Synetic Theater Stages a Reaction To Georgia War

"Our weapon is art," Kavsadze says. "The theater, the stage."

The ferocious "Host and Guest," based on a Georgian epic poem, tells of a chance forest encounter between a pair of hunters who ordinarily would have been antagonists: Joqola is from a Muslim village and Zviadauri is from a Christian one. Their enmity, however, is trumped in Joqola's mind by the ingrained mountain custom of respect for a visitor. It turns out that Joqola feels more strongly about honoring the tradition than do his neighbors, for his village is inflamed after the unshakable Joqola invites the Christian to stay for the night. The aftershocks spatter blood everywhere.

Changing plays meant upending lives. Six "Caligari" actors for whom there were no corresponding roles had to be let go last week, and six others had to be recruited for the 14-member cast. The Tsikurishvilis put in calls to "Host and Guest" veterans who'd been in previous productions -- several years ago, Synetic took the show to Philadelphia and New York -- and the condition of old, stowed-away sets had to be assessed.

"He called me and I said, 'Paata, if you want me to do the show, I'll do it,' ' says Ben Cunis, who had planned to take a breather from acting after two consecutive, grueling roles, in Synetic's "Romeo and Juliet" (he was Romeo) and "Carmen." He was quickly cast as Zviadauri, the role that Kavsadze played in the original 2002 production. Istrate was one of those held over from "Caligari," and he will now play Joqola, a part that Paata Tsikurishvili originated. (The Tsikurishvilis tried to entice their own son, Vato, into the show, but he's busy in football practice for Churchill High School in Potomac.)

Over the weekend, the actors gathered in a mirrored rehearsal room, nestled amid the restaurants on the main street of the Village at Shirlington, to start to learn the stylized movements of "Host and Guest." Irina Tsikurishvili, returning to her role as Joqola's wife, Aghaza, is also the production's choreographer, and she was busy drilling the young actors, who were holding long wooden dowels for one of the show's signature scenes, in which they portray undulating trees in the harsh landscape.

The advantage to performing "Host and Guest" this time around, the Tsikurishvilis say with ironic little laughs, is that the non-Georgians who come to see it will know without explanation that its subject is a Georgia far from Macon and Savannah. For a young American actor such as Cunis, though, the piece offers a more intimate sort of primer on seemingly inexplicable types of barbarism.

"It's about the uselessness of violence, about how regional and ethnic hatred is really a useless gesture," he observes. "It's saying, 'Remember, people do this to each other.' "