PRESS RELEASE
Stillwater Productions
410 West 53rd Street, #712
New York, NY 10019
Contact: David Grillo
212-541-4502 (home/office)
[email protected]
PETER BALAKIAN, AUTHOR OF NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER THE BURNING TIGRIS,
CRITICIZES TURKISH GOVERNMENT FOR COERCING GERMANS INTO CANCELING
PERFORMANCES OF PLAY ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Praises BEAST ON THE MOON and castigates Turkey for repressing artistic
expression and refusing to own up to its past
Peter Balakian, who in 1998 led a discussion with the audience
following the premiere performance in Boston of Richard Kalinoski’s
BEAST ON THE MOON ,noted, “it is a superb play about the traumatic
impact of the Armenian Genocide on a married couple living in the
American Midwest in the 1920s.”
The play, which has been produced in major cities across the United
States and Canada and in fifteen other countries has received thirty
awards to date, among them, five Molieres from France and five Ace
awards from Argentina–awards comparable to America’s Tonys.
Performances of BEAST were scheduled to be part of Karlsruhe,
Germany’s European Culture Days festival, a major biennial event
that in April of this year celebrated the city of Istanbul. Then,
Karlsruhe’s Turkish consul general, stating that he was acting on
orders from Ankara, threatened to enjoin the large Turkish population
of that region of Germany to boycott the festival unless the play
were pulled from the schedule. The consul’s argument, according to
Knut Weber, the director of the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe,
was that the occurrences of 1915-16 were “historically debatable and
under-worked-through by historians.” The consul told Weber that the
official Turkish stance was, they would understand the inclusion of
the play in the festival schedule as an insult to Turkey. The Festival
managers agreed to cancel the production.
Commenting on the consul’s statements, Weber referred to Hitler’s
response to the concerns of his top generals, days before Germany
invaded Poland in 1939: “Who today, after all, speaks of the
annihilation of the Armenians?” “That’s what made me want to present
the play,” he said. Turkey’s policy ignores this history, although
they want to be a part of the European community.”
On learning the details of BEAST’s removal from the Karlsruhe Festival
schedule, Peter Balakian remarked that, in addition, due to Turkey’s
continuing denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, movie theaters
in Turkey have been prohibited from showing ARARAT, Atom Egoyan’s
recent film dealing with the subject.
The Armenian Genocide was of such horrific proportions that
it coalesced an American international human rights movement and
produced 145 New York Times articles in 1915 alone. It is recognized
by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, along with
the European Union, many of the world’s countries, and thirty-three
states of the United States.
THE BURNING TIGRIS, which will be published in paperback this fall,
is a landmark book–the first trade book on the Armenian Genocide to
be published by a major publisher. It is meticulously documented,
drawing on a wide range of sources, including the official Ottoman
archives. Balakian’s work leaves no doubt about Turkey’s culpability
for the planned extermination of 1.5 million Armenians on their
ancestral lands. Yet the Turkish government continues to use
intimidation to try to repress creative works that deal with the
historical reality.
Knut Weber knew the facts. He moved Beast to another theater.
Tickets sold out. Little else about the Istanbul Festival was covered
by the press. “Mr. Kalinoski’s play is not only about Armenians but
about exile and about healing,” Weber said. The Festival was “not
just a tourist attraction, but also to ask serious questions about
the history and culture of Turkey.”
Playwright Richard Kalinoski recently teamed up with New York producer
David Grillo to mount the first New York City production of BEAST ON
THE MOON in spring 2005.
For more information on these events or on the New York Production
of Beast on the Moon: [email protected]