Those who are not acquainted with Rezo Gabriadze can imagine him as smiling, cheerful and always joking.
    Those who know Rezo Gabriadze, know him as a quiet, gentle person, who with a straight face, calmly tells you things and you die of laughter. It is only later that you realise that you might have just as well cried over these stories.
    He has exhibited in 15 countries, including twice in Paris.
    He is the script writer of 35 films, which are the most popular and best loved in Georgia and in the former Soviet countries.
    He is the founder of the Georgian Marionette Theatre, where he has staged extraordinary performances.
    Thousands of people quote daily from his films and plays, not even realising that they belong to Rezo Gabriadze.
    He is the recipient of many international prizes, but has not been awarded even one in his native Georgia. During the last year of the Soviet Union he was awarded the title of the People’s Artist.
    He has been writing a novel for twenty years which he intends to make  into a film-script.
    His dream to own a house in a village has proved hopeless. He lives in the Saburtalo district of Tbilisi on the 7th floor of a 10 story block of flats.
    He has not worked in Georgia for 7 years.
    There has been a lot of water under the bridge in the last 7 years. He has suffered a lot of pain and heartbreak at home, but finally has achieved success abroad.
    Today, every night of the wonderful performance “The Stalingrad Battle” is sold out.
    The work on a new Georgian production is under way.
    In one of the extraordinary rooms in the theatre, with the torn wall paper and a wood stove, there is an unusually painted wall. This is Rezo Gabriadze’s painting and his Margalita. A cafe will be housed here.
    He has a wife and two children.
    He wishes to live quietly and unnoticed but he knows that it will never work for him.
    And perhaps, like any other extraordinary and incredibly talented individual, he also is a complex and ambivalent personality.
    In order to acquaint yourself with Rezo Gabriadze you should see his films and performances.  This definitely is the best way. But today, we will give you some extracts from a long insightful conversation with him.

    Our theatre now is almost restored. We are building a small cafe here in this room to include three or four tables, which will at least give the audience a chance to have conversation and coffee.
    We are now working on a new performance. Usually staging of each performance takes two years. But we have managed to renovate the theatre and prepare the show in just one year. We are intending to present it to the public soon.
    I have been working on a novel for the last 15-20 years.  I am going to make a film version of this novel. It is rather complex. Modern cinema is built  on entirely different principles. Cinema language has changed a great deal. The cinematography world, including Georgian cinema, has adopted this new language. It is impossible now to use the old ways while communicating with the modern audience. When I am through writing the script, I will deliver it to Eldar Shengelaia and he will release it. That’s what I assume. But it takes a lot of time and energy to work on a performance and on a film simultaneously. I am not going to disclose the title yet. It is my superstition and I never hide it. Therefore, I am not saying anything about the new project in advance. Every time I have done so, it hasn’t worked.
I can’t say anything about my personal life; I can only present my art before the audience. My life is routine. I get up early every morning and I work until late at night. Anyway, the theatre is very busy and leaves me no time for additional contacts.
    I can recall quite a number of examples from world history, as well as from our native one, of hardships that artists have had to experience. Times change, but problems stay the same for artists. Compared to this, people of other professions can always feel more secure in life in any circumstances. Yet, one more thing should be mentioned here; even in a worse social situation, creation of great works of art proved possible. History has known better times, when even greater works of art had been created.
    Certainly, difficulties are never good, but they should not be regarded as the most important. The nation has to speak out. It never works, if you season tears with tears. This is the rule: pessimism generates more pessimism and vice versa. In critical situations like this, weeping never helps, but cheers and encouragement always saves. We need to get through this period. Everybody is carrying his own burden through this dark tunnel and I believe this.
    The artists of the future are born now. A lot of interesting things are happening for them. No force can stop life. Other masters will come. Some will be more talented, and some less. They will be able to undertake a lot of things; perhaps they have already missed a lot because of their age, but still, I am so envious of them. The road lies open before them, offering them more opportunities than we had in our days, when we grew up in a world so limited. Our generation also grew up on kerosene and the only difference now is the absence of queuing for it. I believe, that the world is open for the next generation. For us the world existed only in fiction and on the screen and all this was rather limited. At their age we hadn’t even seen a picture drawn by Picasso.
    I want the universe to open before us even more. The gap, which we had for seventy years, needs to be filled in. Whole generations passed. There were a lot of things we were ignorant of. We had the wrong comprehension of a lot of things. We have accumulated bitter experience in many ways, but others perhaps will somehow avoid repeating these mistakes. I want the Georgian artists to be more open, and in accord with world standards, rather than be obedient. We should try to make others understand us, rather than to retire into our own shells, because the right communication and contacts would do us a lot of good.
    The most important thing is the ability of seeing the outer world in colours. It appears that cats see 8-times better than we do, but they see only in black and white. What a great loss it is to see only the graphic picture of a rose or a lilac. This wonderful world belongs to us and it expects us to see it properly. I don’t advise you to paint only in one colour.  To pour the remains of paint in a bucket and use it to paint would be the same as painting a lilac in only one colour. The world is colourful and it seems to me what we lack today, are colours.
    Generally speaking, the radiators have ruined Georgia’s villages and mountains. The heat came but nobody knew from where. The villages were destroyed, but in return the Africa and Sanzona districts have emerged in Tbilisi. Radiators should be blamed for all this. One comes to the city, settles comfortably, works as a caretaker. Now in the whole former Soviet Union they are all sorry that someone up there, on top, doesn’t give us hot water any more. But that “man” is gone, he’s dead. We have collected radiators in our theatre enough to fill up two lorries and when the cars pulled out, the picture resembled funerals. The radiators left the building and it was a sad sight.
    I aged in Georgia, but I could barely succeed in finding two parallel lines or a decent triangle. Our 90 degrees did not always equal to 90 degrees. Sometimes it was over or under. Perhaps today we have reached the standards and we already fit the set measures and sizes. Today life demands different things from us.
The mobile phones are also used in a strange way here. The national manner of using these phones reminds me of my childhood times in Kutaisi, when the electric irons first came into use; everyone then ironed in the window to make the passers-by envy the happy owners of that new object. One of my acquaintances, a foreigner, who is so close to me that he hardly believes I am a Georgian, on seeing the mobile phones here, asked me a question: “Are there so many pizza sellers in your country?” Abroad mobile phones do not indicate high social status, I mean the ethics of using these phones, for on my arrival in Georgia the impression was astonishing:  the most showy use of mobile phones was too striking.  One should speak on a mobile phone so that he’s not heard on the other side of the street. By the way, I’ve seen a man with two mobile phones who managed to talk on each phone at the same time while eating ice cream.  It was last summer, but now I’m sure he’s even more skilled.
    I don’t remember when forks were introduced, but it really doesn’t matter.  In short, imagine old Tbilisians who owned forks going into the streets holding the forks in their hands to show off.
    One shouldn’t boast about having a mobile phone.  In fact, this is a good invention because it really makes our life mobile.  Communications resolve a lot of things quickly.
    But often it seems to me that even the mobile phone can’t help.  For instance, I can’t contact my good friend Vazha Lordkipanidze.  I can’t manage by any other type of phone either.  Perhaps this is a good opportunity to address him through your magazine:  Batono Vazha, please call me, I can’t reach you.

Yours,
Rezo Gabriadze