First Midnight Performance Held in Georgia
On October 13-14, 01:35 AM, the first +18 Midnight Performance “Fallen in Love After Death” was held in Tbilisi, at Nodar Dumbadze State Youth Theater.
Previously, the play has been successfully performed at Nodar Dumbadze State Youth Theater for the two theatrical seasons already.
This year, the new season was opened in an unusual way, with the +18 midnight performance.
It is noteworthy that there is no midnight theater in Georgia and it was the first precedent.
Being 18 years older was the main condition for attending the performance. The attendees of the performance had to purchase the tickets in advance, as the cashboxes did not work at midnight.
The author of the play is Avgust Edemonis. It is a kind of a hard psychological drama. The fact that the play was intended for a high age segment is first of all conditioned by its hard psychological storyline, not by the intimate scenes of the performance, what can be called “playing with the subconscious”.
The psychological drama “Fallen in Love After Death” is a story about the Georgian woman, whose husband, a soldier serving at the state border, is killed by a Russian senior official. The woman searches for the murderer in Russia, finds him and starts an unprecedented revenge by trying to tempt him.
According to the director of the play, Natia Sokurashvili, who also performs the main female role, the performance is based not on the theatrical, but cinematic principles, what itself “violates” the usual rules of the theater and that is the main reason why it becomes more interesting and intriguing for the spectators.
„We wanted the performance to be experimental and innovative, so we added the footages and movie effects to it. Additionally, we tried to act as naturally on the stage as we did in front of the cameras. We did not want the performance to be excessively theatrical. My character is a woman who has been hurt by life. But, if you do not have some hard psychological traumas in your life, then you might not be able to do the things she does,” she said.
As for the character of the Russian senior official, he constantly tries to overcome the psychological obstacles during the performance.
“The play contains the messages about the war and Georgian-Russian relations, but not in the global aspect. This performance depicts the story of the one ’s individual tragedy. It shows how terrible the politics can be,” said actor Giorgi Iaradjuli, a performer of the Russian senior official’s role.
The play is based on the Russian-Georgian relations. The Russian characters are the examples of the standard and stereotypical Russian thinking. In the performance, they are presented as the alcoholics and street musicians.
„My character is a subordinate officer of the Russian senior official. He would do anything, even very bad things, for the sake of his boss, as he is a very obedient person,” said actor Irakli Managadze, who plays the role of the Russian policeman.
The performance was received warmly by the audience and received positive feedback.
The first midnight theater in Georgia is a part of the initiative of the Tbilisi Night Economy Development Project initiated by the Georgian government in 2018.
The sponsor of the first midnight performance in Georgia was Teliani Valley.
The first midnight performance had a great feedback among the members of Georgian society. All the tickets were sold in advance. “Fallen in Love After Death” will be performed again in the coming months.