During the Easter weekend, a packed audience watched the beguiling and mesmerizing puppets in Rezo Gabriadze’s The Battle of Stalingrad. The actual Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 – February 1943) is recognized by historians as a turning point in World War II at which more than a million lives were lost. So the play is no Easter picnic for children. It’s a well-crafted depiction of loss, love, lies, fate, anguish, and despair.
Since it debut in 2002, and international performances throughout the years, the Georgian play has achieved critical acclaim not only for its character portrayal of the tragic, the comic, and the absurd, but also its visual depiction of war. This is not surprising given the talent of the production team. Master marionettist, Rezo Gabriadze, now in his 70s, is the writer, artistic director, puppet designer, costume designer, and music co-director (with Elene Japaridze). The puppets, crafted by Shmagi Savaneli, Luka Gonashvili and Vladimer Meltser are an intriguing combination of marionettes (string puppets), gignoles (latex characters), shadow puppets, and stick figures. Five animators bring them amazingly to life: Vladimer Meltser, Tamar Amirejibi, Badri Gvazava, Irakli Sharashidze, and Ana Nijaradze. Just as memorable are the lighting (by Mamuka Bakradze) and sound (by Zurab Nadaraia), which are spectacular, effective, and atmospheric. Red glows of gun fire; the rat-tat-tat and pinging of rifle shots, and the aeroplane fragmenting in mid-air.
The Battle of Stalingrad is not war theatre. On the contrary, it is an anti-war story.
The 90-minute play (without intermission) is presented in a series of dialogues which fully fleshes out the play’s characters: the love story of two horses; the hopes of a painter in a Berlin café; the obsessions of a girl-watching Ukrainian philosopher intrigued with the amperes and voltages of electricity; the anguish of the red-headed army gunner whose fiancé marries another; the re-assurances of a young soldier dying in hospital while writing letters to his family that he is fine and healthy; and the mother ant’s despair over the loss of her daughter.
The most poignant scenes come from the young gunner. He is drafted into the army and experiences devastating anguish when his fiancé leaves him to marry a more settled man. And despite the gunner’s medal for valour, he is shot dead. But there are many such poignant passages, such as the opening scene with the face emerging from the sand only to relapse into the fine grains in skeletal form. And the striking procession of helmets, regiment after regiment, depicting the marching German army.
The audience can easily empathize with all characters, so superbly emoted and acted by masterful marionettes.
War is a fascinating subject. Despite the dubious morality of using violence to achieve personal or political aims. It remains that conflict has been used to do just that throughout recorded history.
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