THEATER: FABLES AND FOIBLES (FROM HOVHANNES TOUMANYAN’S WORLD)
by Aram Kouyoumdjian

Armenian Reporter
October 20, 2008
Armenia

Tigran Kirakosyan as a hungry wolf in "The Stupid Man".

What happens when a theater takes a handful of traditional Armenian
fables and dramatizes them with a modern, irreverent sensibility? If
the fables are by Hovhannes Toumanyan and the staging is at Luna
Playhouse, a delightful production emerges. To be sure, the pastiche
billed as "From Toumanyan’s World" is rather rough around the edges,
but it is altogether astute (thanks to healthy doses of surreal humor)
and brims with energy (thanks to a spirited cast). The novel show,
which had a too-short run earlier this month, has fortunately added
matinee performances (at 11:00 a.m.) on Sundays, October 26 and
November 2.

Toumanyan, who composed his narrative poems and short stories in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was among the writers who
made Tiflis (the now-troubled Georgian capital, Tbilisi) a center
of Armenian intellectual life at the time. Toumanyan’s work is
remarkably simple but never simplistic, especially when it serves
as satire of human foibles. For instance, one of his masterworks,
"A Drop of Honey," describes how an utterly benign incident leads to
unbridled bloodshed. Although it is a comic composition, it doubles as
allegory in its condemnation of senseless killing and war. (In Sojourn
at Ararat, the poem takes on unexpected potency as the lead-in to a
segment on the Genocide).

At Luna, director Aramazd Stepanian’s eager cast acts out the poem as a
choral piece, with Stepanian himself providing vigorous narration. The
staging delivers laughs by punching up the poem’s farcical elements
while downplaying any tragic undercurrent. In this vein, it maintains
a steady pace and tone, even though the ever-escalating conflict in
the poem demands a corresponding build-up in the performance.

The comedy takes on an absurdist quality in "The Stupid Man," which
recounts the titular character’s journey to see God and express his
grievances. When he finally reaches heaven, he encounters a God who
bears a strange resemblance to the Godfather (thanks to Stepanian
channeling Brando). God promises the stupid man good fortune and
actually hands it to him on a flash drive. True to his name, however,
the stupid man fails to realize the bounty he has been given and
proceeds to meet an entirely unfortunate demise, ending up as a meal
for a hungry wolf.

Tigran Kirakosyan gleefully devours his role as the wolf and goes on
to exhibit superior talent as a funnyman in his portrayal of myriad
characters, including Ousta Piso in "The Dog and the Cat." There,
he puts on an impressive display of physicalized movement as he
teams up with Ashot Tadevosian to perform Toumanyan’s rhymes as rap
rhythms. Tadevosian proves particularly adept at pulling off this
inspired bit of bravura.

By the time the show gets to "The Death of Kikos," the hysterics are
in full swing. In that story, a young woman sitting underneath a tree
conceives the thought that Kikos, the son she imagines having in the
future, will climb up the tree and fall to his death. In ridiculous
fashion, she begins mourning the death of this nonexistent child,
and is soon joined by her entire family (including her iPod-addicted
sister) in planning his funeral. The piece is performed in fittingly
exaggerated style, and when Lyudmila Grigoryan, grandmother to the
"dead" Kikos, begins wailing, the lunacy turns downright sidesplitting.

Props go to a cast that tackles the show’s challenges with gusto. While
several members of the ensemble are obviously inexperienced, they
acquit themselves by reveling in the material. A few of the vignettes
themselves would benefit from some tweaking, including "Paregentanuh,"
which falls relatively flat, as do the stories that are simply read
(sans staging) at the outset of each act. Overall, however, "From
Toumanyan’s World" enlivens our literary tradition in a way that is
essential to its survival.

Ensuring that survival will be the appreciable number of children
– the most honest of critics – who were in the audience for this
family-friendly show the night I saw it. They were neither fidgety nor
restless. They sat, smiling and rapt, relishing Toumanyan’s magical
words within a context to which they could relate.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress