Roger Delves Broughton goes bird watching in Tbilisi

Roger DB, who is playing the British Spy in Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a great bird watcher and is to be found in spare moments wandering around looking skywards. Here is his report!

Roger's blog #1 Thurs 8th Sept

After all the anticipation, we’re here! The Georgian welcome is as comprehensive and overwhelming as you can imagine.

After a short introduction at the theatre, we saw the character puppets in Nino’s workshop, and believe me they are delightful and fascinating and full of character.

We were then convoyed out of Tbilisi up the mountains to about 1300 metres above sea level. Half an hour or more rising hairpin bends took us up to Levan’s summer retreat; a beautiful wooden chalet in a kind of alpine meadow among the high forests. In Wales it would be high above the tree-line, but here there are thick woods of Hornbeam, Ash, Oak, Birch, wild Pear and Beech. Mushrooms sprout underfoot but nobody really dares to choose one to cook, for fear of a gastronomic game of Russian Roulette! The sky was blue and cloudless, and although the temperature dropped with the altitude it was still a comfortably warm 62°F, whereas in the city it had been nearer 80! My joy was to scan the twittering flocks of Swallow, House Martin, and Sand Martin over the meadow. But the real heart-leaping sight was the succession of European Bee Eaters migrating overhead: unbelievably colourful and exotic and a new bird to me.


European Bee Eater



Needless to say, we feasted lengthily on vegetables, salads, fish and barbequed pork, drank many toasts in Georgian wine, and were entranced by Levan’s daughter Tina as she showed us the most graceful Georgian traditional dances barefoot on the twilit grass. Sensational. A truly bonding experience for us all, and a day to relish and remember for a long time.





Roger’s blog #2 Saturday 10th Sept


We’re rehearsing on the Theatre’s main stage, which is useful in the initial stage, since all the puppets and stage action can be created under the very tight lighting requirements particular to this style. It’s constantly amazing to watch the puppeteers crowded round a single puppet and creating movements of astounding delicacy and precision. They are instantly humorous and soulful.


Hooded Crow
Photo by panafokas


So far we have worked mornings and evenings, so have had a couple of hours free in the afternoon. The apartments are about a 20 minutes walk away, so today I took a walk along the River Kura embankment. It’s been so hot and dry that today’s stiff wind created a veritable windstorm, but through the flying grit I did manage to watch some Yellow Legged Gulls, Hooded Crows and a White Wagtail to add to my Georgian list.




White Wagtail
Photo by Andreas Trepte
http://www.photo-natur.de/



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