Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance
20 Concord Lane, Cambridge MA 02138
617 871 6764

Contact: Nachu Muthu- 617 871 6764
adaa.east@techfusion.com
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INTERVIEW WITH PROMINENT ARMENIAN PLAYWRIGHT BERGE ZEITUNTSYAN by
Bianca Bagatourian

On Aug, 13, 14, 15th, 2007, the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance
(ADAA) will hold their Second Annual ADAA/Fountain Theatre Armenian
Play Reading Series at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood’s
Little
Armenia. This year, they will be presenting the plays of Berge
Zeituntsyan, one of the leading contemporary playwrights in Armenia
today. The plays will feature prominent Armenian actors of the stage
and screen including Michael Goorjian, Magda Harut, David Hedison,
Karen Kondazian, Buck Kartalian, Greg Zarian, Anahid Shahrik and
more. (For tickets, call the Fountain Theatre box office) Mr.
Zeituntsyan writes commentaries, short stories, novels and plays. He
frequently contributes to the press on issues of current concern.
This interview was conducted with Mr. Zeituntsyan when he was
recently visiting Los Angeles in April.

Do you think drama is important to Armenia in the present and in the
future and how does it differ with other genres like fiction?

Playwriting is vital. It is important to communicate with a live
audience of 300-400 people. The playwright can instantly touch on
painful subjects. He takes the pulse of the society. And it is
immediate. Particularly as you have only 60-70 pages in a play as
opposed to a novel that goes on for 500 pages.
Why is playwriting not a popular form in Armenia? We have very few
playwrights compared to novelists and poets.

Because we haven’t had a State. And not too many professional

actors, Just one or two. Adamian, Papzian. They were stars. The rest
were amateurs. There wasn’t much of civic culture so theaters
did
not exist and there wasn’t the economic support for dramas to be

written. This really didn’t develop until the Soviet Period when
the
tradition really took off.

Did any of the 19th century Armenian playwrights influence your work?

Shakespeare.
And your favorite play?

Hamlet. I like that play because it so open for interpretation. There

are many possibilities. For example, To be or not to be, can be
interpreted in many different ways. I also love Chekov. Especially
The Three Sisters.

I can see obvious influences of Beckett and Ionesco in your work.
Were they not also available to other writers?

I tried to self-educate. I read books which weren’t readily
available in Armenia. I think it is very important for people to look

outside their narrow sphere of existence and look beyond. This helps
them to write through a world perspective. Checkov and Maupassant.
That is how I educated myself in a more European fashion. No writer
should stay in the narrow confines of his own environment. He should
be writing in a world context as opposed to the one he lives in.
What inspires you?

Life. Reality. My wife and my children. I have to say that!

You write in such different veins. Your new play, Jesus of Nazareth,
is in a realistic strain compared to Born and Died and The Saddest of

Sad Men which are more absurd. Is it easy for you to switch back and
forth stylistically?

Usually writers write in fiction form first and then turn it into
drama. But I do the contrary. Why? Because as a playwright, when I
see on stage the performance of my play, I learn a great deal more
about myself and my characters. Then I can perfect them and the
piece. When I finish a play, I like to work with the same people.
Usually, directors don’t like to have the writer looking over
their
shoulder, but I have three directors which I choose to work with
regularly and they allow this because they realize it is a
collaborative effort. They realize I am there to learn too. Sometimes

the directors will suggest a change and I will disagree. Usually, in
this way, I fine tune the play but I don’t make too many
changes.
For example in Jesus of Nazareth, the directors suggested that I
should add two monologues and so I found two themes from the book
`World Mythology’ and after adding monologues based on
these
themes, I realized that it did make the piece much richer. This is a
sly maneuver for a playwright. To have the opportunity to watch the
performance before others and improve it.
What is the favorite play that you have ever written?

The Legend of the Destroyed City. It is a historical play set in the
fourth century and it begins with a tourist who goes to Europe. A
guide shows him a free city with no laws where anyone can do as they
like. This made me think that in the time of Arshak the king, in the
fourth century, we had just such a city. Armenia was surrounded by
the Byzantines on one side and the Persians on the other. The king
was weak so he made a city for the lawbreakers where everyone could
do as they pleased. This made him a stronger king. Everyone was
equal. But, slowly the city of Arshakavan became very corrupt.
Corruption entered the city and that was the reason for it’s
downfall. He was a harsh king but he was ahead of his time in mind
but not in spirit and this tension between the two is what brought
about his downfall. This is also made very clear in this play.
Are you working on any new plays now?

I’m thinking about some. About what to do. Armenia is in
transition
now. There’s a Chinese saying, `If you want to harm
anyone, make
them live in transition.’ So, we are in a bad situation now.
Society
is not sitting around and waiting for the next play. The demand for
writers has diminished. In the Soviet period, they would publish tens

of thousands of copies of a new play. Now, the regular run is five
hundred. There is economic difficulty. And material values have now
become the priority and spiritual values have taken a back seat. All
this doesn’t mean that the Soviet time was better. In some
areas,
some things were better. There was a certain stability and now it is
in this state of transition. It was a narrow path and the new path is

not yet created. So, there was more culture in that time.
Let me say something amazing. Armenia, compared to most of the other
republics, had more freedom under Soviet rule. Unfinished Monologue
was produced in Soviet times, pre-Perestroika. When they went to
perform it in Kiev, the people there were astonished that this was
allowed. There was obviously a more controlled structure in the Ukraine.
Have you ever thought of leaving Armenia?

No. I feel every writer must live on his own soil. No matter how bad
the situation. He must be there to feel the situation. Armenian
culture and scholarship is centered in Armenia and that is where it
grows.

We are very pleased to be presenting three of your plays in August at

the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood and we hope you will be able to
come back and see them.

It is difficult. But Born and Died, one of those plays you are
presenting, has never been produced anywhere so this will be a world
Premier at the Fountain Theatre. Out of the eleven plays that I have
written, this is the only one that has never been produced. The other

play you are presenting, The Saddest of Sad Men, had it’s first

performance in Armenian in 1974 and had it’s last performance in

Arabic in Egypt in 1991. This is the one play that has been
translated in the most languages, even in Hungarian. In addition to
that play, there is also a novella that goes with it which has been
translated into French. The third play, Unfinished Monologue is about

corruption in the system. This was of course, met with a lot of
opposition, until now. It was once printed in the Soviet newspaper
that Berge Zeytunstyan was a secret agent for Anglo European
literature sent to infiltrate us. If this was in Stalin’s time,
this
kind of remark could have finished me off.
I was particularly taken with Born and Died. Was this play a metaphor

of the oppression that Armenia was under?

How should I know! People are always asking me questions about what
does this mean or what is that. It is whatever you want it to be. You

must not ask a writer such questions. And don’t always believe
what
they say either. This play was written for Vigen Chaldranyan. And
Mickael Boghosian was in my mind too. Chaldranian suggested I write
something using a monologue of Gogol and I thought it might be
interesting to write a play which would be a rehearsal of this work
of Gogol’s monologue. Although, later I thought it would also
have
been interesting to have them rehearse a straight play and contrast
it with the absurd reality of life. So life would be absurd and the
play would be reality. The play would be more reasonably logical.
This was an experimental play.At the end, there is resolution. We see

their fundamental differences are resolved.

Is there a dream play you wish to write?

Oh, there are a lots and lots of things I want to write. There
aren’t enough theaters to produce them. Currently, three of my
plays
are in repertoire and a fourth would be too much. There aren’t

enough theaters to write for. My plays are performed quite often,
from 1979 until now. All Rise, Court Is In Session, has been done
every year in the Sundukian Theater. In the dramatic theater, The
Great Silence has been performed since 1983. This one is also a great

crowd pleaser I’ve been very lucky!.
Can you name some other leading playwrights in Armenia?

Gourgen Khanjian, Anahit Aghassarian, Garine Khoudikian. Aghassi
Ayvazian is best, not as a playwright, but as a novelist. Writers
don’t like to say nice things about each other. The book by
Peter
Cowe and Nishan Parlakian, Modern Armenian Drama, covers pretty much
most of the playwrights in Armenia today.

What would be your advise for other playwrights in Armenia?

I have tried to teach at the Institute of Theatrical Arts and
introduce a course of dramaturgy. I like to do workshops mainly. Two
of my students, Hasmig and Mariam, are now working in Moscow. I would

suggest they read anything they like to read. And to look outside
their own sphere.

Thank you very much, Mr. Zeituntsyan, it has been an honor and a
pleasure.
THE END

Bianca Bagatourian is a playwright and president and co-founder of
the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance. ,