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A Lesson in History, Artistry, and Heroism By MAHIRA KAKKAR
An announcement posted in the Drama Division last month said that an eminent theater director and actress from the former Soviet republic of Georgia was screening a film at Juilliard. I had seen her around—she has dropped into acting classes and attended one that I was in last year. An imposing woman with tinted glasses, often dressed in black, with several rings on her hands, she exudes strength—and something else that is indefinable. The announcement mentioned that she is a Fulbright scholar. I was intrigued when I learned that the director of the Drama Division, Michael Kahn, had sponsored her application for that scholarship. I decided to try and interview her.
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| A poster for Keti Dolidze’s one-woman play. (Photo by Yuri Mechitov) |
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Her name is Ketevan (Keti) Dolidze. Before the screening, I request an interview. "An interview? Of course, sweetheart," she says, "Shall we go out for coffee?" I have to run to a rehearsal soon, so instead, we go into the sanctum of Michael Kahn's office. She has already touched me with her friendliness, but then she says, "Now tell me, darling, didn't I see you acting in class last year?" She mentions the exact Shakespeare play and scene, saying, "You were very good." I am completely won over.Keti Dolidze doesn't have to be this nice to me—she is, after all, one of Georgia's most celebrated, pioneering artists and anti-war activists, who, according to a poster advertising her one-woman show, has been hailed as one of the 100 heroines of the world. I am merely an acting student interviewing her for The Journal. But, in the long tradition of established theater artists who mentor young actors, Keti is more than willing to share her wealth of experiences.I begin by asking how she got into acting. "My father, Siko Dolidze, was a famous Georgian film director and contributed greatly to the development of Georgian cinema—two or three of his films have been shown at MoMA—and my mother was always involved in improving civil life in Georgia. So, from my childhood I really couldn't do anything else but theater and film."As a young woman, Keti studied English literature at the Tbilisi State University and then joined the Film and Theater Institute in Tbilisi (Georgia's capital), headed by the great director, Michael Tumanishvili, who died in 1996. "He was very much like your Michael Kahn," Keti says. "So I had two tutors, really—my father and Tumanishvili." Keti's brothers too are in the filmmaking profession, "and my children," winks Keti, "also have this 'good poison' in them."And then Keti launches into the true beginning, revealing some of what has shaped her life. "You see, Russia has traditionally been a great country for theater—but so has Georgia, which was known all over the Soviet Union for its art. But until the '60s and '70s we didn't have a chance to go out of the country, so all the genius theater directors are gone forever, and nobody outside knew of them." At the beginning of the 20th century, Georgia had great tragic actors famous for staging and performing translations of Shakespeare. "The Georgian way of life, its character, is very vivid and emotional," she adds. "There is a joke that every Georgian is an actor." Village minstrels (called berikaoba) helped develop the tradition of theater in the country. Directors like Tumanishvili flourished from the '30s to the '60s; two of his students—Robert Sturua and Temur Chkheidze—are world-famous. "Georgia has always been a unique country, spiritually free, and people managed to do films and theater that were dissident and anti-Soviet, even though the Soviet Union tried to crush them."So much of Keti's art and spirit draw from her nation's troubled history. Georgia was absorbed into the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Independent for three years (1918-1921) following the Russian revolution, it was forcibly incorporated into the U.S.S.R. until the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Since then, it has struggled with revolution, civil war, ethnic separation, poor governance, a chaotic financial system, and extreme poverty.Nothing, however, has wiped out the fiercely independent Georgian spirit. "Much of our theater," explains Keti, "reflects what we have been through—about our relationship with Russia, the Big Brother—and it is painful but important to tell these stories. Because the system never worked. It was monstrous. It made everybody unhappy, even the Russians, and there was so much censorship." Tumanishvili's production of Anouil's Antigone, for example, "was as pure as [Sviatoslav] Richter playing Schubert—but because it was recognized as anti-Russian, it was censored."Georgian culture flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries, when King David the Builder and his daughter Queen Tamar established two academies, for science and for art. "Georgian women have always been respected since the time of Tamar. Queens and mothers are legendary in our history."Is her one-woman show, Self-Portrait of My Generation—a play about a mother trying to comprehend how to go on, with her pain and her memories, after her son has been killed in a terrible civil war—a political play? "Of course I have been influenced by my heritage, but it is not allied with a specific political message," Keti says. "But there is a time in one's generation when one has to speak out. The right to speak has been through such changes and destruction in the last 15 years in my country. In the civil war, almost 300,000 people became refugees in their own country. For nearly 10 years, Georgia cried out, and the response was silence from Russia. We were as crushed as the Chechens. You cannot be a refugee for 10 years—you lose hope." As Keti speaks, I recall that she led a battalion of 1,000 women wearing white scarves—symbols of peace—between the front lines of her country's civil wars, in an effort to stop the shooting for at least one day. The last Sunday in September is known as White Scarf Day to commemorate her bravery.In a time when it is difficult to live (let alone make art) in Georgia, she goes forth as a cultural ambassador for her country. "Artists keep hoping, even when everybody else has lost hope," she says. "I am here because other people understand that." She met Michael Kahn in 1990, when a delegation from the Soviet Union was sent to Washington; she was the only representative from Georgia. "Michael was very interested in Georgian theater, and so, six months later we brought Tumanishvili's production of Don Juan and it took D.C. by storm. After that, we kept up our friendship."The Drama Division was honored to host this incredible artist, who was here to establish new connections and see how things are done at Juilliard. "I too head a school," explains Keti, "and the students are with us all day—we are like a big family. It is an unusual atmosphere, but I find that here also. The vision of this school is great—you have great leaders," she says, referring to President Polisi and Michael Kahn. "But mostly we need to get food for our art and rediscover ways of approaching it. My son's generation was lost to the destruction in the streets. This can be seen in his work." Her son's film, screened at Juilliard, draws on Ionesco's works and is about the absurdity of war when one wants to make a difference but can't, and therefore everything seems trivial.My time with her is running to a close, so I pose a question I have been longing to ask, only now I wonder if it is frivolous: What would her advice be to young artists just starting out? She answers, "People may not like this—but I think you have to avoid the celebrity life. Society is obsessed with it, but deep art and perfection in theater is not connected with money and celebrity. Real art is always born in silence, in modesty, in going inside oneself. One has to interpret luxury in a spiritual way—to keep hope alive."We both sit in silence for a few moments, letting that sink in. Then I thank her for her time and her wisdom. Leaving, I realize that I am exhausted. I have received a lesson in history, artistry, survival, cultural exchange, friendship, and heroism. And I realize that this is what makes Keti Dolidze a great and forceful artist—her insistence on connecting with what is important, carrying that with her.Mahira Kakkar is a fourth-year drama student.
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