Nine Armenians:

a play by Leslie Ayvazian
directed by Torange Yeghiazarian 
Golden Thread Productions

15apr02 

Background

Although it declared its independence in 1991, Armenia is still a country struggling to be born. With its three and a half million people, it faces very serious difficulties, not the least of which is trying to switch over to a democratic political system and market-based economy after seven decades as part of the Soviet Union.

It is also at war with its neighbor to the east, Azerbaijan, and bordered on the west by Turkey, a country which subjected Armenians to what has been called "the first genocide of the twentieth century" Between 1894 and 1922, approximately two million Armenians were murdered by the Turkish government.

As a subject people and Christian, nineteenth century Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were the object of discrimination, periodic massacres and heavy taxation. The Empire was also highly corrupt and there was a general breakdown of law and order. Agitation for reform grew, and as liberal western thought filtered in from the Armenian diaspora (spiurk), a struggle for greater autonomy and even independence began.

At the same time, the Ottoman Empire was in decline. An Armenian awakening raised the specter of further erosion with the loss of a large part of the Turkish peninsula. When protest intensified in the mid '90s, Sultan Abdul-Hamid instituted a systematic policy of massacres and lootings. 100,000 - 200,000 Armenians were killed, half a million left in poverty.

In 1908, the Young Turks, revolutionaries influenced by western liberalism and nationalistic movements, who promised equal treatment for the non-Muslim minorities of the Empire, overthrew the Sultan and established a constitutional government. Very shortly, however, liberals and moderates lost power to militant pan-Turkish nationalists, who devised a plan to cleanse Armenians, Georgians and Russians, the minorities that stood in the way of a united Turkey.

Armenia from 70BC to Present    

During the First World War, beginning in 1915, able-bodied Armenian men were systematically taken out and shot. Old men, women and children were deported into the desert, where many of them died. Altogether one and a half million Armenians perished. The killing stopped only in 1921, when, rather than submit to the Turks - which was to be the fate of the remaining western Armenians - eastern Armenia became an independent republic of the USSR.

To this day Turkey denies a genocide took place. Historians who argue this point of view say it was necessary to deport the Armenians so that they couldn't aid advancing Russian troops. They also say that the numbers of Armenians before the war were greatly exaggerated and that many Armenians died as a natural result of war.

These then were the events that led the family in Leslie Ayvazian's play to emigrate to this country. The events that form the background to the conditions Ani discovers in independent Armenia in 1992 grew out of continuing nationalistic aspirations in Nagorno-Karabakh, which the Soviets made a province of Muslim Azerbaijan, despite the fact that eighty per cent of the population was Armenian.

By the late 1980's, that decision led to a movement to reunite Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Demonstrations resulted in pogroms against the Azerbaijani Armenians, a refugee problem for Armenia and a blockade by Azerbaijan that exacerbated conditions brought on by the 8.5 Richter 1988 earthquake. Food, fuel and medical supplies were hard to come by and reconstruction was slowed. In the harsh winter of 1992-93, when Ani visited, lack of fuel caused schools, factories, offices and hospitals to close and children and the elderly to die in large numbers.

The conflict also led to mass rallies and strikes and finally to clashes with Soviet troops. Anti-Russian feelings generated by the conflict contributed to the Armenian people declaring their independence in September 1991.

hal gelb

Middle of What?

The first thing people ask when you mention starting a new theatre company, or any organization for that matter, is '‘what’s your mission?” Depending on who you talk to about Mission Statements, they’ll tell you it’s either the most stupid thing they ever had to do or the most important. I belong to the latter group. I think stating a clear and truthful mission for a company early on can in the long run save a lot of headaches and prevent future misunderstandings.

We founded Golden Thread Productions to produce works that draw attention to the Middle East, either by virtue of their theme or the writer’s ethnic background. It wasn’t so much that we were looking for a niche but that no one was telling the stories we wanted to tell. At the time, we had no idea how complex articulating this simple idea would turn out to be. Certain things were clear to us from the start; for example we knew you didn’t have to be from the Middle East to be part of Golden Thread. You just had to care about the Middle East. This is critical as many “Middle Easterners” no longer reside in the Middle East and many non-Middle Easterners deeply care about issues concerning the region and its culture. Although we are based in San Francisco, we expected the works to come from all over the world. Also, it was important to us to make it clear from the start that we don’t claim to represent the Middle East in its vastness and complexity but that we are curious to learn more, to explore. After limited head-banging and some friendly back and forth we came up with the following Mission Statement which we felt accurately communicates our vision: Golden Thread Productions is a dynamic ensemble in the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to the production of theatrical works exploring the Middle Eastern culture and identity as represented throughout the globe.

In all of our discussions, we took it for granted that there is general agreement among us and the public at large about what is meant by Middle East. But as it turned out defining the Middle East proved to be more difficult than writing the company’s mission statement. A few people who first read the statement asked if we were an Arab group. I said no. Israeli? No. Well, where are you from? They would ask me. I was born in Iran, I would say. Are you Moslem, Christian, or Jewish? “Two out of three. I am half Moslem, half Christian. Does that help?” It didn’t. Politically speaking, the American public mostly associates the Middle East with Persian Gulf and the Arab-Israel conflict. This association not only limits the geographic boundaries of the region but also accentuates the very same stereotypes that our company brings under question. On the other end of the spectrum, we didn’t necessarily want people to expect belly dancers and humus-spreading turban wearers either. Of course, most of us in Golden Thread love belly dancing and Middle Eastern food and the music. But as we sat around the table munching on pistachio nuts and snapping our fingers to the rhythm of Cheb Khaled wondering what really sets us apart we became deeply aware of the resistance we all felt to boxing ourselves in some easily digestible media bit.

Yet, the commonly held misperceptions underlined the need for a clear definition, not only for the audience but also the artists whose works we seek to represent. The first year we organized Golden Thread’s festival of short plays we had two plays about Algeria. There was a wave of questioning by Algerian intellectuals who did not identify themselves as Middle Easterners. Is Algeria part of the Middle East? Not if you define East as Asia because Algeria is in Africa. But its population is predominantly Moslem and Arabic speaking. Should we consider all Moslem and Arabic-speaking nations as Middle Eastern? What about Iran and Turkey that are not Arabic-speaking nations? And what about the predominantly Moslem nations in Europe (Albania) and South East Asia (Malaysia)? Do we define Middle East based on geography, religion, language, or what?

A couple of years ago Nawal El Saadawi, the prominent Egyptian writer and feminist, gave a talk at the Mission Cultural Center in support of lifting the embargo on Iraq and she commented on this very dilemma. She said when people refer to her as Middle Eastern she asks “Middle of What?” She said –and I paraphrase- Egypt is on the Eastern Coast of Africa but West of the Arabian Peninsula. So where exactly is the East that Egypt falls in the Middle of? Relative to Egypt, England, the nation credited with coining the terms Near, Middle and Far East, would be Middle West (actually North-West, strictly speaking) and the America’s, Far West. Should we refer to these regions as such? In fact, Morocco is farther West than England but I don’t think anyone ever thinks of England when referring to The East.

Obviously geography was not going to help us define the Middle East. Neither were religion nor language since there are multitudes of both in the nations we considered to comprise the Middle East. What did that leave us with? It was actually Larry Eilenberg, my professor at SFSU and the current Artistic Director of Magic Theatre, who suggested the liberating opening we currently use to explain our vision of the Middle East… In our vast imagination, the Middle East is not defined by geographic boundaries and political separations, but as the shared experience of the people who throughout history have been touched by its tastes, melodies and aromas. The Middle East lives inside us, as we redefine ourselves, we redefine the Middle East.

The answer was there all along. It is not about how other people define the Middle East but what we mean when we refer to it. Ultimately, making theatre is about bringing us together not defining us apart. It is this delicate balance of separation and coming together that like breathing infuses theatre with life.

Torange Yeghiazarian
Artistic Director

Golden Thread Productions
PMB 153, 4096 Piedmont Ave.
Oakland, CA. 94611
www.goldenthread.org