SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — Being Armenian is never having to say goodbye.
“We are never able to leave parties when we say we’re going to because we spend so much time saying goodbye to everyone,” said Playwright Susie Chakmakian.
“The ‘Armenian way’ of doing things has impacted me in my life, like when I was a tired six-year-old who just wanted to go home after a long night at a family event but my parents would take forever to say goodbye,” she said.
This and other anecdotes fill her one-person play about the heritage of this country, just south of the great mountain range of the Caucasus and fronting the northwestern extremity of Asia.
Armenia, the country of Transcaucasia, to the north and east is bounded by Georgia and Azerbaijan, while its neighbors to the southeast and west are, respectively, Iran and Turkey.
Armenian culture and history come to life in “There Was and There Was Not: Telling Armenian Stories,” a new one-woman show playing at The Contemporary Theater Company beginning tomorrow evening.
She is also the sole performer and weaves her own personal family stories as a first-generation Armenian-American with history, music, and food from Armenia.
“It’s really fun to share these stories with both Armenians and non-Armenians who can see themselves in those stories,” she said. “My favorite example is when I performed the first chunk of my show for some kids at an Armenian Youth Day event in Providence earlier this month. When I asked if any of them had questions after the performance, three different kids piped up with their own stories about how their parents take ages to leave events and it was a joy to see them recognize themselves in my story and get so excited about sharing their stories with me!”
She also said that the Armenian language is also unique and has some fun and fascinating quirks.
“I also love sharing how Armenians talk about our babies,” Chakmakian said. “It’s very specific and kind of weird, but it makes sense to us. When I performed the show at Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church in Providence last fall, my demonstration of Armenian baby talk got the biggest laugh of the whole show.”
Chakmakian said that this show has been a way for her to think about a lot of “important and complicated big-picture questions that I have been asking myself about the Armenian-American experience for a while now, particularly in terms of how we tell stories about ourselves.”
“When you see the show, you’re watching me work through those questions on stage while navigating the strong and complex feelings that are also tied up with the Armenian-American experience,” she said.
For instance, Armenians are fiercely proud of their culture, but all of that pride “is tinged with the deep sadness” that comes with the tragedy of genocide during the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches.
“The sadness can make our story difficult to tell sometimes, but the pride is always there underneath, driving the urge to keep telling that story anyway,” Chakmakian said.
CTC Artistic Director Tammy Brown, offering comments about this show developed during the theater’s experimental “try-out” sessions for newly developed work, praised the effort.
“When I first saw this show I was struck by how thoughtful and poignant it was,” Brown said. “This play reminds me of all the great things theater can be — a gathering of community where, by learning about the experience of others, you gain a sense of our shared humanity.”
Chakmakian agrees.
“I really hope that audiences will come away with a better understanding of what it’s like to be an Armenian in America, but also to think about what it means more generally to see the world from a different perspective for a while,” she said.
Tickets for the show, which runs through May 13, range from $10 to $40, with every audience member able to choose the price that works for them.
Performance information and tickets are on The Contemporary Theater Company’s website at contemporarytheatercompany.com.
https://www.independentri.com/arts_and_living/article_6ae0f032-e463-11ed-8278-fb41ea0c94cf.html