Globe and Mail, Canada
Feb. 26, 2008

Theatre Review
When passion is not enough

Review by J. KELLY NESTRUCK

A CROOKED MAN
Written by Richard Kalinoski
Directed by Hrant Alianak
Starring Hrant Alianak, Garen Boyajian, Araxi Arslanian
At the Theatre Centre
in Toronto until March 2
*½

Alianak Theatre’s world premiere of A Crooked Man, Richard
Kalinoski’s play about remembering and forgetting the Armenian
genocide, is receiving a production full of purpose and passion at
the Theatre Centre. Unfortunately, neither of those makes up for the
third P it is lacking: professionalism.

The crooked man of the title is Hagop Hagopian, an Armenian put on
trial for assassinating the Turkish governor who ordered the massacre
of his people during the First World War. Played by Hrant Alianak,
who also directs and produces, Hagopian is inspired by the real-life
Soghomon Tehlirian, who killed an infamous Ottoman statesman in
Berlin in 1921 but was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

In A Crooked Man, the recently widowed Hagop relives this ordeal
about 70 years on when his estranged American grandson, Alexan (Garen
Boyajian), comes to interview him for a newspaper.

As he recalls the events that turned him into an Armenian hero, Hagop
must confront his dark memories of the atrocities from which he
emerged the only survivor in his family.

Alianak, a Canadian theatre trailblazer in the 1970s who has more
recently appeared on TV shows such as Little Mosque on the Prairie,
is proud to have assembled an all-Armenian professional cast for this
premiere.

He has described it as a Canadian first and told reporters, "The play
can best be told with the passion an Armenian can bring to it."

There are many reasons to be wary of this statement. It’s a principle
that if applied across the board would lead to theatrical
segregation, Also, it is simply untrue. Indeed, A Crooked Man’s
appeal to a larger audience has been sabotaged by its
community-theatre production values.

Onstage throughout the play, Alianak has some charisma as the aging,
obstinate Hagop, but little chemistry with his cast mates. You can
tell from the awkward staging and erratic lighting and sound design
that the show has suffered by his doubling as director.

Making his professional stage debut in the role of Alexan, Boyajian
isn’t up to the task, spluttering and skittering about the stage. He
isn’t helped by Kalinoski’s script, which has made him a 26-year-old
reporter, but gives him lines that make him seem like a naive and
nervous teenager writing for his student newspaper.

Araxi Arslanian, however, gives a strong performance both as Hagop’s
long-suffering daughter and in playing a number of women who appear
in memory sequences of the trial and the genocide.

A winner of the Prix Molière for his similarly themed Beast on the
Moon, Kalinoski has written an occasionally poetic script, but its
basic structure needs work: It drags at the beginning, and the
horrible secret Hagop has kept all his life takes too long to be
revealed. The playwright has also stacked the cards in Hagop’s favour
in the half-hearted debate with his grandson over whether what he did
was morally right.

At one point, Hagop angrily scrawls the number 1,500,000 across
Alex’s notebook – it’s the estimated number of Armenians who died in
the genocide that inspired Hitler but continues to be officially
denied in Turkey. This all-Armenian production will play to a largely
Armenian-Canadian audience who, as evidenced by opening night, will
be moved, but in its current state it’s unlikely to move beyond that
community to those who are more likely to be unfamiliar with that
terrible, unfathomable number.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress