Kote Marjanishvili

Early life

Marjanishvili was born on 9 June [O.S. 28 May] 1872 in Kvareli, Tiflis Governorate (present-day Georgia) to Aleksandre Marjanishvili (died 1876), a lieutenant colonel in Imperial Russian Army and translator. Marjanishvili was the younger brother of Tamar Marjanishvili, a nun and later saint.

Educated at Tbilisi First Gymnasium, Marjanishvili developed an interest in theatre and participated in school plays.

Early career

In 1894, Marjanishvili joined the Kutaisi Theatre, then directed by Kote Meskhi, where he made his acting debut. He worked for Russian provincial theaters as an actor, then as a director, until he established himself in the Moscow Nezlobin troupe in 1906 and later co-founded the Georgian Drama Studio with Alexander Yuzhin. He quickly gained a reputation as one of the most talented followers of the well-known Russian actor and theater director Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938). As a director, Marjanishvili’s main technique was to guide the actor in finding an instinctive path to realizing "outer truth". In 1910, his versatility was recognized by Stanislavsky himself who invited him at the same time as Edward Gordon Craig to open up the repertoire and production techniques of the Moscow Art Theatre. There he staged works by Knut Hamsun and Henrik Ibsen and assistant-directed the Nemirovich-Danchenko Brothers Karamazov (1910) and the Craig Hamlet (1911). Fascinated by Craig’s stylized manner of using puppets, Marjanishvili temporarily returned to Georgia to stage Oedipus Rex in a similar spirit. In 1913, he broke with Stanislavsky due to his left-wing sympathies and his interest in decadence, and organized the eclectic "Free Theater", where he staged opera, operetta, drama and pantomime. The enterprise, notable for its ties with the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and the singer Feodor Chaliapin, and for its Georgian-type choreography, was rendered abortive in a year due largely to financial problems. He then moved to Rostov-on-Don, where he directed the local theater from 1914 to 1915.