Sacramento Bee
April 8, 2005, Friday METRO FINAL EDITION

Plays recall Armenian genocide

by Marcus Crowder Bee Theater Critic

Playwright and director Aram Kouyoumdjian returns to his roots, so to
speak, in two ways tonight. Two one-act plays by Kouyoumdjian, “The
Delicate Lines” and “Protest,” dramas inspired by the Armenian
genocide, are opening at California Stage for a short run.

“The plays are being presented this month because April marks the
90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. I wanted to write a
commemoration piece,” Kouyoumdjian said from Los Angeles, where he
now lives.

Kouyoumdjian is an Elly award-winning writer (best original script
for “The Farewells” last year) and director (“Three Hotels”) who
produced theater here with his acclaimed Vista Players ensemble. He
left Sacramento last year to return to Los Angeles, where much of his
family lives.

His relatives are survivors of the 1915 genocide in which the Turkish
army forcibly removed the Armenian populace from Armenia and
Anatolia, then marched them to Syria. An estimated 1.5 million
Armenians died.

“Many Armenian families whose ancestors survived the death march
ended up in those countries of the Middle East,” Kouyoumdjian said.
“They were mostly sent on these death marches along the desert, which
reached into Syria. The men were killed, and others simply died of
exhaustion and starvation from the conditions. Countries like Syria
and Lebanon took in the survivors.”

Kouyoumdjian’s relatives settled in Lebanon, where he was born and
lived for 10 years before the family immigrated to Los Angeles.

“It’s a major issue in the Armenian community,” Kouyoumdjian said of
the events, “a historical and psychological issue that people of
later generations have had to deal with. This piece is simply an
artistic response to it.”

Kouyoumdjian came to Sacramento to attend law school and then stayed
here and practiced law with the firm of Poswall, White and Cutler.

“The Delicate Lines,” which will receives its world premiere tonight,
will be performed by Kouyoumdjian’s longtime associate, Jan Ahders,
who worked with the Vista Players from their inception.

“The piece for Jan is historical, with the speaker speaking in 1950,
tracing her life story as a survivor of the genocide, along with her
brother and his best friend,” Kouyoumdjian said.

“I wanted to tell the story of three people through the perspective
of one person. It’s a story of how these people affected and changed
her life, her opinions and reactions to historical events.”

Kouyoumdjian wrote the piece with Ahders in mind, and he’s been
flying up from Los Angeles to work on it with her at her Carmichael
home.

“It’s an honor when someone writes something for you or has you in
mind when they compose something,” Adhers said.

Their long artistic collaboration allowed her the confidence to make
a few suggestions to Kouyoumdjian about certain parts of the script.

“I think in terms of rhythm, and once he had what he considered his
final draft, I suggested some things based on how it felt speaking
the words,” Ahders said.

Although learning the 15 pages of single-spaced dialogue was fairly
difficult for Ahders, learning the traditional song that her
character sings at the end was particularly tricky.

“Learning the song was hard because everyone sings it a little
differently,” Ahders said, “but once I was able to write it out on
notepaper, it was OK.”

The second one-act, “Protest,” which Kouyoumdjian first performed
himself at the Sacramento Solo Festival in 2001, is based on his
experience being arrested while protesting Turkish denials of the
genocide. JD Rudometkin, who also worked with Kouyoumdjian here but
now lives in Los Angeles, will perform “Protest.”

The plays also will be performed in San Francisco at the C.A.F.E./Off
Broadway on April 21-22 and then on April 23 in Los Angeles at the El
Portal Forum Theatre.