"We knew we liked Georgia already"

We were very happy indeed when established Georgian theatre director Goga Tavadze came to see The Zero Hour at the British Council Showcase in 2013, and felt strongly enough about the production to want to re-stage it in his country. The Zero Hour is the third part of what we’d always thought of as a trilogy of work, which began with Hotel Methuselah in 2005. That piece went to Tbilisi International Festival in 2012. We’d had a great time in the city, the show had been well received and we were keen to go back to Georgia, especially with the opportunity to collaborate on a re-staging of an Imitating the Dog show. Goga had some really interesting ideas for reworking sections of the text, and the chance to see material you’ve made in one context come to life in another was really exciting and a first for the company.

On Orthodox Christmas Night we found ourselves arriving in Batumi (and very generously being taken out for an enormous celebratory meal – we’d arrived on Christmas Day after all!). We aimed to get some of the tech set-up so that Goga and the actors could rehearse effectively until we returned later in the month. Imitating the Dog does everything on Mac computers, but the theatre involved in the project, Batumi State Musical Center, had specifically asked that the show be run from a PC, presenting its own learning curve from our perspective! So there was a lot to get through in the few days we were there. And then it snowed, in completely unprecedented quantities, lending the remaining days in Batumi a pleasingly surreal quality.

The second period of the collaboration began upon our return. In the meantime, the Georgian actors had been working hard, rehearsing long hours and Goga had made some final decisions on changes to the text. We had the PC sent to the UK so that we could load the files for the show directly onto the machine that would run the performances, the idea being that we could test everything thoroughly and do our best to ensure stability. Rehearsals in Batumi could go ahead using the system we’d set up, with both cameras that record and provide the live feed for the performance running through it onto a monitor and with sound running separately.

Nerves began to fray slightly when the delivery of the PC to us in the UK was delayed due to weather conditions – and then delayed again on the way back to Batumi where the machine was held up in customs. When it did finally arrive, the graphics card had been damaged in transit so we asked Andrew Quick, coming out for the final week of rehearsals prior to opening night on 5 Feb, to bring a replacement – plus a few other bits and bobs that might rescue the situation should we need to go with Plan B, or indeed Plan C!

Having never worked with this kind of technology before, we completely understood that Goga and the theatre management were concerned. There was even talk of delaying opening night. We did our best to reassure everyone that there are always problems of some sort, to expect the unexpected and that whatever happened, short of a complete power failure at the theatre, the show would go on.

Our technician, projection expert and hero Will Simpson worked all hours to get everything ready for opening night. The actors were incredible throughout: patient, concentrated, attentive, detailed in their performance and, on opening night, when we lost power to one of the back projectors 15 minutes into the show, they just kept going. I was massively impressed that, seemingly without blinking, they just carried on as if nothing had happened. Once we’d got front and back projection up and running again, the show went off without a hitch (as it did for the remaining performances). We breathed a hefty collective sigh of relief, as the entire audience got to its feet and applauded for a very long time!

A lot of people, including the Minister for Culture, expressed a feeling of pride in the project, in Georgian theatre, in the collaboration and it was an emotion clearly shared. It was a fascinating experience for us as a company and it really is an honour to be involved in a creative process with artists from such a rich theatre culture different to our own. It makes us think a lot about our process. As we plan projects for the rest of this year and into 2016, this is very useful and good timing. And if we ever re-visit The Zero Hour here in the UK, we shall be nicking all of Goga’s good ideas, that’s for sure.

Imitating the Dog was part of the British Council's Edinburgh Showcase in 2013.