R.I.P. Ramaz Chkhikvadze

[Reza]

Ramaz Chkhikvadze obituary

Georgian actor dubbed 'the Laurence Olivier of
the Caucasus' and lauded as Richard III
* Thelma Holt
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 2 November 2011 14.42 EDT


In 1951, the Georgian actor Ramaz Chkhikvadze,
who has died aged 83, joined the
Rustaveli, his country's national theatre, in the capital,
Tbilisi. He soon became the favoured actor of the
director Robert Sturua and, together at the Rustaveli, they created magic.

I first saw Ramaz's work at the Edinburgh
festival in 1979. Sturua's company did Brecht's
Caucasian Chalk Circle, in which Ramaz played
Azdak, and a superb Richard III, with Ramaz in
the title role. Michael Coveney's review dubbed
him the "Laurence Olivier of the Caucasus". We
decided to take Richard III to the
<http://www.roundhouse.org.uk>Roundhouse, where I
was the director. For all of us connected with
that production and the events surrounding it,
the memory is as fresh as though it were yesterday.

The Roundhouse, in Camden, north London, was the
perfect venue for Ramaz's Richard and we awaited
the company's arrival, confident of a great
production. Alas, on 27 December 1979, the
Soviets invaded Afghanistan and everything fell
apart at the seams. Lord Carrington, the foreign
secretary, made it very clear that we should not
welcome artists from the Soviet Union during this
period. Other Soviet artists, including the Red
Army choir, were cancelled and it was due
entirely to the Machiavellian manoeuvrings of
Robert Maxwell that it was agreed that we should not cancel the Rustaveli.

They had no money and came by ship, and when they
arrived at the Roundhouse there was a
not-very-friendly welcoming committee of
anti-Soviet and anti-cold war demonstrators
outside the theatre. Ramaz took the steps two at
a time he did not understand a word they were
saying. He smiled, because he was used to people smiling back.

London greeted him like a king. We could have had
an audience full of actors every night, as they
had heard on the grapevine what was coming. As
the days progressed, the Georgians had a
life-changing experience and Ramaz jumped in feet
first. To the total confusion of the company, we
received a nightly phone call in which we were
informed that there was a bomb in the auditorium.
As a result we had two busloads of police in the
car park throughout the entire visit.

At the final performance, it was agreed between
us and the chief inspector that his men could
come in and have a drink with Ramaz and his
colleagues, providing they took their hats off. I
presented both the director and Ramaz with badges
that said: "Help the police. Beat yourself up."

Born in Tbilisi, Ramaz was the son of Grigol
Chkhikvadze, a musician and head of the Tbilisi
conservatoire. From his early childhood, Ramaz
dedicated himself to a career as a musician, but
when he joined the theatre institute, the
training ground for all artists in Tbilisi, his
tutor was the revered director Mikhail
Tumanishvili, and Ramaz's fate was sealed.

As well as his work on stage, he appeared in more
than 60 films, the first of which was Chrichina
(The Dragonfly) in 1954. He returned to the UK in
1985 to reprise part of his Richard at the Old
Vic for the memorial to Michael Redgrave. Vanessa
Redgrave was in the basement cutting bread, and I
was lazily watching her when there was a roar
from the auditorium. One of our helpers popped
his head round the door and said: "Ramaz has just
walked on stage." The house had risen. I was very
proud of my profession they loved him too.

On a visit to Tbilisi, I saw a very modern,
politically inspired piece of work, which was the
only time I saw Ramaz in a suit. The last
production, which I would have loved to have
brought to the UK but unfortunately could not,
was his King Lear all, of course, directed by
Sturua. His performance was truly magnificent.
When he walked on to the stage, he colonised it,
whatever he was playing. He immediately owned the
space and everything and everyone in it.

Ramaz had been undergoing treatment for cancer
for a long time, supported by his wife, Natasha,
who died suddenly six weeks before him. His son,
Aleksander, and two grandchildren survive him.

Ramaz Chkhikvadze, actor, born 28 February 1928; died 17 October 2011