Contemporary Armenian American Drama: An Anthology Edited by Nishan Parlakian-Published by Columbia University
Press, 2004 -JSAS- Book Review by Bianca Bagatourian
As a Diasporan Armenian playwright, I often wonder what priorities
or instincts to follow. Must I tell the history of the Armenians?
Should I write an Armenian play? Must it be a genocide play? What
subject matter ought I spend the next six months to a year
chiseling, molding and perfecting into shape? These questions, not
matter how glib, recur without fail in the thoughts and emotions
of a Diasporan playwright as he or she prepares to strike the
keyboard every day, or, as one would say in bygone times, before
pen hits paper, specific and purposeful choices must be made.
Therefore, when I first discovered “Contemporary Armenian American
Drama: An Anthology,” edited by Dr. Nishan Parlakian, published by
Columbia University Press, 2004, I was elated. Dr. Nishan
Parlakian, emeritus professor of drama at John Jay College, is
himself a playwright and a director who has staged plays in
Armenian and in English for many years. That someone had assembled
in one place, a collection of plays about and by Armenians in the
twentieth century was a great panoramic source of insight and
inspiration to me and it was with that precise feeling that I
embarked upon my journey of this book.
The chronological progression of the plays appropriately begins
with “Ellis Island”, a fitting place to start our adventure even
if the gates of this grand doorway are slammed shut on our
protagonists, Anna, the old lady, and Peter, a professor from
Lebanon. In this play by Raffi Arzoomanian, we intimately feel the
importance of the rights of entry and also sense the importance of
language in myriad ways, for it is the lack of the English
language, which in the end, keeps Anna out of America. This is a
play with a universality about the immigrant experience, both
symbolically and metaphorically, which captures the fear of the
unknown and the many twists of fate. I can only imagine how much
more palpable these must have been when the play was actually
performed within the main building at Ellis Island.
Our second stop is the more establishing piece called “The
Armenians” by our greatest and most famous (Pulitzer prize
rejecting) Armenian dramatist, William Saroyan. “The Armenians”
is, as the title suggests, very Armenian. In fact, it is the most
Armenian of the plays I have read by Saroyan. It is 1921 in Fresno
and Armenians are discussing the plight of their old country and
how they could possibly be of help. What better demonstration of
the timelessness of a good story, when eighty-five years later,
though circumstances are different, we are all still pondering the
same question. And, not only does this world class author capture
a piece of history marvelously, but I find myself wondering how
much of his own story is told through the voices of such
characters as Reverend Knadjian when he remarks “I find that I am
most myself there, I am most real there, I am most deeply Armenian
when I am in my study.” Is this Saroyan the man speaking himself
and is this how we meet the man through his works?
Next, comes “Grandma Pray For Me,” a play by the editor of this
volume himself, Dr. Nishan Parlakian. Though themes and ideas like
this have been explored by many an Armenian writer, to do so
through the medium of drama is a different thing altogether. I was
extremely touched by the vision of the Grandma with her prayer
beads sitting in the window symbolizing all our Armenian
grandmothers together, praying as a last resort, helpless in the
new country, waiting. This story moves along at a perfect pace and
the quality of the writing is very poetic, as is that of the next
play we come to.
Who can ever forget, even after one reading, the poignant words of
the opening monologue of Barbara Bejoian’s “Dance, Mama, Dance.”
“There is a concentration camp of the mind, in which women have
been forced to dwell...” In one poetic phrase, she captures a
predicament, which has haunted women for centuries. In this
sophisticated piece, Bejoian depicts Armenian life in Watertown,
MA, which, for an Armenian from a far away land, may come as a
complete surprise.
In “Nine Armenians,” a well known play by Leslie Ayvazian, we see
another illustration of the idea that no matter how completely
different our Armenian experiences are or in which country we
exercise them, they are still, in fact, Armenian. Here we see
three generations of Armenian women with their feelings of chaos,
of togetherness, with the shouting, the affection, the bonding,
all captured so well in a mere sixteen short scenes. The play is
as much a joy to read as it is to see performed.
Our next stop brings us to “Mirrors,” by Herand Markarian, where
the results of trauma are shown through the extremes to which it
hurls us and our human psyche. The subject of the Armenian
Genocide is more directly approached here and exorcised via
haunting memories that live on decades after the nightmare is over.
In the courtroom setting of “The Armenian Question,” by William
Rolleri and Anna Antaramian, a Turkish general constantly attempts
to derail the court on the question of the Armenian Genocide. This
play, more than the others in this volume, deals directly with the
question of the Genocide and the outrage it should cause among
civilized nations and concludes with yet more unanswered questions.
The volume ends with the commanding “A Girl's War,” by Joyce Van
Dyke which takes us from present day America all the way to the
Karabagh conflict and entangles it all with the personal conflicts
of the protagonists. This play is the most contemporary,
attempting to unite our lives in one country with the struggles
and realities of another to which we are so deeply attached.
The prevalent theme in these plays seems to be that of the
Armenian Genocide, though other topics such as assimilation and
the plight of women do enter the dialogue, there is no getting
away from that huge cultural wound which, if you will, dominates
the minds and expressions of all Armenians even today. Plays are
meant to be seen, not necessarily read, but within a small ethnic
group, where there is little opportunity for costly presentations,
it becomes important to once again read plays to hear the voice of
the people. For me, as a working playwright, to see what has
already been done, clarifies what still needs to be done. Like a
barometer, if you will, this book takes the pulse of contemporary
Armenian drama.
And so, loud and clear, I heard the ancestral voices as Dr.
Parlakian likes to call them, voices which, sooner or later, every
person begins to hear. There are excellent notes provided before
each play that orientate and help to trace the author and put into
context what you are about to read. I welcome such a rich offering
of Armenian contemporary drama and I applaud Dr. Parlakian for
bringing this project to fruition as a worthy addition to the
previous volume, Modern Armenian Drama, edited along with Peter S.
Cowe. Together, these two tomes create a tremendously enriching
and invaluable experience for a modern day Armenian playwright.