Moliere’s Dom Juan in 45 Minutes on Movement Theater Stage
REVIEW
The Movement Theater offers performances based on the art of body and mimics to the audience, thus abolishing all kinds of language barrier. They act wordlessly. GEORGIA TODAY attended the premiere of Moliere’s ‘Don Juan’, staged by Kakha Bakuradze, the main director and artistic head of the Theater, which took place on April 1-2.
Dom Juan or The Feast with the Statue (French: Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre) is a French play, a comedy in five acts, written by Jean Baptiste Moliere, and based on the legend of Don Juan. The title of Molière’s play is also commonly expressed as Dom Juan, a spelling that began in the seventeenth century. Molière's characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterparts to the Spanish Don Juan and Catalinón, characters who are also found in Mozart's Italian opera Don Giovanni as Don Giovanni and Leporello. Dom Juan is the last part in Molière's hypocritical trilogy, which also includes The School for Wives, and Tartuffe.
The play, first performed on 15 February 1665 in the Theatre du Palais-Royal, with Molière playing the role of Sganarelle, was originally written in prose, and was withdrawn after only one performance after attacks by Molière's critics, who thought he was offending religion and the king by eulogizing a libertine. The play was a costly failure. Sganarelle, Dom Juan's valet, is the only character who speaks up for religion, but his particular brand of superstitious Catholicism is used more as a comic device than as a foil to his master's free-thinking. As a result, Molière was ordered to delete a certain number of scenes and lines which, according to his censors, made a mockery of their faith.
The play was published in a heavily censored version for the first time in 1682. It was part of an eight-volume edition, edited by La Grange and Vivot that contained almost all of Molière's plays. The parts of Dom Juan that offended the censors were pasted over with strips of paper glued into almost all of the copies. Nearly a century and a half later, in 1813, a full and restored text was published in France. And then in 1847, the play was added to the repertoire of the Comédie-Française. In the twentieth century, the play is performed often and has garnered great critical attention and admiration. An uncensored version appeared in Amsterdam in 1683.
The play depicts the last two days in the life of a young courtier, Dom Juan Tenorio, a libertine, a seducer of women, and an atheist. The unrepentant Dom Juan will not escape the vengeance of Heaven, and he is ultimately punished. In Bakuradze’s staging, it is really full of humor, featuring an abrupt tragic ending with the commander’s death.
The performance is in three dimensions with a cast of youngsters boasting overwhelming energy. The scenery of the performance is minimalistic, whilst the music is essential, very cheerful and light. “I decided to choose such parts of the play where words are not important, and to retell the play by means of movement. We have a small band at the theater and we try to adorn all performances with live music,” Bakuradze told us.
The decoration of the building and its location in one of the biggest parks of Tbilisi, where a lot of Georgians have spent their childhood, encourages people to go, have a walk before the show, and then penetrate the cozy atmosphere of the theater. On entering, one feels young and playful.
Sandro Nikoladze, composer, says that they work in a group and the music is born together with the performance. “The idea is the turning point for us. The actors work and give birth to characters, as I compose the music. Everything is born synchronically in order to fit. We also dub live”.
GEORGIA TODAY also talked to Misha Zakaidze, playing the part of a commander, an actor meriting positive appraisal and a storm of applause from the audience in the final scene, when he dies and still continues to struggle with a sword. This moment is imposing to watch; real tragic comedy, maintaining Moliere’s spirit. “I have many things in common with my character. He, like me, is calm, balanced and honorable. Though, in our particular version, he is a little bit modified.”
In September, the Movement Theater plans to stage Shakespeare’s drama, though the director ha yet to reveal which.
WHERE: Mushtaidi Park, near Tsereteli Avenue
TICKETS: Available on biletebi.ge
Maka Lomadze