Armenia: The War In Nagorny Karabakh As Reflected In True Stories, On the Stage
The solo performance ‘My Family In My Suitcase’. Photograph: Bravo.am
The solo performance ‘My Family In My Suitcase’. Photograph: Bravo.am
Poster for the play ‘White Storks’
The play ‘White Storks’. Photograph: Tert.am
The play ‘White Storks’. Photograph: Tert.am
Ara Ernjakyan, Author and Director of the play ‘White Storks’. Photograph: Photolure
Poster for the play ‘The Eagle’s Nest’
The play ‘The Eagle’s Nest’. Photograph: Tert.am
Twenty five years after the war, Armenia’s theatres finally broke their silence, with three plays about the real events and human stories of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict coming out almost simultaneously over the last year. This was due to the so-called ‘April war’.
In 1994, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorny Karabakh signed a ceasefire agreement. In the early hours of 2 April 2016, however, military clashes broke out on an unprecedented scale, to rage for the next four days. In Armenia, they are known as the four-day April War. Altogether, hundreds of people lost their lives in the violence.
The solo performance ‘My Family in My Suitcase’ premiered in April 2017 at the opening of the Armmono International Theatre Festival. Filled with her childhood memories, it tells the real story of the family of actress and director Narine Grigoryan, whose father was taken prisoner.
In 1989, the actress was eight years old. That year, her entire family moved from Armenia to Nagorny Karabakh, she recalls.
In 1991, Narine Grigoryan’s father was taken prisoner in Shushi. After a month in captivity, during which he was subjected to ‘violence, torture and cruel treatment’, he managed to escape with the help of an Azerbaijani doctor, and was able to return home.
Resembling a conversation with the audience, the play tells the story of the capture of the actress’s father, the events of the war in Nagorny Karabakh, and everyday life, through the eyes of an eleven-year-old girl.
‘Throughout the play, I share my memories, noting that as a child, I saw the war as a game,’ the actress explains. ‘My father turned our wartime childhood into a game. Giving us endless logical puzzles to do, he kept telling us jokes, so we wouldn’t feel the cruelty of the war.’
The play is an attempt to portray the history, memories and fears of the generation that lived through the war in Nagorny Karabakh as children.
Narine Grigoryan, Actress
This year, the actress also brought the solo performance ‘My Family In My Suitcase’ to the State Drama Theatre in Nagorny Karabakh’s Shushi.
Producer and Artistic Director of the Hovhannes Tumanyan Yerevan State Puppet Theatre Ruben Babayan says this highly artistic documentary play has universal human appeal.
‘This play puts forward the tremendously important belief that one can retain one’s humanity under any circumstances. Whatever their nationality, age or gender, people always have a choice. They can choose to behave like humans, or find reasons to commit inhuman acts. The play is a very sincere conversation, it’s not at all affected – that’s what makes it so appealing,’ Babayan feels.
Ruben Babayan, Artistic Director, Hovhannes Tumanyan Yerevan State Puppet Theatre
The solo performance ‘My Family In My Suitcase’ and other works based on universal human values might be able to help Armenians and Azerbaijanis to understand each other and begin a dialogue, or at least attempt to do so, Ruben Babayan suggests.
‘We know the famous novel “Stone Dreams” by the Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli. The author was ostracized, yet his approach was humanistic. The novel is based on a strong and true foundation. I think works like these, plays like these can only help us,’ Babayan adds.
Staged at the Yerevan State Chamber Theatre in May 2016, the play ‘White Storks’ deals with the events known as the April War. Honouring the memory of the heroes who fell defending Nagorny Karabakh, it includes scenes in which the actors read out the names of all the victims of the violence.
The idea behind the play emerged during the April clashes. ‘White Storks’ was written and directed by the Artistic Director of the Yerevan State Chamber Theatre Ara Erndjakyan, who told the press that all proceeds from the production would go to the parents of the soldiers who were killed.
‘It was our duty to react to those April events and to put forward our stance. The play consists of several parts. The first looks at the behaviour of Azerbaijan and of society. The second deals with Europe and America’s reaction to the April events, and to the broader conflict over Nagorny Karabakh. The third part looks at Russia’s position, which our production sees as a betrayal. These are emotional, accusatory texts, directed at all these countries due to the situation that we found ourselves in. At that time, no other attitude was possible,’ Erndjakyan explains.
In 2017, ‘White Storks’ was temporarily removed from the theatre’s repertoire. The production was so highly charged that the audience would become very emotional, so a slight pause was necessary, the director explains.
February 2017 saw the premiere of ‘The Eagle’s Nest’ at the Gabriel Sundukyan National Academic Theatre. The production marked 25 years of war and independence in Nagorny Karabakh.
Based on a play of the same name by Hrach Beglaryan, the production was directed by David Harutyunyan.
In the theatre’s repertoire to this day, ‘The Eagle’s Nest’ always sees a full house. The troupe has also taken it to Nagorny Karabakh and to various regions of Armenia.
The events unfold in the village of Karakap in Nagorny Karabakh. Situated near the border, the village sees violent clashes. The main heroine, 80-year-old Amay, is forced to look on as young men are wounded and lose their lives.
The actor Lernik Harutyunyan plays a sharpshooter from the Tavush Province, Margar. At the end of the play, Margar loses his life.
‘We may sigh and complain, but at the end of the day, when the time comes we stand firm for our motherland, protecting our borders. This is the patriotic stance that the play conveys to the viewer,’ Lernik Harutyunyan says.
Theatre critic Tigran Martirosyan feels that staging plays about the conflict in Nagorny Karabakh is clearly necessary, but one must be sensitive about how exactly this is done.
When asked about ‘The Eagle’s Nest’, the theatre critic offered a damning opinion of both the initial play, and the subsequent production.
‘As soon as a theatre decides to start trading in propaganda, it becomes provincial. An audience that watches a play like this will not be convinced by what it sees, by the events portrayed. This is deliberate affectation, pseudo-patriotism,’ Tigran Martirosyan insists.
Turning to Narine Grigoryan’s ‘My Family In My Suitcase’, the theatre critic praised several aspects of the solo performance.
‘The actress tells her story without any hatred. Furthermore, she even introduces elements of self-irony. For instance, in the house-cleaning scene, when the heroine exclaims “Who are we doing this tidying for? For the Turks?” This is utter self-irony, and the viewer finds it appealing. Viewers are not left with a sense of toxic emotional tension. Long-standing hatred is bad for one’s inner world, after all,’ the theatre critic explains.
