A TALK BACK WITH ‘DEPORTED/A DREAM PLAY’
By Nancy Kalajian
Mirror-Spectator
Dr. Martin and Virginia Deranian pose in front of family photos in
the Project SAVE exhibit in the lobby of the Modern Theatre with Ruth
Thomasian, Project SAVE founder and executive director.
BOSTON – A Talk Back was held after the Saturday, March 10 performance
with the Playwright Joyce Van Dyke, Director Judy Braha, the cast of
“Deported/a dream play” and Kate Snodgrass, artistic director of
Boston Playwright’s Theatre. Most audience members stayed for the
question-and- answer session providing an opportunity for comments
on aspects of that evening’s performance. The key players seated on
the stage posed questions to the audience: Did the play tell you the
truth? Did the play challenge you enough?
Audience members poignantly shared their thoughts and emotions. One
man had seen four staged readings of the play and was thrilled to now
see it in a full- fledged performance. “It truly was a dream play,” he
said. Then Paul Boghosian remarked, “I caught the reality of the play.
The emotional resilience of Victoria, her strength of character,
the arc of her journey in the US was very truthful to me.”
One woman appreciated all the remarks she had heard and noticed
the smooth transitions in changing sets. “The dancers as stagehands
brought coherence. Memories aren’t always linear,” she said.
Dora Tevanian said, “Varter represented the possibility of redemption
with love…We, as Armenians, are stuck, paralyzed. My Grandmother
never talked about the Genocide.” Though she “bristled” at first
since the actress playing Varter wasn’t Armenian, Tevanian was soon
won over with Jeanine Kane’s unconditionally-loving ways in the face
of tragedy and in the consideration of forgiveness, likening her
persona to the deceased actress, Greer Garson.
Another woman remarked on the most important underlying thread and
question in the play, the effects of the Genocide. She spoke of the
first generation, those who survived the Genocide, with the effect
being in dysfunctional families and symptoms of post-traumatic stress
disorder. Referring to the last act of the play that projects ahead
into the future with hopes of Armenians and Turks in harmony, she felt
the “Reconciliation” part of the play didn’t hold any appeal or seem
realistic. With recent demonstrations in Turkey and threats made to
Armenians, she felt reconciliations are inappropriate at this time.
Van Dyke responded with, “It’s a dream,” referring to the title of
the play and setting of the play’s last act. One woman compared
transformative imagery techniques used in the play with that of
African-American author Toni Morrison. Ken Baltin, one of the actors,
spoke of the strong effects of different points of views, comparing
that to the shards of a broken urn.
When I asked about the changes that may have happened to the actors
during the five years of working on their characters, Bobbie Steinbach
spoke of the challenges in her role, her own personal experiences with
being of Jewish descent and how her feelings about forgiveness were
explored over the years. Baltin reflected on the mortality of Harry
and a sense of healing and said, “It’s an extraordinary experience
to be in such a rich play.”
For Bethel Charkoudian, the play was “an extremely emotional
experience, not an intellectual experience. I’m shaking. It shook
me to the core.” Decades ago, Charkoudian conducted oral history
interviews with Genocide survivors; some “Deported/a dream play”
cast members listened to some of these interviews at the Armenian
Library and Museum of America (ALMA) as the play was in development
to hear first-hand accounts from the survivors. After the Talk Back,
Charkoudian asked Van Dyke, “Was it as difficult for you to write
this as for us to watch it?” to which Van Dyke responded, “Yes!”
In a follow up conversation, Tevanian remarked, “Having been to
several Armenian Genocide plays and movies, we can definitely say that
Joyce Van Dyke and her play boldly and successfully defines a new
genre in playwriting on the Armenian Genocide, a genre reminiscent
of the multitude of nostalgic historical narrative books that have
been published the past 25 years.” “To have an expose in the realm
of theatre is revolutionary, especially in the introduction of the
novel concept of a ‘dream play,’ which allows the drama to waffle
between past, present and future in an exhilarating puzzle,” continued
Tevanian. “Add to that the journaling of opening up the survivor to
verbalizing, emoting and reliving our trauma which had been heretofore
unspeakable, and you have a piece which finally tackles what we as
Armenians have been frozen by for almost a century. A gold star to
Joyce whose courageous leap and tedious effort to present something
new, intriguing, unique, and difficult has met with resounding success,
attested to by the standing only applause immediately after this
Talk Back.”
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2012/03/21/a-talk-back-with-deporteda-dream-play/