Armenia Now, Armenia
Sept 9 2005

Praise in Paris: `Mels’ and Duryan find success in repeat performance

By Gayane Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

Yerevan native playwright Narek Duryan’s play `Thank You, God’ is
enjoying a repeat performance in Paris, at the De Jazet Theater.

The actor takes on many personalities

The play was so successful during a month-long run in June, that the
board of directors of the 700-seat theater in Bastille Square invited
Duryan back, where he is again the featured attraction this month.

`Stepping into this theater is a big success, for this theater is
among the ten most important and authoritative theaters in Paris,’
says actor and director Duryan, son of the popular conductor Ohan
Duryan. `If we take into account that 480 performances are played in
Paris every day, 30 percent of which have a life of only a day, than
one can imagine how difficult it is to attract attention.’

The character created and embodied by Duryan carries elements of
self-biography, of a man named Mels who has passed through a
socialist regime and is enjoying a European democracy trying to
realize what freedom is.

The hero’s name is comprised from the quartet of socialist stalwarts
– Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

Fed up with the ways of the Soviet Union, Mels crosses the state
border and finds home in the capital of democratic France. His bright
hopes fade, but he seems to succeed in everything (although his
marriage to a French woman turns out to not be a happy one).

`In this performance I study the question of personal freedom and
what is freedom,’ the play’s creator says. `It is a relative
phenomenon. When was I more free, when I could not travel, for I was
in a prison called Soviet country, but traveled around the world in
my mind, or now, when I can go wherever I want, but I don’t have
money? This is also a kind of imprisonment, a jail.’

Gradually developing the plot Mels tells about the way he has passed;
he was born in Armenia, had his military service in Siberia, opening
Siberia to the audience in a humorous manner: `It’s strange but I
remember with nostalgia our Soviet routine life, we had bread and
cheese, we were happy, it was a prison but we rebelled and were drawn
to Siberia. Which one is better? In dictatorship you cannot speak for
everyone listens to what you say, and in democracy speak as much as
you wish, no one listens to you.’

During `independence’, Mels ends up selling his valued possessions in
Yerevan’s vernisage bazaar; he puts his father’s military coat for
sale, medals he has won at the expense of his blood: `Everything is
shown by means of humor and anecdotes, but it hurts, for he sells a
whole history,’ says Duryan.

The author purposefully presents his hero in three societies – in
dictatorship, in wild capitalism and democracy. And the alterations
of the human type according to the type of the society become obvious
when Mels says to himself in total freedom: `I saw dictatorship and
freedom and now I understand a simple thing: freedom is measured by
the largeness of one’s cage’.

The French press have taken notice of Duryan

The French press and the cultural programs at the TF1 TV Company have
covered the Armenian’s performance. Elle a Paris writes: `With a
great portion of sense of humor and deep observation Narek Duryan
opened the closed curtains of the Soviets before us.’ And the Paris
Capitale says the performance `created a big revolution in the De
Jazet Theater for French audience’.

The artist, who has lived in Paris for the past 25 years, says he
wonders when Armenia itself will open up the borders of its own
freedom and cage together with Mels.

Audiences in Paris have been about 20 percent Diaspora. (Duryan hopes
to bring the performance to Armenia, but doesn’t know when.)

The Armenian audience is acquainted with Duryan’s art through several
performances – the musical `Don Quixote’ by Servantes-Bulgakov,
`Operation Nemesis’ historical-documentary performance staged
together with `Bohem’ theatrical group in the Theater of Young
Audience.

The `Bohem’ that has a rich experience of 15 years is the only
professional, stable, constantly theatrical group acting abroad, who
has never interrupted its activities and has traveled to European
countries, the USA, Canada, Egypt and oriental countries for many
times.

`Although it is 25 years already that I live in Paris, I always
considered myself a man from Yerevan, I haven’t changed even my
language; for me the acknowledgement of the audience here (Yerevan)
is very important and I think I will get it soon,’ says Duryan.