The Battle of Stalingrad
Opening Night: July 20, 2010
Closing: July 25, 2010
Theater: Clark Studio Theater
The Battle of Stalingrad, told in miniature and understatement while dramatizing the 900-day Nazi siege of Stalingrad, is a poignant blend of puppetry, art, cinema, poetry, and drama. Performed to a soundtrack created by Gabriadze, The Battle of Stalingrad–part personal reflection, part political commentary on recent events, part universal lament over the destruction and absurdities of war–tells the story of the city’s near destruction during World War II.
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July 22, 2010
War buffs who can settle down in front of the History channel for marathon viewings are decidedly not the audience for “The Battle of Stalingrad,” the puppet-theater piece by the Georgian writer and director Rezo Gabriadze that returns to the Lincoln Center Festival this year after first being presented in 2002. (It replaces a new show of his that was not completed in time for the run.) In spite of its documentary-worthy title, Mr. Gabriadze’s play is not a straightforward dramatization of that monumental and bloody battle but a quirky theatrical poem on the vagaries of life itself.
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July 22, 2010
In the opening image of "The Battle of Stalingrad," the puppet-theater piece by Georgian writer-director Rezo Gabriadze, now in a return engagement at Lincoln Center Festival 2010, a peaceful, melancholy face emerges from a mound of sand, followed somewhat delicately by its corpselike body. The ghost methodically recovers tokens—a flag, a helmet, a cross, a star—and presents them to us before returning to a seemingly endless slumber. This brief but memorable scene anticipates the structure of the 90-minute performance to follow. From the sands of a forgotten history, half-remembered stories and dreamlike fantasies vanish as quickly as they appear, leaving behind the awesome responsibility of remembering.
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