ფრანგული თეატრით შთაგონებული ქართული პიესები (ადაპტაცია 1880 –1920 წლების ქართულ დრამატურგიაში)

აბსტრაქტი

სტატიიდან აღებული ავტორის ინგლისურენოვანი რეზიუმე:

Key words: Georgian and French comedy, vaudeville and drama, adaptation, cross- cultural relations, the 19th c., V.

Gunia, Av. Tsagareli, Ak.Tsereteli, Sh. Dadiani. In the 19th c. translation of plays by European playwrights and their inclusion in the repertoire of the Georgian theatre was regarded as one of the significant directions, as this was a useful process of mutual acquaintance and exchange of values. “Translated literature is a treasure for intellectual progress and success of every people”, – well-known Georgian publicist and literary critic Petre Umikashvili noted, – “We partake of the suc- cess of the intellect of the world, its intellectual life, we adopt its education, partake of and sympathize with its joy and pain”. The viewpoint of Ilia Chavchavadze, Akaki Tsereteli, Valerian Gunia and others Georgian writers of that period concerning translations and adapted works are in full har- mony with the modern criteria, such as: the translator’s creative talent, a good command of both languages and maximum approximation of the translation with the original.

Ac- cording to Valerian Gunia, adaptation of other authors’ works is an even more difficult process and, in addition to the above-mentioned the qualities, the author of an adaptation “must have the knowledge of life and human beings, sense of moderation, critical mind and aesthetical taste, he must study the laws of the stage and art of drama. Adaptation of a play is the same as writing of a play; often it is easier to compose a new play than to adapt a play in a proper and artistic manner.” Valerian Gunia demanded from Georgian theatrical critics their high professional- ism. As regards the theory of dramatic and stage art, he supported the use of existing Euro- pean theories.

His viewpoint concerning the attitude of criticism to a playwright and actor retains its urgency to the present day: “In our view, criticism should treat the playwright and artist so that not to defame him and not to enrage him with pain, to make him feel his flaws and errors simply and clearly and to indicate the good and the bad and not only by empty words, but also by examples. …Bias, partiality and assessment with a preliminary intention are rust of criticism. No matter how talented criticism is, if it is stained with such rust, its action is vain and shameful. The power of criticism is in the truth and it must struggle only for the truth.” From the second half of the 19th c.

the Georgian theatre, in close cooperation with the Georgian playwrights, included in its repertoire not only Georgian works, but also plays translated and adapted from the European languages, especially French. The Georgian theatre shared the aspiration of the European and in particular the French theatre towards the substitution of the Classicist and Romanticist direction by works reflecting the social and political environment. The new French theatrical aesthetics found its echoes in Georgian dramaturgy and theatre. Along with the halls adorned with large decorations and improved theatrical equip- ment, this implied creation of synthetic art by means of merging words, music, painting and dancing.

According to the taste of the public, Classical tragedy and Romanticist drama were replaced by melodramas and vaudevilles, the development of which was followed by character comedies of Scribe and Labiche. At the end of the 1850s and in the 1860s, social comedy and drama came into existence, combining sentimental intrigue, political ideas and social doctrines (Émile Augier, Alexandre Dumas fils, Victorien Sardou). At the same time, authors of the genre of operetta (Hector Crémieux, Offenbach, Henri Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy) by means of the wide use of parody fought against backwardness of any kind and obsolete forms. On the basis of the archival materials, the Georgian plays created by Georgian authors in 1880-1920 by adaptation of the works of French playwrights – Labiche and Ed- mond Gondinet, Clairville and Lambert Thiboust, Émile de Najac and Alfred Hennequin, Jacques Offenbach, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy (Molière is an exception, as his comedies are translated in almost in all periods), Lucien Arnault, Alphonse Daudet and Er- nest Manuel L’Epine, François Coppée and Maurice Maeterlinck were studied.

These are: historical drama Two Heroes (V.Gunia), vaudeville The Only Child (V.Gunia), comedy Every Man for Himself (An.Tsereteli), comedy The Impostures of Scapin (Ak.Tsereteli), vaudeville The Vulnerable Side (D.Meskhi), comedy Bouquet (Al.Kutateladze), comedy Iris (Sh.Dadiani), historical drama Motherland (D.Eristavi), comedy-farce Seekers of Fair Helen (Av.Tsagareli), historical drama The Georgian Mother (Av.Tsagareli), historical drama Murad Pasha (unknown author). Noteworthy enough, the identity of some French authors and titles of plays were ascertained, the reviewer’s pen name was also deciphered. One-act vaudeville La Corde Sensible (Heartstring) by Clairville and Lambert- Thiboust was staged for the first time at Paris Vaudeville Theatre in 1851, its text was published in the same year.

This play was adapted in the Georgian manner by David Meskhi in 1900 (The Vulnerable Side, vaudeville in one act, 16 pages, 1900, adapted by D.Meskhi, collection 480, 1, 1650). In the Georgian version of this vaudeville, based on a love intrigue, the main characters – two girls and two boys are the Georgians, the French realia are also replaced by Georgian – canary birds – by favourite birds of the Georgians, swallows, the monster – by veshapi (dragon), French money, 1733 livres – by three hun- dred and seven and a half roubles. Nevertheless, the pattern of the French play, the motifs of love flirting are mostly preserved; the characters in the Georgian version, as in the French original, are seeking the way to win a woman’s heart and are guided by the idea that they must find the woman’s “vulnerable side”, something which is most desirable for her, whereas according to the French text, they must find and touch the heartstring which represents the key to a woman’s heart.

The White Carnation, comedy in one act, by Alphonse Daudet and Ernest Manuel L’Epine, first staged at Comédie-Française in Paris on April 8, 1865, is based on one epi- sode of the history of France, namely, the situation of the Great Bourgeois Revolution, the spiritual state of the various strata of the population. In the French play, action takes place during the period of the Great French Revo- lution, in 1793, in the chateau of Saint-Waast, Normandy, situated on the seaside. The plot is based on the attitude of immigrant French aristocrats and French workers towards each other (a member of the Convention, his daughter and an immigrant young marquis).

Sh. Dadiani adapted this comedy in the Georgian manner: the action takes place in Georgia, in particular, in Guria, Shekvetili, in the garden of the Jaqelis’ Palace. The char- acters are the Georgians – Sio Shalikashvili, son of the chief, Ketevan, daughter of chief Gitul, servant Zalika, Eka, on the orders of whom immigrant Sio has arrived in Georgia illegally. He must deliver to Eka (daughter of the immigrant chief) a white iris grown on the Georgian soil. In other respect, the story develops as that in the French text, here too the action takes place in a historically distant period, and the characters are the Georgians, who have immigrated to a Muslim country and are banned from entering their motherland.

Eka misses her motherland as much as the French countess. Sh.Dadiani replaced the white carnation by a white iris, but both in the French and the Georgian plays, the forcibly re- settled characters are eager to return to their motherland. The plays selected by Georgian writers and the manner of the adaptation, their Georgian stage versions allow us to evaluate the peculiarity and significance of the Geor- gian-French cultural dialogue. These French plays drew a wide response in Europe, at the same time being in tune with the problems and mood of the Georgian public, here the Georgian customs and traditions, amorous and family relations as well as significant moments from the historical past are demonstrated with respect to their European counter- parts.

The elevated merry mood, based on remarkable quick-wittedness, characteristic of French comedy, was introduced into Georgian dramaturgy, which undoubtedly is close to the Georgian character. All this facilitated lifting the mood of the spectators and increasing their vital energy. The analysis of the adapted historical dramas shows that Georgian writers always related the dramatic moments of the history of various countries with the history of Geor- gia and resorted to them in order to arouse national feelings in the public.

გამოქვეყნებულია ჟურნალში „სჯანი“, ტ. 20/2 (2019), გვ. 95–115. ნაშრომის გახსნა