Toronto Star, Canada
Feb. 26, 2008

Crooked Man’s message lost in mess of a play

Feb 26, 2008 04:30 AM
Richard Ouzounian
Theatre Critic

A Crooked Man
**(out of 4)

By Richard Kalinoski. Directed by Hrant Alianak. Until March 2 at The
Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen St. W. 416-504-7529

The hardest kind of a review for a critic to write is one of a
production that has the most worthy of intentions but fails to live
up to them in its execution.

That’s exactly what happens with A Crooked Man, playing until this
Sunday at the Theatre Centre.

Richard Kalinoski’s script has a lot on its mind – too much, in fact,
to fit into 90 intermissionless minutes. He wants to make us aware
once again of the horror of the 1915 genocide, in which up to 1.5
million Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks. Turkey denies the
genocide happened.

But he also wants to pose the moral dilemma of whether a man who
kills a mass murderer acts out of revenge or righteousness, as well
as dig deep into the psyche of an 88-year-old survivor of this
holocaust and make him come to terms with some even more shocking
events from his past.

But we’re not done yet. There are also narrative threads about
inter-generational communication, respect for the elderly and the
importance of family.

Is it any wonder that A Crooked Man frequently seems less like an
actual play than the outline for a play that Kalinoski meant to
write, but never got around to finishing?

The dialogue is more interested in establishing historical facts and
making Dr. Phil-like psychological points than sounding like anything
human beings might actually say.

And any playwright who decides that his climactic scene has to take
place on a roof should think twice if he knows it’s being done in a
low-budget production.

When we should be thinking about the play’s message, we’re actually
worrying whether Hrant Alianak (as the 88-year-old Hagop) and Garen
Boyajian (as his 26-year-old journalist grandson) are going to
survive on the rickety scaffolding that pretends to be a rooftop.

Alianak, who excels at playing juicy, melodramatic villains, isn’t
very convincing as a tortured old man and Boyajian has a certain
sweetness but doesn’t really connect to Alianak at any point in their
lengthy scenes together, which make up most of the show.

Carlo Essagian and Michael Kazarian are pretty embarrassing as a
variety of characters, acting in the stiff style that marks the
lesser ranks of community theatre.

Only Araxi Arslanian gives her scenes any reality and you sigh with
relief each time she appears.

Socially conscious playwrights take heed: it’s not enough to have
something worthwhile to say, you’ve got to say it in a worthwhile
manner as well.