Kakabadze, Polikarpe. Two Plays (Ori piesa: Kvarkvare Tutaberi; Kolmeurnis Kortsineba). 1946. In Georgian.

კაკაბაძე, პოლიკარპე (1893-1972). ორი პიესა : ყვარყვარე თუთაბერი ; კოლმეურნის ქორწინება / რედაქტორი ა. განჯელია.
თბილისი : საბჭოთა მწერალი, 1946. [2], 224 გვერდი ; 16 სმ.
მაგარი ყდა (ქაღალდით გარეკანი). ტირაჟი 5 100 ც.
ყდა - დამაკმაყოფილებელი: ყვითელ-ყომრალი ლაქები და ფოჩოვანება მთელ სიბრტყეზე; ქვედა ნაწილი ძლიერ გამუქებული; კუთხეები ცვეთილი. ბლოკი - კარგი: ფურცლები თანაბრად გაყვითლებული, ტექსტი სრული და წასაკითხი.
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Kakabadze, Polikarpe (1893-1972). Two Plays: Kvarkvare Tutaberi; The Collective Farmer's Wedding / editor A. Gandzelia.
Tbilisi : Sabchota Mtskerali (Soviet Writer) Publishing House, 1946. [2], 224 pp. ; 16 cm.
Hardcover (paper-covered boards). Print run of 5,100 copies.
Binding fair: yellow-brown foxing and staining throughout the wrapper; lower portion heavily darkened; corners worn. Text block good: leaves evenly age-yellowed, text complete and fully legible.

Polikarpe Kakabadze (1893-1972) is the greatest Georgian playwright of the twentieth century and the author of the most celebrated and continuously performed play in the modern Georgian theatrical canon. His satirical comedy Kvarkvare Tutaberi, written in 1928 and premiered in 1929 by the legendary director Kote Marjanishvili at what became the Marjanishvili Theatre, is a political satire in which the comic anti-hero Kvarkvare Tutaberi - an idle, cunning opportunist with no fixed convictions - aligns himself successively with the Russian Imperial regime, the Menshevik provisional government, and the Bolsheviks, his loyalty shifting with each change of power. The play caused immediate consternation among Soviet cultural authorities, and its subtle anti-totalitarian subtext was recognized by those with sufficient literary intelligence; it famously became a favourite of Lavrenti Beria, who attended performances at the Marjanishvili Theatre and laughed uproariously, calling his political rivals "Kvarkvares" without apparently perceiving the extent to which the joke was on him. The play was subsequently revived in a celebrated production by Robert Sturua, who staged it in the Brechtian manner, and it has never left the Georgian stage. The second play in this volume, Kolmeurnis Kortsineba (The Collective Farmer's Wedding), represents Kakabadze's engagement with the state-mandated subject matter of agricultural collectivization, but processed through his characteristic comic sensibility. The 1946 Sabchota Mtskerali edition, appearing while Stalin was still alive, represents an early wartime/early postwar publication of Kakabadze's two most theatrically significant plays together in a single volume.