turning off display of changes for a gtk (gdk-built) widget

[Dan Stromberg <strombrg nis acs uci edu>]

I have a game app I'm working on.

I'm using somebody else's board widget.  It's built using a ton of gdk
calls.

I want to be able to back up in a sequence of moves.  The easiest way of 
doing this is to clear the board and repaint from the beginning.

When I do this, the user can see a sequence of moves being replayed.
It's not the most pleasing thing to look at.

Is there any simple way I can temporarily turn off display of changes,
kind of like the refresh() call in curses, so that people won't see my
changed board until the changes are complete?

Thanks in advance.

-- 
Dan Stromberg                                               UCI/NACS/DCS