Village Voice, NY
May 10 2005

Misalliance
Armenian genocide survivors struggle to make a home

by David Ng

Beast on the Moon
By Richard Kalinowski
Century Center for the Performing Arts
111 East 15th Street
212.239.6200

The haute solemnity inherent in the genocide-inspired drama can be
preachy at best and trivializing at worst. Playwright Richard
Kalinowski clearly recognizes this, and in Beast on the Moon, his
chamber piece about two survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide, he
overcompensates for the innate gloominess by opening with a deluge of
giggles. Seta (Lena Georgas) is a 15-year-old picture bride who
arrives in Milwaukee to take up residence with her new husband, Aram
(Omar Metwally). Prone to laughter at inappropriate moments, the
doll-clutching Seta is more than Aram bargained for when he requested
“no grim-looking Armenian girls.” He soon makes her role abundantly
clear: Showing her a portrait of his since annihilated family, the
dour Aram orders her to fill in the carved-out faces with children of
their own. Thus begins a sad and highly dysfunctional marriage. If
Elie Wiesel told us to “never forget,” Beast on the Moon ponders what
happens when never forgetting becomes a pathological obsession.
No doubt timed for the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide,
Beast on the Moon remains strangely apolitical, focusing instead on
the rather banal domestic tug-of-war between its protagonists. Seta
learns that she’s barren, sending Aram into a paroxysm of
religiosity. (A heated scripture quote-off is the play’s highlight.)
Ultimately, Seta’s maturation from puerile woman to long-suffering
saint provides a much needed, if clichéd, through-line for a play
that lurches from one loud argument to another. And Georgas is so
good in her later scenes you almost forget the absurd accent she’s
forced to put on. Beast on the Moon can’t be accused of trivializing
its subject, but its calculated modesty prevents the play from
seeming anything more than inconsequential.
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