RED DOG HOWLS
By Bob Verini

Variety
17937232.html?categoryid=33&cs=1
May 21 2008
CA

Kathleen Chalfant unfolds a mystery involving the Armenian genocide
of 1915 to her grandson, Matthew Rauch, in ‘Red Dog Howls.’

A Gang of Five-New York presentation of a play in two acts by
Alexander Dinelaris. Directed by Michael Peretzian. Sets, Tom
Buderwitz; costumes, Bobby Pearce; lighting, Michael Gilliam; sound,
Jon Gottlieb; production stage manager, Jennifer G. Birge. Opened,
reviewed May 19, 2008. Runs through June 13. Running time: 2 HOURS.

Vartouhi Afratian – Kathleen Chalfant Michael Kiriakos – Matthew
Rauch Gabriella Kiriakos – Darcie Siciliano Musician – Ara Dabandjian
"Red Dog Howls," premiering at the El Portal, proceeds to a remarkable
11th-hour confession made, in 1986, by a survivor of the 1915 Armenian
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks. Simply and hauntingly delivered
by Kathleen Chalfant, it forthrightly confronts the evil harbored by
ordinary people, the guilt of their victims and the measures required
to expiate that guilt. The build-up to this testimony, however, is
marred by heavy-handed dramaturgy from scribe Alexander Dinelaris,
who has yet to bring the artistry of the whole up to that of the last
few minutes.

Troubled protagonist Michael Kiriakos (Matthew Rauch) is drinking
heavily after the death of his Greek father as vaguely defined
identity issues threaten to swamp his new marriage to expectant
Gabriella (Darcie Siciliano). An address in Manhattan’s Washington
Heights brings him into the orbit of Armenian nonagenarian Vartouhi
(Chalfant), living mysteriously and alone among Old World bric-a-brac
in a homey parlor (lovingly detailed by designer Tom Buderwitz).

She’s the paternal grandmother Michael never knew, but beyond that,
she must be mum. "I can only give you one part at a time," she insists
(there’s even an Armenian word for it: gamatz), signaling we’re in
for a series of two-person encounters — some light, some angry, all
fraught and suggestive — until the layers of the onion are finally
stripped away.

As it turns out, there’s a legit plot reason for Dinelaris’ waiting
game, though its appearance in retrospect doesn’t affect the heaviness
of what’s come before. But what really weighs down "Red Dog Howls" is
Michael’s wearing his woes, and play’s self-importance, on his sleeve.

Periodic blackouts leave Michael spotlighted to articulate the
meaning of what we just saw, or highlight the significance of what
we’re about to see, or quote Armenian verse and then explain what
it means to his tale. Everything, but everything, is spelled out,
including the questions stemming from Vartouhi’s fragmented hints
("How was her husband killed?…Why had she stitched the name ‘Yeva’
into the pillow?") as if Dinelaris doubted our ability to pose or
remember them ourselves.

If there’s variety lurking in these monologues, helmer Michael
Peretzian hasn’t helped Rauch find it. The prevailing mode is
pugnacious pronouncement accompanied by accusatory glare, occasionally
broken by a half-smile or catch in the throat. Speeches end with
darkly pointed foreshadowing as he steps back into his apartment
for a squabble, or into Grandma’s for more parceled-out revelation:
"That’s how it all began — the first chapter of a book that nobody
should have to read"; "It was the first truly peaceful night’s sleep
of my adult life. And maybe the last."

The women fare better, with Siciliano’s vibrancy welcome in her
too-few appearances. Chalfant avoids cliche by finding considerable
emotional range in the taciturn, bitter widow whose culinary skill
stands in for expressions of concern or affection. That you can see a
brief relapse into youthful gaiety coming a long way off — a little
brandy, a little dance — doesn’t detract from its poignancy.

To his credit, Dinelaris is interested in examining the impact of
ancestral sins on later generations, not in assembling a didactic
"genocide play" (though the uninitiated will learn much mournful
history from it). Still, we’d be better able to gauge the achievement
of each of his aims with a less self-conscious protagonist, as well
as themes and meaning less obviously ladled out.