Robert Sturua
Encyclopedia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
theater director, who gained international acclaim for his original interpretation of the works of Brecht, Shakespeare, Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
. He was based at the Shota Rustaveli Dramatic Theater
Rustaveli Theatre
Rustaveli National Theatre also referred to as Rustaveli State Drama Theatre, is found in Tbilisi, Georgia. The theatre is conveniently located at 17 Rustaveli Avenue, one of the main streets in Tbilisi...
in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, and has staged productions throghout the world.
Biography
Robert Sturua was born into an artistic family. His father, Robert Sturua was a notable painter, whose works are part of the permanent exposition at the Tbilisi Art Museum. Mr Sturua is married to Dudana Kveselava, an art historian and an artist in her own right and daughetr of Mikhail Kveselava, an accomplished philologist, writer and philosopher, who served as a translator at the Nuremberg trialsNuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
.
Mr Sturua studied under Mikhail Tumanishvili at the Tbilisi State Theater Institute. Graduating in 1961, he began his career at the Shota Rustaveli Theater, where he became principal director in 1979 and principal artistic director in 1982.
Robert Sturua's first success came with staging of The Trial of Salem by Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
in 1965 (original title: The Crucibles). Later, Sturua mounted spectacular, offbeat productions of The Caucasian Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a better mother than its natural parents....
by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
(1975), Richard III
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
(London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, 1979–80) and King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
(New York, 1990), starring comic actor Ramaz Chkhikvadze
Ramaz Chkhikvadze
Ramaz Chkhikvadze was a Georgian film and theater actor. First appearing in the 1954 film "The Dragonfly" , he starred in over 60 films during his career....
. Starting with interpretations of Richard III and King Lear, Sturua became known as paradoxical interpreter of Shakespeare’s theater. Out of 37 Shakespeare plays, Sturua has staged 17; 5 of which at Rustaveli. Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
(1986) was staged for the Riverside Studio in London with Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman is an English actor and theatre director. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company...
as Hamlet, and was hailed as one of ten best Shakespearian productions of the last 50 years by Shakespeare International Association.
In the 1990s, Sturua's productions turned to the inner world. Works included Life is a Dream by Calderón
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest...
(1992), The Good Person of Szechwan
The Good Person of Szechwan
The Good Person of Szechwan is a play written by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau. The play was begun in 1938 but not completed until 1943, while the author was in exile in the United States...
by Brecht (1993), Gospel According to Jacob (1995, based on the Georgian ABC Book by Iakob Gogebashvili
Iakob Gogebashvili
Iakob Gogebashvili was a Georgian educator, children’s writer and journalist, considered to be the founder of the scientific pedagogy in Georgia...
), Lamara by Grigol Robakidze
Grigol Robakidze
Grigol Robakidze was a Georgian writer, publicist, and public figure primarily known for his exotic prose and anti-Soviet émigré activities....
(1996). And in the new millennium, Robert Sturua’s dialogue with the audience acquired an even more philosophical tone and focused more on thoughts of eternity, and on the fine line between life and death. The metaphorical language of more recent interpretations is palpably more poetic and include the fantasy Styx, inspired by the music of Giya Kancheli
Giya Kancheli
Giya Kancheli , born 10 August 1935, in Tbilisi, is a Georgian composer resident in Belgium.Since 1991, Kancheli has lived in Western Europe: first in Berlin, and since 1995 in Antwerp, where he is composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic....
(2002); two new versions of Hamlet staged in Tbilisi (2001, 2006); and Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
by Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
(2002).
Robert Sturua’s creative world is rich and diverse. His productions harmonize the tragic and the comical, political farce and melodrama, classical comedy and philosophy, where extreme rationalism can echo the grotesque colored by sarcasm. The director manages the stage and the audience with elegance and ease, and his imagination clearly dominates the melody and rhythm of his plays.
Dismissal
In AugustAugust
August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with a length of 31 days.This month was originally named Sextilis in Latin, because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, when March was the first...
, 2011, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
's culture minister Nika Rurua
Nika Rurua
Nikoloz "Nika" Rurua is a Georgian politician, and a member of the Cabinet of Georgia in the capacity of Minister of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia, appointed on December 10, 2008....
dismissed Robert Sturua as head of the Tbilisi national theatre for "xenophobic" comments he made earlier this year, officials reported.
"We are not going to finance xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
. Georgia is a multicultural country," Rurua said.
Sturua said in an interview with local news agency that "Saakashvili doesn't know what Georgian people need because he is Armenian." "I do not want Georgia to be governed by a representative of a different ethnicity," he added.
However, Robert Sturua later declared and explained that he did not mean disrespect to any ethnic group. "I want to speak about racism, of which I was accused. I just said I did not want to have a non-Georgian president. This is not disrespectful towards Armenians. If Armenians say they want a non-Armenian president, or Russians say they dream about a Georgian one, I will apologize." he said.