American Theatre Magazine
March 2006
WASHINGTON, D.C.
GEORGIA ON THEIR MINDS

Experimental theatre? In the nation’s capital? Avant-garde fever, it turns out, burns in the eccentric sensibility of a tiny, shoestring D.C. company whose storytelling is rooted in the dance and mime tradition of Tbilisi.
By all accounts, especially from those who hand out local awards, Synetic Theater mesmerizes. Its cinematic performance style – a visceral swirl of movement and imagery, of lush music and intense physical expression – scales back the word quotient on the classical texts it reinterprets, while turning up the sensory dials. The troupe’s husband-and-wife team of immigrant founders, Paata and irna Tsikurishvili (Zee-koor-ish-VEE-lee) have sexed up Oscar Wilde’s Salome, exposed the demonic core of Dracula, relayed The Master and Margarita into a landscape of supernatural gesture, and rendered Hamlet well-nigh wordless.

The Tsikurishvilis concoct such vivid stage poetry that Theater J asked Synetic to re-envision S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, that monument of Yiddish-theatre mysticism. Their co-production, running through March 19, is adapted by Hannah Hessel and Paata Tsikurishvili. Leah’s arranged marriage to a wealthy man drives her penniless suitor, Chonnon, to misuse the Kabbalah, die instantly and then gain possession of Leah’s body in the form of a dybbuk (a wandering soul). Says Hessel: “This version brings Ansky’s story to a new level. It takes the traditional religious world and shows you the mystical and emotional elements – how it all comes together and how it all blows apart.” Synetic’s 15-member company is choreographed by Irina, who plays Leah. The Georgian setting varies greatly from Belarus, where Ansky collected fragments of Jewish folklore. “Georgian Jewish culture is almost unknown in America,” says Paata. “Georgian folk music is unified with Jewish music and rhythms.”

Already Synetic has hacked away at Chonnon’s Kabbalah scenes. “The performers hold up shields of Hebrew letters and numbers, objects running at him and pushing him down,” says Hessel. “The exorcism, which in the original is quite long and has a lot of back and forth between the dybbuk inside Leah and the rabbi, has been drastically cut down to a few essentials.”

– Randy Gener