Gabriadze’s Puppet Theatre set to join top US festival

The director of Georgia’s leading puppet theatre is gearing up to showcase the company at a prestigious performing arts festival in the United States.

Georgian artist, writer and director, Rezo Gabriadze will take the Gabriadze Theatre to America to participate in the Lincoln Centre Festival in New York this summer.

Since 1996, the Lincoln Centre Festival has presented "visionary international programming of dance, music, opera and theatre by artists from more than 30 countries”, noted the festival website.

This will be Gabriadze’s fourth visit to the Festival, after stellar reviews and sold-out performances of The Battle of Stalingradin 2002, 2010 and Autumn of My Springtimein 2002.

In this year’s Festival Gabriadze’s Theatre is the only entrant in the puppetry category. The troupe will perform a piece called Ramona,which tells the tragic tale of two trains in love.

According to the synopsis on the Festival website, Ramonatakes place in the small railway station of Rioni, where the romantic title character, a shunting engine only able to move 300 metres each way, waits for her heroic locomotive Ermon to return from his journey across the railroads of Russia.

The puppetry play will be performed at the Festival from July 27 to August 1.

The play Ramonapremiered in Moscow in November 2011 at The Theater Art Studio.

Though modest in size, the Gabriadze Theater ranked among of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Presenting mature puppet performances full of depth and meaning, it has gained the respect and recognition of international audiences and critics alike.