We believe you are familiar with this feature from our previous issue. Drawing on the opinion of the MAGTI GSM customers,  we have attempted to find out who the most popular actor, writer, artist, or businessman is…
This time the Magtians have named ROBERT STURUA among their favourate Georgian celebrities

A two-act play for a mono-performance *

* One essential prerequisite...
If you do not imagine Robert Sturua’s manner of speaking (through his nose) when reading the above lines, then everything that has been said here - the lie, the truth, the playful, the sincerity will lose its natural character.

* Later he will say: “One day they will realise how
skilfully I have deceived everyone” (?!)

*  He can spend day and night rehearsing on black
coffee and a cigarette. He can drop his head back on a chair for three minutes and then go on with his work as if he has slept all day long; if he has chocolates with him then the conditions are already perfect.

*  Sturua in “extreme” situations closes his eyes and sees X-es roaming in the darkness. He sends these tamed X-es to the “critical parts” of his body and as he claims, these very X-es have made the stomach ulcer, diagnosed by “professionals”, disappear.
 

Time of action - the end of the 20th century. Place of action - Georgia. Room for thought - infinite. Reality - dramatic.

    Featuring:
    Director - (the elusive-unrecognizable-mystical) Robert Sturua.
    Voice - !
    Passions - “Kvarkvare”, “the Caucasian Chalk Circle”, “Richard III”, “King Lear”, “Life is a dream”, etc.
    Theatre - the place of the director’s passions.

Act I
Scene I

Scene I uncovers Sturua’s origin  through his “Party”  ancestors... and (although it has nothing to do with it) the story of his ability to create limitless fantasies - Sturua’s major virtue.

R.Sturua - I am not from a “Party”  but from a Bolshevik family. My grandfather admitted Stalin to the Communist Party but my father betrayed this course - he was a painter. I strayed  even further from this path...

As far as fantasy is concerned... I have always thought that I lacked the ability to fantasize. While I was studying with Misha Tumanishvili, I began  to understand how to develop imagination: it turned out that the secret to it is very simple, at least in theatre. Nevertheless, I’m not going to disclose it.

Voice - This mystery is apparent in performances of your works.

R. Sturua - The result is apparent in them but you cannot see how I do it...

Voice - What mark did you get for conduct at school?

R. Sturua - At school everybody received a mark of “excellence” for conduct.

Voice - And was this appraisal correct?

R. Sturua - (Shrugs and looks away) *

Scene II

Scene II relates how after graduating from the Drama Institute, he descends from the third floor to the second, and finds himself in the Rustaveli Theatre where on instructions of Misha Tumanishvili and Dodo Aleksidze he stages his graduation performance.

At the theatre his acceptance to the post of play director is long delayed. However, a single event changes everything: his uncle is transferred to the Central Committee...            (Oh, these bureaucrats!).

R. Sturua - Thereafter, like a faithful husband I am wedded to the Rustaveli Theatre. Sometimes I commit adultery with foreigners. In my old age I’ve become a frequent adulterer. I am staging the sixth performance and I loath rehearsals *, I feel fed up with the theatre... I failed to comprehend the need for a little rest between performances. I keep changing hands: going from hand to hand like a promiscuous woman.

Voice - Does the director’s profession resemble that of a prostitute?

R. Sturua - (laughing) When you consider that playwrights are nearly all men then maybe.

Scene  III

This is the story about the fate of those who because of him did not perform for ten, fifteen years. Those same actors who had been the co-authors of Sturua’s success.

... It’s also about dictatorship.

R.  Sturua - Before I made them stay at home, they had played many roles. Those who were left without roles, were not left so because they lacked talent.
I do not like Moliere, but he is not a bad playwright. It is just that generations change and styles change too...

Voice - A synthesis of generations was possible, wasn’t it?

R. Sturua - I attempted to do this. But everyone wanted the leading part... Generally it is probably much better to be an ordinary director,  when you are an artistic director, you have to think about everybody.

Voice - Why did you take on this extra responsibility of the “artistic” director?

R.  Sturua -It was probably my vanity coming through. Even if I were an ordinary director though, I would still have been asked why I hadn’t engaged such and such an actor. I think there is no such person who is acceptable and wanted by everyone. Take, for instance, the president... Does the president appeal to everybody?

Voice - Is this why they say you are a dictator?

R. Sturua - A director should be a dictator. Not least because he’s building up a structure and nothing must get in his way of doing so. As for the actors, if they offer me something interesting, I’ll forget my own complacency and accept what they propose. Simply, my dictatorship is not to go too far in the quest...

Scene IV

R. Sturua - An actor-director relationship - this is an act of love between both parties involved and which I cannot perform alone.     I must have a response. The other party may offer me something in this act that  I don’t know yet.

Voice - Do you often change partners?

R. Sturua - Just like every normal human being. But doesn’t it sometimes happen that an old love experiences renewal? Explosions do exist, don’t they?...

Voice - And you are making a play which will be a celebration of passion.

R. Sturua - Yes, indeed, something like that.

End of Act I

During the intermission

“You are touchy, aren’t you?”

“No, I don’t think so. This is what actors say.  If I were sulky, I would not be in the theatre. There are moments when I may feel hurt or even angry but this feeling goes away very quickly. The theatre is a place that makes your heart ache sometimes.”

“And you, yourself, do you often make others feelings hurt?”

“Of course, it happens. But in general,  I think I am more patient, more kind. I am probably weak rather than strong.”

“You often say that you keep losing your temper. Yet, what makes you  lose your temper?”

“If someone betrays his own principles...”

“Once you said that you did not like intellectual women...”

“Don’t forget that a stupid woman is also difficult to bear. I think that a woman who conceals her intelligence to her own advantage is very clever.”

Act II
Scene I

“Tartalia - Oh, how much I hate the theatre!

“Pantalone - I lose my mind for the theatre!” (From “Woman-snake”)

Voice - Where are you here?

R. Sturua - I’m in both places.

Voice - What kind of actor are you yourself? Do you play at relationships or not?

R. Sturua - You cannot deceive an artist. He understands everything immediately. In this world it is impossible to play at relationships.     I am not a gifted actor but my experience has taught me to relate a story in such a manner that others will want to listen to it. I can relate with feeling and my ability to  portray an image is well developed but I cannot play “roles” as a professional actor would.

Voice - Is your performance an experiment on the audience?

R. Sturua - If a director happens to forget that he himself is a spectator, the play will die. The play must be understandable to the audience. Theatre is a mystery. For instance, take Macbeth. Where is it? In which space is it kept?... Music, or painting has a material side  - the score and the canvas. Theatre is ephemeral, we are more like knights in this regard...

Voice - Dogmatic religion considers theatre to be a sin, an interference into God’s functions...

R. Sturua - I do not consider theatre to be a sin. We create the essence, thus reminding the audience of ten commandments. If we, the sinners, are playing the roles of the righteous, this does not mean that we do not have the right to do so. In every person the struggle between good and evil goes on. We, the artists, are the most honest people. We cannot hide our faults either on stage or in life as we are permanently in the spotlight of people’s attention. What do you think is more honest - to be visible or hiding?

Scene II

Scene II reminds us that Robert Sturua has always been bold, rebellious, opposed to a particular phenomenon and government, his plays are always prophetic and critical. Yet at the same time, he has always been accepted by this very government, recognized by it and even given privileges by it.

R. Sturua - We have never bowed our heads before the government but I was forgiven things that others were never forgiven, I was granted more rights. I do not know why? Perhaps I deserved it.

Voice - Let’s play with words: “Life is a theatre”, “Life is a dream”, “Theatre is a dream”, what happens when we wake up?

R. Sturua - When a person watches     Richard III (half of the audience is like Richard), he condemns Richard. He goes home after the performance and this emotion lingers with him for a while, this condemnation of what Richard is and then, in the morning, he continues once again his Richard-like way of living, his previous way of life, comes back to him the moment he wakes up. We are unable to change anything, it is not in our power to change a person, we simply remind him (temporarily) of what he has forgotten about.

Scene III

Sentimental Sturua, who has lately indulged in philosophy, thinks that the audience also wants to explain the mystery - to perceive life philosophically. Sturua has also been thinking of what he will do after he leaves the theatre.

R. Sturua - I will write, paint, listen... (and smiling) speak to my own X-es.*

Voice - They say you are a genius...

R. Sturua - (the expression of his face changes, it becomes pale...) I am pleased to hear this but geniuses are in a different category (embarassed, he closes his eyes for some reason, the pose of an ashamed child) I find this idea rather funny.

Voice - Are you annoyed?

R. Sturua - I am, yes!

Voice - (disappears gradually)

(Curtain goes down)

Ketevan  Sadghobelashvili