Who Knew a Comedy Show in Georgian Could be so Comedic??

A couple weeks ago, the girls and I were looking to get out of Samtredia for the day, so we of course, headed over to Kutaisi.  After sitting in McDonald’s for a while trying to decide with some friends what we should do that day, we finally decided to venture over to Satoplia, a park where we can see dinosaur footprints.  Cool, right? We thought so.  Well, after making the drive full of winds and curves up the mountain, we arrived at a closed, locked gate and several guards looking at us very strangely.  We tried our hardest to convince them to let us in, but they wouldn’t have any of it.  ‘Come back April 1^st and we’ll let you in,’ was basically the advice we were given.  Ok…now what? We got back into the cabs (thank goodness they hadn’t left) and were left to walk around the center of Kutaisi, hoping to stumble into something. 

Good thing we did! After a quick tour of the brand new Kutaisi opera house (they let us backstage and everything -- and we even got to listen to an audition! The man’s voice made my heart melt, just in case you were wondering).  Anyway, after the tour, we meandered over to the theater, just to make sure we covered all the arts.  Much to our surprise, there was a comedy show, that afternoon! Well, we don’t understand Georgian, but it’s supposed to be a comedy show, so it’ll be funny, right? Again, we thought so. We bought tickets and went off in search of snacks (because who goes to a comedy show without snacks??)

Once the show began, we realized which comedy show we were actually seeing.  We were watching a live version of the cast of the late night famous Georgian comedy crew that plays in our host family’s homes nightly.  I recognized all of the cast members from their tv show.  Imagine getting tickets to the Jay Leno show, without realizing that it was the Jay Leno show.  It was quite hilarious.  The show was about 2 hours long, and while there were some definite slow parts because of the language barrier, overall, it was quite entertaining (well, we were reallllllly bored, so my opinion might be a bit skewed).  They sang a lot of American pop songs, with a Georgian flair, of course, danced a bit and put on several skits. 

I think the best part was being able to come home and tell Cici where I ended up that afternoon and see the look on her face.  It was like telling an American 16 year old I had just been to see Justin Bieber’s concert.  The next day, we happened to turn on the tv and the crew was on there performing a taped version of the exact same show I saw the day before.  I opted not to watch it for a second time, but enjoyed being able to assure Cici, that yes, this was the exact show I saw yesterday.  No, Amico didn’t sing Single Ladies, but he sang Shakira!

Oh, Georgia, how I love thee.