A dispute erupted in
1988 involving two Soviet states, Armenia
and Azerbaijan. It was to become the
initial fracture in the collapse of
the Soviet Union. This dispute, which
continues to this day as a focus of
on-going international concern, is centered
on the mountainous territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ethnic rivalries fueled by historical
accusations fester, creating a fertile
basis for this astounding work by Boston
area playwright, Joyce Van Dyke.
Returning to the bombed out ruin of
her childhood home with her mother,
now a sniper in the Karabakh army, Ana
Sarkisian, an Armenian fashion model
who has found success in America, defiantly
refuses to identify herself with the
Armenian cause. She falls for a young
Azerbaijani deserter, Ilyas, who claims
to be a former neighbor. As bombs begin
to explode the question of Ilyas' identity
becomes an issue of survival for Anna,
her mother, and the whole village. The
competing desires of love and vengeance
are are fueled by the current crisis,
injustices on both sides, and the clash
between the modern world and tradition.
are fueled by the current crisis, injustices
on both sides, and the clash between
the modern world and tradition.
Production
Photos
New
Rep Production
(World Premiere)
Katarina
Morhacova (Ana) and Dan Domingues
(Ilyas)
Katarina
Morhacova (Ana) and Bobbie Steinbach
(Arsheluis)
Katarina
Morhacova (Ana) and Bobbie Steinbach
(Arsheluis)
Boston
Playwrights Production (Workshop)
Bobbie
Steinbach (Arsheluis), Melinda
Lopez (Ana)
Anthony
Estrella (Ilyas), Melinda Lopez
(Ana)
Anthony
Estrella (Ilyas), Robert Najarian
(Seryozha)
Listening
Station
Top of Act 1 - Explosions, a hip-hop groove,
a camera shutter, and a baby's cry together
for one night only. This cue opened the show,
and was played with the strobe of a camera
and Anna striking different positions.
Sound Advice
This is the first time I've ever received
the chance to work on a developing script, and
evolve right along with it from workshop to
world premiere. The directors I worked with
were of very different mindsets, even so, there
were some similarities in how we approached
sound and music for this production.
First, to challenge the set designer, the action
takes place first in NYC, then in Armenia. These
two worlds are only bridged geographically in
one scene change, but are continually being
bridged by the characters of Anna, Stephen and
Tito throughout the rest of the play. The musical
and auditory concept of a bridge being built
between these worlds was integral to both productions.
Thus, the hip-hop/techno music of the New York
fashion scene and the slow deep earthy notes
of an Armenian duduk can be used to clash against
one another to create an emotional atmosphere
that might seem strangely familiar to Anna,
our lead character.
Unfortunately, and not for lack of trying,
to find a decent duduk player on short notice,
even in Boston is not an easy thing to do. Thus,
I used samples from master musician Djivan Gasparayan
to bridge a few scene changes. I have to say
that as a composer I'm not a fan of sampling,
but I must also know when to step out of the
way if music that's already written works better
for the piece than what I've created.
Another piece of music that was used in both
productions was the melody from Mozart's Clarinet
Concerto. it's the piece that plays in the minds
of both Anna and her mother Arsheluis when they
remember Seryozha, Anna's little brother who
is tortured and killed before the action starts.
Seryozha was a clarinet player you see... Not
a very good one, but decent enough to play a
bit of Mozart. This theme is very haunting and
lyrical and serves as the perfect underscore
for scenes in which Seryozha is remembered.
As far as the technical stuff. I designed the
show on two MD decks, for a Stage Manager who
was also running the light board and cueing
actors. Thus, the K.I.S.S. factor came into
play. I sent 3 channels of sound out of the
mixing board. One for the main house speakers,
one for a speaker I hid in the set, which I
used for the localized effects of a boom box,
and a kettle whistle, and one for two speakers
I put behind the audience that played the sounds
of a river cascading for a scene in which Arsheluis
sits onstage with a snipers rifle, waiting to
pick off anyone that comes down to drink. Oh
yeah! All the EQing and effects were built into
the sounds using BIAS Peak LE 4, and Digital
Performer 4, and I was able to record the cues
into the mini disc player at levels that matched
the final levels so well that there was little
use of the faders on the mixing board at all.
This comes in VERY HANDY when designing for
someone who's also running lights.
Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable selling
this design because so little original music
was involved. Still, if you have any further
questions, please do not hesitate to contact
me.
-Haddon
Reviews
`Girl's War' focuses on conflict
of love
By Ed Siegel, Boston Globe 9/23/03
NEWTON -- The civil wars raging around
the globe have a disorienting, distancing
quality about them. How do you get people
whose national identity is all but built
on hatred of the other side to live
together? And why should Americans,
faced with our own international problems,
care about other people's wars?
Newton playwright Joyce Van Dyke makes
us care in her play, "A Girl's
War," which is receiving its world
premiere at the New Repertory Theatre.
She transports us to Nagorno-Karabakh
in the Caucasus along with Anna, an
Armenian-American fashion model who
learns that a second brother has been
killed in a long-simmering territorial
conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis
(or Azeris) back home. She returns to
a war-ravaged village to bury her brother
and to visit her mother, who despises
the high life she's living in Manhattan.
The truth is, Anna -- Anahid, actually
-- isn't so crazy about it, either.
Katarina Morhacova gives Anahid a distracted
sense of herself, fully cognizant of
her pouty beauty but unable to connect
to anything beyond modeling. The soullessness
of her life there is captured in the
opening scene, a fashion shoot with
photographer Stephen Wellington played
with a delightful sense of sleaziness
by Benjamin Evett.
Van Dyke's photography metaphor is one
of her finest touches. Americans and
the media at large are concerned only
with the surface appearance of things,
not with the reality of what is really
happening, Van Dyke seems to be saying.
We wear our blinders -- in Anahid's
case, her naivete; in the photographer's
case, his arrogance -- at our own peril.
Anahid separates herself from the conflict
between the Armenians and Azeris by
saying that it is not her war. But a
love affair with Ilyas, a childhood
friend, now an Azeri foe in her mother's
eyes, thrusts her into the arena. Shades
of "Romeo and Juliet" or "Elvira
Madigan," you think, but Van Dyke
has more tough-minded ideas in mind.
Dan Domingues's Ilyas matches Anahid
in the sexiness department. The photographer
and his assistant pose Ilyas as a grunge
model, complete with gun. Bobbie Steinbach
(the one cast member to also appear
in a well-done workshop production of
the play two years ago) reprises her
terrific performance as Anahid's mother,
who, unlike her Western counterparts,
backs up her distaste for assimilationist
ways with a rifle.
The mother's warnings about the cost
of the United States and NATO see-sawing
between blindness and arrogance now
carry resonances of Sept. 11 similar
to those in Tony Kushner's "Homebody/Kabul."
Van Dyke, though, has written more of
an informative documentary than a play
bristling with that kind of theatrical
brilliance. The plot of "A Girl's
War" moves along predictably, and
the writing is too prosaic. More conservative
theater-goers might balk at the full-frontal
nudity of Anahid and Ilyas, but here
Van Dyke is using the power of the theater
to make the characters and the audience
take full, emotional measure of the
two lovers.
Other aspects of the production don't
work as well. Mason Sand is more effective
as the photographer's assistant than
the ghost of Anahid's brother Seryozha.
Ghosts should haunt, but Seryozha intrudes.
Richard Chambers's set design isn't
evocative of its setting, looking as
if it could be a run-down section of
any American city.
And though it's fun to watch Morhacova
and Evett bring different virtues to
their model and photographer portrayals,
I preferred the more psychologically
sophisticated readings of Melinda Lopez
and Will Lyman in the workshop production.
Still, Rick Lombardo as director and
head of the New Rep has his own ideas
for the play. A tougher ending has helped
bolster a strong foundation. The new
conclusion doesn't show us a way out
of these civil conflicts. But if she
knew a way out, Van Dyke should be head
of the United Nations instead of the
very promising playwright she is.
New Repertory Theatre wins with
`Girl's War'
By Terry Byrne, Boston Herald 9/23/03
Distilling a complex web of hatred into
a two-hour drama seems an impossible task.
But in the thrilling ``A Girl's War''
at the New Repertory Theatre, playwright
Joyce Van Dyke focuses on individual conflicts
as a way to bring us dangerously close
to the gunfire.
Anna Sarkisian
(a luminous Katarina Morhakova) has avoided
the violent struggle between Christian
Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis in her
home country of Nagorno-Karabakh by forging
a career as a successful fashion model
in America. But when her second brother
is murdered, she returns home after a
15-year absence, thinking she'll take
care of her mother and find a way for
both of them to escape once and for all.
When she
arrives, Anna finds her mother, played
by the stunning Bobbie Steinbach (who
is reprising a role she created for the
workshop production at Boston Playwrights'
Theatre two years ago) rooted to her home,
her country and her cause. Little is left
for this widow in the tiny village: Her
husband and sons are dead, her home has
been bombed and walls have been replaced
with plastic sheeting, and she has become
a sniper in the Armenian army.
Steinbach's
character is defeated, and yet she clings
to the little things to keep her anchored.
The care with which she demands Anna scrub
the floor, the way she prepares her special
foods, the bitterness with which she describes
the enemies who were once her neighbors
and friends, the prayers she recites all
keep her from collapsing under the weight
of her loss. Steinbach is wrenching but
never overwrought, hardened but never
cold. ``Never forget history,'' she reminds
her, spoonfeeding Anna the stories of
Armenians vs. the Turks along with her
homemade yogurt.
Of course,
Anna doesn't heed her mother's stories,
and when an Azeri gunman appears (a charming
Dan Dominguez) and turns out to be Ilyas,
a boy she grew up with, they immediately
fall passionately in love.
Morhakova
is beautiful and expressive, but she doesn't
quite communicate Anna's studied ambivalence
or her vulnerability. When Ilyas catches
her taking a bath and she steps out naked,
she should be as vulnerable as she is
proud, but Morhakova can't quite get to
Anna's fears about herself. Some of the
reasons why they connect so well - they
are isolated from the past even as they're
trying to reconstruct it - get lost.
When Anna's
old boyfriend Stephen (Benjamin Evitt)
tracks her down in the tiny village, he
adds to the angry clash of cultures. Evitt's
bleached-blond fashion photographer sports
an odd, working-class British accent that
distracts somewhat from his own struggle
between self-absorption and fascination
with Anna. But the scene in which he tries
to turn Ilyas into a model is brilliant.
The role
of Tito (Mason Sand), Stephen's assistant,
has been fleshed out in this version,
and Sand does a wonderful job of finding
the heart of another character adrift
in the world. Sand also does double duty
as the ghost of Anna's brother, a character
who needs more clarification. Is he simply
bitter and full of vengeance or can he
offer wisdom from the grave?
The climactic
scene in ``A Girl's War'' is shocking,
as it pushes the reality of innocent lives
lost.
But at the
end, Van Dyke leans too far toward a moral,
rather than leaving us struggling with
Anna about what to do next.
CAST
Bobbie Steinbach
..........
Arsheluis
Katarina Morhacova
..........
Ana
Ben Evett
..........
Stephen
Mason Sand
..........
Tito/Seryozha
Dan Domingues
..........
Ilyas
SET
DESIGN
.....
Richard Chambers
LIGHTING DESIGN
.....
Dan Meeker
COSTUME DESIGN
.....
Denitsa Bliznakova
ORIGINAL
MUSIC and
SOUND DESIGN
.....
Haddon Kime
STAGE MANAGER
.....
Cheryl D. Olszowka
...and before that...
presents
A GIRLS WAR
by Joyce Van Dyke
Workshop Production
November 29th - December 16th, 2001
