ARMENIAN ROOTS AND IDENTITY
Charlotte Stoudt
Calendar Live
LA Times, CA
May 25 2007
Theater Beat
A wacky star is born in ‘Tinseltown’
"Eth-nic." Nora Armani pronounces the word like she’s trying to
swallow something that doesn’t agree with her. No wonder: This
Armenian-Egyptian-American actress-poet-storyteller knows all those
hyphens can really stick in one’s throat. Does difference set you –
or keep you – apart?
Armani’s one-woman show, "On the Couch," which kicks off the Fountain
Theatre’s Summer Armenian Festival, meanders unevenly through a life
spent crossing borders geographic and emotional. With her striking
looks and British-inflected vowels, Armani has an elegant, feline
presence. Yet "On the Couch" lacks a satisfying cohesion, even for
a monologue about the experience of diaspora.
The show is loosely framed around an unresolved affair – Armani
keeps addressing her lover, imagining him sitting in the audience
– a strategy that feels indulgently dear-diary-ish. (Although she
does offer a sly riff on how cultures around the world deal with the
eternal question of men, women and the toilet seat: up or down?)
Far more interesting are her stories about family rituals, tales of
courtship, and surviving the Armenian genocide, all of which bring out
Armani’s engaging vitality. She ends, however, on a bittersweet note:
"Where is my home?" she wonders. "Where is my spirit?" But it’s as
if she hasn’t heard her own story: Home is the sound of her Armenian
accent and her French one; old world memories and Hollywood horror
stories; the sway of her hips when she dances, the ironic elan of her
parting shots. As that other Egyptian diva Cleopatra knew, infinite
variety conquers all.