“The Eccentrics”

“The Eccentrics”

Directed by Leo Gabriadze

Set Design: Rezo Gabriadze

Costume Design: Rezo Gabriadze

Composer/Musical Arrangement: Leo Gabriadze

Duration: 90 minutes (without intermission)

Genre: comedy

 

Voice Actors:

 Ertaozi — Nika Paikrize

Kristepore — Amiran Amiranashvili

Margarita / Chicken — Rusudan Bolkvadze

Khuta — Zaza Papuashvili

Noshrevani — Imeri Kavsadze

Mizana — Merab Shariqadze

Priest — Gia Abesalashvili

Trifoni — Davit Dvalishvili

Host / Presenter — Ramaz Ioseliani

Sirbiladze — Jano Izoria

Telegraph Operator — Sandro Skhirtladze

Krishobela — Aleko Begalishvili

Orderly — Lasha Gurgenidze

Kakhetian — Mamuka Mumladze

Animators: Tamar Amirajibi, Natia Demetrashvili, Irakli Sharashidze, Mikheil Barnovi, Imeda Guliashvili, Beno Jijiiashvili, Badri Gvazava, Giorgi Giorgobiani, Medea Bliadze, Nino Migriuli, Tamar Kobakhidze, Mariam Ikoshvili.

 

About “The Eccentrics” is a story of love, debts, and the second law of thermodynamics. One of Rezo Gabriadze's most celebrated works, this parable is filled with music and humor, following the adventures of Ertaoz, a naïve village boy who sets out into the wide world in search of his destiny.

Along his journey, Ertaoz must overcome many trials. He even ends up in prison, where he crosses paths with an elderly scientist locked away due to an ill-fated love affair. Unexpectedly, Ertaoz receives a full academic education behind bars. Together, the young boy and the old scientist conceive a plan to build the world's first flying machine—a vessel to help them rise above earthly existence and attain ultimate freedom.

This piece is the absolute quintessence of Gabriadze's world: poetic, ironic, deeply human, and suffused with a rare, delicate lyricism. An "eccentric," in this world, is anyone who stubbornly believes in their unconventional ideas despite society's disapproval. Their contemporaries may have laughed at them, but history has shown that it is precisely these dreamers who change the world for the better.

“‘The Eccentrics’ is a story of love, debts, and the second law of thermodynamics. Love and debts are perhaps clear enough. As for the law of thermodynamics: the final formula our heroes devise is also known as the law of entropy, signifying the cessation of struggle, the attainment of peace, and transcendence. In other words, Ertaoz and Christopher are freed from every earthly burden—from ill-fated love, from debts, from prison—and passing through the madhouse, they soar into the sky.” — Leo Gabriadze

 

 

Press

"The final episode is one of the most striking—a reflection of uninhibited artistic imagination and the absolute freedom of fantasy. We see a flying machine, assembled from the basic structure of a wooden cart and some tattered fabric, soaring high over Georgia. We follow its flight trajectory, its route, and its texture as seen from a bird's-eye view of the world. And finally, the fluttering of two small figures in space serves as a vivid, eloquent, and breathtakingly beautiful metaphor for ascension and true freedom." — Lela Ochiauri, www.theaterlife.ge

"Gabriadze’s eccentrics build impossible machines because reality without impossible dreams becomes spiritually uninhabitable. Their flight therefore matters less as a physical escape than as a form of metaphysical resistance.

The performance leaves the audience with a strange and painful realization: perhaps civilization survives only because a few ridiculous, naïve, and impractical people continue believing that another sky remains possible. In a contemporary culture exhausted by cynicism, optimization, and permanent anxiety, that belief suddenly feels revolutionary. In that sense, Leo Gabriadze’s premiere accomplishes something exceedingly rare: it does not merely preserve the Gabriadze legacy. It proves that the legacy can still fly." — Theatrical Review

 Ivan Nechaev www.georgiatoday.ge