score. Clearly we were going to need a British theatre to come on board.

I knew of the Colchester Mercury Theatre's interest in developing international work. The theatre had recently become an active member of interACT, an international network of theatres, and had begun work on a development project involving five different countries in a series of workshops to explore different working methods - PLOTS. Would they be interested in joining the project? They were certainly interested in presenting the production but as discussions evolved it seemed a better idea for them to become full producing partners. An application to Arts Council England for support towards what was becoming a very large scale project was submitted and, after a nail-biting wait, approved.



Linda Marlowe with Gertrude in My Hamlet
at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2010


Nino returned in the summer to take part in another UK/Georgia co-production that I had put together for the Edinburgh Fringe with the Palace Theatre Watford and Fingers Theatre from Tbilisi. Besik Kupreishvili directed Linda Marlowe as Hamlet and she provided the voices for all the other parts, played by puppets, in My Hamlet. Three weeks in Edinburgh gave Nino and Mike more time to discus ideas.

Levan and Nino visited Colchester in the autumn to see members of the Mercury company and decide on casting. It was agreed that four British actors, Mike plus three Mercury company members (Tony Casement, Roger Delves-Broughton and Gus Gallagher) would be joined by one Georgian actor, Natuka Kakhidze, who would play Pelagia. Serious plans were beginning to take shape. Tony, Roger and Gus were no doubt confused to be offered roles and then immediately have their photographs taken from all angles so that they could  be reproduced as puppets.

We agreed that the show would rehearse and open in Tbilisi during the 2011 Tbilisi Festival. It would then move to Colchester to coincide with the interACT conference and a mini-festival of short works created during the PLOTS workshops and, with remarkable serendipity, the opening of Colchester's new contemporary art gallery.

Setting dates does focus the mind! Mike returned again to Tbilisi to spend a week with Levan and Nino to finalise the script and Nino began working in earnest on the puppets. The whole company got together in Tbilisi in June so that artists from the two countries could spend some time together and begin to understand each others' working methods. Mike read the script to the whole company - actors, puppeteers, technicians. The British contingent saw a performance of Levan's puppet version of Faust which has been an international sensation on three continents and if they hadn't realised it already, they now knew they were working with remarkable artists.

The end of the beginning. Watch this blog for up to date information, insights and personal views of the artists involved as we move towards October and the Tbilisi opening.

For information about Louis de Bernières and the original book click here
For an interesting web site dedicated to the film with Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz and John Hurt click here