Royal District Theatre brings critically acclaimed shows to Liege Festival audience

Tbilisi’s Royal District Theatre was among innovative stage troupes and artist groups from around the world entertaining theatre fans at the Liege Festival of Stage Art in Belgium concluding this Saturday.

Bringing two of their most-known recent productions to the festival in the country’s east, the company joined the likes of musical artists Franck Vigroux and Yannick Franck as well as troupes including La Tristura from Madrid and the local Greta Koetz Collective.

Organisers for the festival — a major local event held since 1958 — said they had built their theme in response to the tumultuous socio-political events around the world over the recent years.

[I]t seems to us imperative to transgress our own borders, to meet the other and the others, to open oneself to the world, to its cultures, to its languages, to cross foreign glances, to engage in uncertain paths and unknown territories,” they said in presenting their concept for the edition.

Responding to the subject, the Royal District Theatre travelled to  Liege with Women of Troy and Prometheus. 25 Years of Independence, two stagings by Georgia’s most prominent young director Data Tavadze.

Built with humanist and political messages running through them, the productions have been presented by the group over the recent years in European locations from Berlin to Gdansk, to critical acclaim.

The former show was praised as "stunningly beautiful” by performing arts review website Plays to See, after the dramatic staging hosted theatre-goers at the Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre in 2015.

Data Tavadze tells the story of five Georgian women, from the nineties to today, talking about their lives during the war.

More than a show, Women of Troy is an eminently political, deeply poetic gesture,” was the festival’s summary for the production.

Meanwhile Prometheus, the other work of the company’s repertory for the festival, asks “can the biography of one person tell the ‘story’ of an entire country?”.

The 2016-premiered show sees the involved actors cast in an exploration of Georgia’s modern statehood, with the 25th anniversary of its independence marked in the year when the work was produced.

Prometheus opened the Royal District Theatre’s performances in Liege between 15-16 February, before Women of Troy took over in the programme.

Before the performances were presented in Liege, Tavadze was also involved in the premiere of Intrigue and Love, his newest creation, at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden in Germany.

A winner of the Fast Forward European Festival for Young Stage Directors, the young theatre professional led the premiere for the Friedrich Schiller play at the venue on 9 February.

The Royal District Theatre is returning to Georgia as the Liege festival comes to a close this Saturday.