Constantinople
Reviewed by Stephen Fife
Vista Players
Through November 2
Aram Kouyoumdjian’s Constantinople, currently receiving its world premiere at the Secret Rose in a production directed by the playwright, is the kind of earnest, socially conscious play that might have been hailed by critics in the 1950s. Documenting the suffering of urban Armenians in the aftermath of their genocide at the hands of Turkish forces, this drama is so straightforward and bereft of irony that it’s as if the play itself is in denial of the last 65 or 70 years in the theater.
This in no way minimizes the importance of the subject matter. The killing of 1.5 million Armenians at the end of World War I is an atrocity of enormous proportions, pre-dating and foreshadowing the Nazi extermination of Jews a few decades later. Its emotional significance for many Armenians is still overwhelming, especially since the official party line from Turkish leaders is still to deny that these events ever happened. I’m not Armenian, and my only knowledge of what happened comes from books I’ve read and plays I’ve seen from writers like William Saroyan, Anthony Haden-Guest and especially Leslie Ayvazian. In such plays as Nine Armenians and 100 Aprils (produced last year at Rogue Machine Theatre), Ayvazian brings this history achingly alive in the way it haunts her flawed and very relatable characters several generations later.
In his three pages of “historical context” in the program, Mr. Kouyoumdjian states that Constantinople “is not a tale of victimhood… It’s a tale of resilience — and resistance.” He also claims that his play — which is set around 1919 — “mirrors many present-day concerns … [such as] displacement, migration, populism, demagoguery, and in #MeToo era, women’s rights. … Constantinople isn’t an historical play; it’s a contemporary play set within an historical context.”
Yet this is not how I experienced it. Making a play “contemporary” does not reside in reflecting “present-day concerns” as much as it does in presenting three-dimensional characters whose rhythms feel similar to our own. But the rhythms of this play are very much pre–World War II, with heroic people behaving heroically and selfish people behaving selfishly. There are no contradictions to our first impressions; instead, the characters display a consistency of behavior that comes to seem predictable and lessens the impact of the major offstage events that we hear about.
The main hero of Kouyoumdjian’s play is Vehanoush (Jade Hykush), in whose back room the play is set. She is a woman in her 50s who publishes a feminist journal while also spearheading missions to rescue the Armenians who have survived the attempted genocide — especially women like Anna (Eva Abramian) who was raped and held in a harem by her Turkish captor. Anna, now pregnant, wants to kill herself and the “monster” growing inside her so she can destroy the shame that overwhelms her. We witness Vehanoush not only help Anna overcome her self-destructive impulses but find her an Armenian husband who can love her and give her a reason to live as well.
Vehanoush is the best character in the play and Hykush does a great job of making her courage palpable and real. All the actors do excellent work, especially Travis Laughlin, Robert Walters and Abramian. The problem is that their characters seem more like types than individuals. We hear about the greatness of the poet Shenian (Walters), but we never listen to any of his poetry or observe how inspiring it is for the others. Similarly, we are informed about the terrible atrocities of the Turks, but we never see them depicted — which might allow us to feel the intense danger from the outside world and form our own judgments. As it is, this room in Vehanoush’s home is like a bubble, hermetically-sealed. Also, the dynamics of every scene are very similar; they all start out with an issue or problem which is then spoken about at great length until a conclusion is reached. This methodical dramaturgy becomes fairly tedious after a while and contrasts with the immediacy of the dilemma the characters are dealing with.
Kouyoumdjian tries to fix this at the end by cutting to a final scene set in the present day when the descendants of the 1919 characters are still dealing with many of the same issues. There are interesting possibilities here, but nothing is really explored, and the characters — while different in obvious ways — still seem too much like their forbearers for me to recognize them as people I might bump into on the street. Also, the writer/director has once again chosen not to bring in any sounds or images of modern life that might afford us a jolt of recognition. Perhaps another director could have made these scenes more vividly alive. As it is, I admired the characters without ever being drawn into their struggles.
Secret Rose Theatre, 11246 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through Nov. 2. www.itsmyseat.com/constantinople. Running time: 95 minutes with no intermission.
