REVIEW : Georgia Troupe Tugs at Heartstrings : Puppetry: The Tbilisi State Puppet Theatre made its American debut with tales about the power of love.

A pale, fragile figure of a puppet, eerily lifelike in detail, loomed out of the darkness shrouding the stage. With long, delicate movements, the character stretched its right arm and, slowly, tenderly, placed its hand over its heart.

The gesture captured something significant. It was in this way that the 5-year-old Tbilisi State Puppet Theatre, making its American debut as part of the “San Diego Arts Festival: Treasures of the Soviet Union,” reached out its heart to the audience at the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre in Balboa Park.

It told the tale of a young knight, who, in losing his true love, dedicates himself to the love of love itself.

Puppetry has long been popular in the Soviet Union, where hundreds of such theaters practice the form. For some reason, puppetry has never been as popular--or as lofty an art form--here. But these inanimate objects were able to convey not only movement but also mystery and mood.

The forlorn look of the doll related directly to the bittersweet feeling of the show, titled “Daughter of the Trebizond Emperor” and written by the company’s artistic director, Revaz Gabriadze.

It also spoke volumes about the enervating hours leading up to the opening. The puppets arrived too late for Tuesday night’s preview, forcing a cancellation. The puppeteers stayed up all night rehearsing for the opening, and, according to interpreter Marina Tsitsishvili, they had not yet mastered the transition from the smaller house they use in Tbilisi to San Diego’s more expansive stage.

The company depends on a black-box effect by which the puppeteers, draped in black, disappear into the darkness of the stage, leaving only the puppets visible.

When the black-box effect worked, the puppets moved magically through space and, in one sequence, swam through an ocean filled with fish. Even when the effects failed, the company yielded an intriguing look at the shadowy humans who manipulate their wood and cloth creations with magical ease.

A puppeteer uses one hand slipped in the back of a puppet for the large movements, and with the other makes darting motions with a wire attached to the puppet hand, making motions so delicate, so subtle, that the puppet can pluck a handkerchief from his pocket, daub his brow and stuff the cloth back in again.

Audiences who come later in the run, when the company refines its work, will be the lucky ones. Although the early vignettes were choppy, and the interpretation of the Georgian dialogue was piped in uncertainly at first, once the show found its pacing and confidence, it soared.

On Wednesday, the company offered the first of three shows it will present during its run through Nov. 11, sponsored by the Old Globe Theatre and the festival.

“Daughter of the Trebizond Emperor,” a new story by Gabriadze, is a fairy tale in the tradition of “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen.

It celebrates love through adversity, of which there is no shortage. In the Middle Ages, somewhere between the 9th and 11th centuries, a young knight, Archil, falls in love with Blanchfleur, the daughter of his father’s enemy. Archil goes off to battle and, in his absence, a villainous prime minister--from which side isn’t clear--secrets Blanchfleur and tells the prince when he returns that his beloved is dead.

Archil spends the rest of his life looking for his beloved. When he finally finds out where she went, he is old and she has since married the emperor of Tebizond, borne him a daughter and died. But she leaves behind a 17-year-old daughter for whom Archil fights to the death. He doesn’t know her, but he fights for love’s sake alone.

Despite the universal charm of scenes like the one in which a knight punches the upright Tower of Pisa and makes it lean, the show is not for the truly young--who are inevitably confused, puzzled and a little troubled by the story--but for older children and, better yet, adults who still have the child inside them.

The puppet actors may dwell in the land of fantasy, but they are intimately acquainted with the intricacies of love and loss.

In fact, all three offerings of the Tbilisi Puppet Theatre end in death.

“Alfred and Violetta,” based on “La Dame Aux Camellias” by Alexandre Dumas fils (better known in English as “Camille”), ends with the death of the ailing Violetta, a woman with a past, who leaves her lover because she fears bringing shame on him.

“The Autumn of Our Springtime,” the black comedy of the bunch, tells the story of a magpie named Boris who turns to a life of crime when he is charged by a dying husband with looking after his elderly wife. He is caught, tried, imprisoned in the window of a hunting shop and killed when he flies off to see the old woman, whom he learns has just died.

It sounds like heavy going, but, as Gabriadze said of “Daughter of the Trebizond Emperor,” both in his notes and in an address he made to the audience after the show, “the author does not consider this to be a sad story, nor the ending to be an unhappy one. Do you know why? He believes there is nothing greater than love in this world. Love wins even in death.”

“DAUGHTER OF THE TREBIZOND EMPEROR”

by Revaz Gabriadze. Oct. 30-31, Nov. 1 and 6-8 at 8 p.m.

“THE AUTUMN OF OUR SPRINGTIME”

by Revaz Gabriadze. Oct. 27, Nov. 2-3 and 9-10 at 8 p.m.

“ALFRED AND VIOLETTA”

adapted by Revaz Gabriadze, Oct. 28, Nov. 4, 11 at 7 and 9 p.m.

By the Tbilisi State Puppet Theatre. Director is Revaz Gabriadze. Puppeteers are Irina Achba, Teimuraz Javakhishivili, Hamlet Jijeishvili, Vano Sharashidze, Tamara Amiredzhibi and Manana Abzianidze. Chief artist is Shmagi Sheklashvili. Lighting by Malkhaz Kvrivishvili. Tickets are $15. Call 239-2255.