A Play's Special Interest Group

The liquid is used as a prop to help make smoke and bubbles in the doctor's laboratory. Istrate was only supposed to mime pouring it onto the Creature's face. Kavsadze's eyes stung like mad, but there was no harm.

Istrate cites the aftermath to the incident as typical of the closeness of the Synetic company: Though Kavsadze was the injured party, Istrate says the actor "comes back to me after an hour to see if I am okay."

That closeness, according to the two actors and Artistic Director Paata Tsikurishvili, has artistic as well as collegial significance.

The director says the troupe is so well trained in his physical style of performance that he and the actors got this show ready in two months. Previous Synetic productions took three or four. Still, it was nearly twice as long as most Washington theater companies rehearse.

Kavsadze, a longtime lead actor with Synetic, says the key to this is a kind of partnership, though "partnership [does] not necessarily mean being on the stage together. . . . Even if you're not looking at your partner, he's understanding you."

Adds the Romanian-born Istrate, who gets tossed around by Kavsadze more and more as the play's tragedy unfolds and the Creature grows angry: "It's like a dialogue that has to show physically."

Rehearsals with Tsikurishvili and his choreographer-actress wife, Irina, begin with hours of warm-ups and improvisation he calls "messing-around time."

The director says he and his actors approach characters and their psychology similarly to other companies -- at first.

"We try to dig it out, like other theaters, and then it's transformed" into the physical. Yet it is never merely physical, adds Tsikurishvili. "If actors are only doing physical, without emotion, nobody's going to buy it. It's high acting, really."

And when the director or choreographer ask for changes, the company has a shorthand now in the way everyone communicates. "We have to understand in seconds -- it goes in your brain: Okay, she wants this, " says Kavsadze.

"A lot of times, we don't even know where Paata's going to take it. . . . It's a matter of trust," says Istrate.

Follow Spot

· Catalyst Theater will present New York-based actor Tim Flynn in "A Night in November," by Irish dramatist Marie Jones, for two pay-what-you-can benefit performances Saturday and Monday at 7:30 at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 Seventh St. SE. The solo piece is about a man who attends a soccer match between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Visit http://www.catalysttheater.org .

· Didactic Theatre Company will present "Orange Flower Water" Oct. 19-Nov. 12 at District of Columbia Arts Center. The play about friendship, marriage and betrayal is by Craig Wright ("Grace," "Melissa Arctic," TV's "Six Feet Under"). Patrick Crowley will direct. Call 202-249-0782 or visit http://www.didactictheatre.com .