Marjanishvili Konstantine

Marjanishvili Konstantine (Kote) (1872-1933), Theater director, born in Kvareli vil lage in Georgia. In 1897 he moved toRussia and took up an acting career at the theaters of Elisavetgrad, Kerch, Tashkent, Tula, Vyatka and other cities and towns. In the season of 1900-01 in Vyatka K. Marjanishvili staged Uncle Vanya by A. Chekhov. Starting from 1904, he worked as a theater director. In the seasons of 1904-05 and 1905-06 he directed plays at K. Nezlobin’s Dramatic Company in Riga, where he staged Summerfolk by M. Gorki. He worked as a director at the dramatic theaters in Kharkov (1906-1907), Kiev (1907-08) and Odessa (1908-09). From 1909 he was appointed director at K. Nezlobin’s Theater. He took active part in founding a Georgian dramatic studio in Moscow. In 1910-1913 K. Marjanishvili served at the Moscow Dramatic Theater, where he directed In the Grip of Life by K. Hamsun (1911), Peer Gynt by H. Ibsen (1912); he participated in the staging of F. Dostoevski’s Brothers Karamazov (1910) and H. Kreg’s adaptation of Hamlet by W. Shakespeare. In 1913, he founded the ‘Free Theater’ in Moscow. K. Marjanishvili attempted to realize the ‘idea of synthetic art’ at the ‘Free Theater’. In 1915-18 he headed the ‘Buff Theater’ in Rostov on Don and the Theater of Miniatures in Petrograd. In 1919 he directed Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega in the Theater of Solovtsev in Kiev. In 1920 he founded the Theater of Comic Opera in Petrograd. In 1922 K. Marjanishvili returned to Georgia. His adaptation of Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna at the Rustaveli State Theater, contributed to the revival of Georgian dramatic art. Till 1926 K. Marjanishvili managed the Rustaveli Theater. There he directed Eclipse in Georgia by Z. Antonov (1923), Divorce by G. Eristavi (1923), Hamlet by W. Shakespeare (1925), etc. In 1930, the 2nd State Theater under the leadership of K. Marjanishvili (at present K. Marjanishvili state theatre), successfully toured Moscow and Kharkov. In the early 1930s he staged F. Schiller’s Don Carlos at the Moscow Maliy Theater (1933), The Bat by J. Strauss at The Moscow Operetta Theater (1933), etc. In 1931 he was granted the title of the People’s Artiste of Georgia.

Kote Marjanishvili died in Moscow and was buried at the Mtatsminda Pantheon in Tbilisi.