Adrienne Barbeau: actress, sex symbol, writer - Armenian Reporter
Adrienne Barbeau: actress, sex symbol, writer - Armenian Reporter
Adrienne Barbeau: actress, sex symbol, writer - Armenian Reporter
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the armenian<br />
reporter<br />
July 12, 2008<br />
July 12, 2008<br />
culture&<br />
arts<br />
the armenian reporter<br />
&<br />
<strong>Adrienne</strong> <strong>Barbeau</strong>:<br />
<strong>actress</strong>, <strong>sex</strong> <strong>symbol</strong>, <strong>writer</strong><br />
See page C6<br />
Faith<br />
in the<br />
inner<br />
eye<br />
Page C4<br />
Celebrating<br />
Jirayr Zorthian’s<br />
legacy<br />
Page C2<br />
The voice<br />
behind<br />
the echo<br />
Page C9
Celebrating Jirayr Zorthian’s legacy<br />
A new exhibition<br />
documents the late<br />
artist’s collaboration<br />
with physicist Richard<br />
Feynman<br />
by Adrineh<br />
Gregorian<br />
Jirayr Zorthian said, “The purpose of life<br />
is living.” Though this statement seems<br />
obvious, very few people truly live life.<br />
Modern norms have confined humans to<br />
a seat not far from one screen or another.<br />
We have in some form or another suppressed<br />
our imagination and our minds<br />
have been numbed by convention. Zorthian,<br />
however, never subscribed to the<br />
norm – not in his upbringing, not in his<br />
profession, and definitely not in his lifestyle.<br />
Zorthian was born in Kutahya, Turkey,<br />
on April 14, 1911. He and his family survived<br />
two massacres during the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Genocide. In 1923, when Zorthian<br />
was 9, his family sought refuge in New<br />
Haven, Connecticut, by way of Europe.<br />
While in Europe, Zorthian’s father exposed<br />
his young son to the arts.<br />
This exposure would eventually change<br />
the course of Zorthian’s life. In 1936, he<br />
graduated from Yale University with a<br />
degree in fine arts and flew off to Italy<br />
to study at the American Academy of<br />
Rome.<br />
Back in the United States, Zorthian’s<br />
reputation as a mural artist burgeoned.<br />
His artwork can be found in 42 buildings<br />
throughout the country. Zorthian then<br />
took his artistic vision into the third dimension<br />
as an architectural and design<br />
consultant.<br />
Despite a long career of creating artwork<br />
and designing structures, Zorthian’s<br />
lifestyle and contribution to the<br />
artists’ community can arguably be his<br />
lasting legacy.<br />
In 1945, he purchased a 45-acre ranch<br />
outside Pasadena, California, and<br />
turned it into The Center for Research<br />
and Development with an Emphasis on<br />
Aesthetics.<br />
This ranch was Zorthian’s refuge. It<br />
wasn’t so much for escaping the world;<br />
rather, he was showing the world how<br />
it could be. With decades worth of collected<br />
recycled materials, Zorthian constructed<br />
buildings, art installations, collages,<br />
and sculptures.<br />
For their bohemian lifestyle, Zorthian<br />
and his wife, Dabney, created a self-sufficient,<br />
sustainable existence by raising<br />
their own livestock and growing their<br />
own vegetables.<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture<br />
Copyright © 2008 by <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> llc<br />
All Rights Reserved<br />
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Jirayr Zorthian, The Divorcement, 1952 Ink on paper 17 x 24 inches<br />
Zorthian in “Planet Zorthian”<br />
In 1957, Zorthian established on his<br />
ranch a summer day camp, called the<br />
Zorthian Ranch for Children, where<br />
youngsters could develop their creative<br />
and athletic potential. Zorthian served<br />
as camp director for the following 25<br />
years.<br />
Zorthian would go on to become a<br />
staple in Southern California’s art circles.<br />
Throughout the decades, he accommodated<br />
a large number of artists and<br />
free spirits on the ranch. By doing so,<br />
Zorthian created his own eccentric community.<br />
One facet of this community was<br />
the friendship between Zorthian and<br />
CalTech physicist and Nobel Laureate<br />
Richard Feynman. Their friendship became<br />
the catalyst for a notable exchange<br />
of the scientific/objective and artistic/<br />
subjective worlds, and Zorthian became<br />
Feynman’s artistic mentor.<br />
Every year the Zorthian clan participated<br />
in two major celebratory events.<br />
The first was the annual Blessing of the<br />
Animals, around Easter, when the Cardinal<br />
of Los Angeles blesses animals on<br />
historic Olivera Street in Downtown.<br />
Zorthian and his family would gather all<br />
their pets and livestock to participate in<br />
the procession of animals.<br />
The second event was “The Primavera,”<br />
celebrating the coming of spring, the<br />
birthdays of Zorthian and Dabney, and<br />
their wedding anniversary.<br />
Both of these events are chronicled in<br />
Planet Zorthian, a 2004 film collaboration<br />
between Harout Arakelian, Lisa Tchakmakian,<br />
Sevag Vrej, and Arno Yeretzian.<br />
While the four filmmakers followed the<br />
artist independently of each other, their<br />
films combine to create an experimental<br />
On page C1: <strong>Adrienne</strong> <strong>Barbeau</strong>, a successful <strong>actress</strong>, known for her roles in<br />
horror movies, has co-written a new book, Vampyres of Hollywood. Read a<br />
reprint of her interview with the British online entertainment magazine<br />
Den of Geek on page C6. Photo: Pamela Springsteen.<br />
“cubist” documentary, whereby each of<br />
the four segments can be seen as standalone<br />
pieces yet complement one another<br />
by offering individual perspectives on<br />
the life and work of Zorthian.<br />
Zorthian passed away on January 6,<br />
2004, at the age of 92. Dabney died in<br />
2006. Though he is no longer with us,<br />
his spirit lives on in his art, his passion<br />
has permeated thousands who passed<br />
through his ranch, and his example is an<br />
inspiration to many still to come.<br />
Since the 1950s, Zorthian had rarely<br />
showcased his work in exhibits. While<br />
most of his public art consisted of murals<br />
in buildings across America, his<br />
sketches and paintings remained in his<br />
private collection. This year Jay Belloli<br />
and the Armory Center for the Arts in<br />
Pasadena have curated an art exhibit<br />
titled “Jirayr Zorthian/Richard Feynman:<br />
A Conversation in Art,” running<br />
through August 31, 2008.<br />
“Everybody knew Zorthian,” says Belloli.<br />
“He was such a colorful personality<br />
that everybody knew him. But hardly<br />
anyone knew the art because he hardly<br />
every showed.”<br />
Most of Zorthian’s artwork is still at<br />
the ranch.<br />
“Jirayr was extraordinarily talented.<br />
He was really almost like a prodigy,” says<br />
Belloli. “A lot of the artwork in the show<br />
is from very early in his career. He was<br />
doing important art when he was still a<br />
student at Yale University. It just shows<br />
how good he was.”<br />
Belloli goes on to say, “Zorthian had<br />
an incredible facility, astonishing drawings<br />
in the show, very ambitious drawings,<br />
wonderful portraits. He was just<br />
really very good.”<br />
According to Belloli, Zorthian considerably<br />
influenced Feynman through his<br />
mentorship and their close friendship.<br />
C2 <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008
Jirayr Zorthian, Cortez in Mexico, 1936 Tempera and gold leaf on board 52”x 67 1/3”<br />
“Feynman didn’t think he could draw<br />
and Zorthian really taught him how to<br />
draw,” Belloli says. “The exhibit really<br />
became about both of their work and<br />
their close connection as friends and as<br />
Zorthian serving as Richard Feynman’s<br />
mentor.”<br />
Zorthian started off in the 1930s, the<br />
period of social realism, with very realistic<br />
art. By the 1940s, he progressed<br />
into expressionism. In the late 1950s<br />
and early 1960s, he focused on elaborate<br />
realistic drawings. Some of the artwork<br />
featured at the current exhibit is<br />
unprecedented in terms of size. “It just<br />
shows that even though he got older, he<br />
was still being ambitious in the art that<br />
he made,” says Belloli.<br />
Until his death, Zorthian and Dabney<br />
lived, worked, taught, and entertained<br />
at this small utopia they called home.<br />
Not only did he build this lifestyle, but,<br />
more importantly, he planted the seeds<br />
for future generations to cultivate their<br />
own self-expression.<br />
“Jirayr Zorthian/Richard Feynman: A<br />
Conversation in Art” will be on view in<br />
the Susan and John Caldwell Gallery at<br />
the Armory Center for the Arts Tuesday<br />
through Sunday, noon-5:00 p.m. Admission<br />
is free. The Armory is located at 145<br />
North Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA<br />
91103 f<br />
connect:<br />
armoryarts.org<br />
zorthian.com<br />
The artist in action...<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008<br />
C3
Faith in the inner eye<br />
The art of Seeroon<br />
Vassilian-Yeretzian<br />
by Mariette Tachdjian<br />
There is a bittersweet quality to Seeroon<br />
Vassilian-Yeretzian’s voice over the telephone.<br />
Remaining palpable even after we<br />
meet face to face, it is the same quality<br />
that is characteristic of many artists who,<br />
through their own personal struggles,<br />
have transmitted their lives onto canvas.<br />
Then there is her brilliant artwork. A true<br />
testament to a woman’s hardships resulting<br />
from genotyping and the yearning for<br />
expression, Seeron’s paintings became<br />
chapters in her own spiritual evolution.<br />
At the Roslin Art Gallery in Glendale,<br />
which she owns, Seeroon unravels her<br />
many layers, through both the canvas<br />
and her voice.<br />
It doesn’t take a skilled eye to interpret<br />
the anguish present in her early<br />
works. Dark, sometimes morbid figures<br />
are immortalized through oily hues of<br />
black, blue, and gray. Anyone can feel<br />
the torment that cries out from the<br />
nightmarish faces in her 1988 piece titled<br />
“Condemned.”<br />
Macabre subjects are just one aspect<br />
of this multi-faceted artist, however.<br />
“My art became like my diary. You bring<br />
from the past, you go forward, and you<br />
watch around you,” says Seeroon, who<br />
spent her first 17 years of life in a South<br />
Beirut <strong>Armenian</strong> refugee camp. Shortly<br />
after trading their shanty town hut<br />
for a real house, Seeron’s father tragically<br />
died. Pain and suffering have been<br />
known to create great art. But perhaps<br />
it is her later pieces illustrating crucified<br />
women that really pushed her own edge,<br />
and that of her audience.<br />
In an attempt to expose the enigmatic<br />
underside of a woman’s resilient exterior,<br />
Seeroon used the creative process to<br />
peel back all of her fragile layers, starting<br />
from her early adulthood.<br />
It was the dawn of the civil war in<br />
Beirut, and Seeroon, having been discouraged<br />
by her parents from pursuing<br />
art, decided to study opera, followed<br />
by fashion design. An impressionable<br />
young woman, her fate seemed to be realized<br />
as she fulfilled the expected role<br />
of becoming a bride. But little did she<br />
know that her marriage to an intellectual<br />
named Harout Yeretzian (who would<br />
later become the proprietor of Abril<br />
Bookstore in Glendale) would one day<br />
create a harmonious existence between<br />
art and literature. With their son and<br />
a few coins in their pockets, the Yeretzians<br />
moved from Beirut to Los Angeles<br />
in the 1970s.<br />
Still starving for formal training in<br />
the fine arts, Seeroon studied at the<br />
prestigious Otis Parsons Art Institute<br />
and UCLA. The liberated soul was finally<br />
allowed to channel her experiences and<br />
emotions onto the canvas for the first<br />
time, without restraint or censorship.<br />
Influences of Picasso, Dali, Miro, even<br />
Francis Bacon, are evident in her early<br />
work, though she will tell you that they<br />
may have been at play only at a subconscious<br />
level. Seeroon went on to draw<br />
inspiration from her <strong>Armenian</strong> and<br />
Middle Eastern backgrounds as well as<br />
the underbelly of American life.<br />
Of particular interest to her were the<br />
Top: Evolution. Above<br />
left: Condemned.<br />
Above right: Self<br />
Portrait. Left: Seeroon<br />
Yeretzian<br />
homeless in Los Angeles, a sight that<br />
disillusioned her at first, as she herself<br />
had come from a childhood of poverty.<br />
“We were homeless but we had a<br />
home, and a father and mother… it was<br />
a commune,” she says. Perhaps it was<br />
that sense of the loss of innocence that<br />
burst out in pieces like “The Mattress”<br />
(1989) and “Timeless” (1999s). Along<br />
with a newfound freedom in the City of<br />
Angels, she became keenly aware of the<br />
estrangement that is often felt in such a<br />
vast and impersonal city. “Here we live<br />
in homes, but we are not a community,<br />
we are in cages. We care about humanity,<br />
but we don’t care about our neighbors,”<br />
she explains.<br />
Darkness and destitution unquestionably<br />
inspired some of her masterpieces.<br />
But perhaps her most striking, and controversial,<br />
work to date is her series of<br />
crucified women, which she completed<br />
in the 1990s. At first glance, these paintings<br />
appear sacrilegious. But beyond the<br />
religious <strong>symbol</strong>ism, there is a clearly<br />
metaphorical treatment of female martyrdom<br />
on those canvases. “It’s not only<br />
Christ who gets crucified. Each of us has<br />
a process,” says Seeroon, who still sees<br />
women’s roles as inherently difficult<br />
amidst a society of material abundance.<br />
C4 <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008
Above: Glory Alphabet. Left: Timeless.. Below:<br />
The Trap.<br />
“We inflict our wounds. Sometimes it’s<br />
self-inflicted,” she says. The paintings<br />
were not exactly palatable to <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
audiences. But Seeroon adds with conviction,<br />
“I didn’t care. I don’t paint to<br />
sell.”<br />
Though her work is first and foremost<br />
provocative, Seeroon has been able to<br />
move from one phase to the next without<br />
compromising her artistic integrity.<br />
These days she is focused on more natural<br />
elements and livelier subjects, such<br />
as her evolving series based on and inspired<br />
by medieval <strong>Armenian</strong> illuminated<br />
manuscripts, which she calls “our <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
jewels.” She expands on the natural<br />
themes of birds, peacocks, as well as<br />
human forms, using vivid purples and<br />
golds, reds and blues, to create illumination<br />
(stylized lettering accompanied<br />
by painted figures). She has mastered<br />
this style, having been influenced by<br />
medieval masters such as Toros Roslin<br />
(after whom Seeroon’s gallery is named).<br />
Through her own interpretations, she is<br />
able to create anything from a meditative<br />
mandala to intricately decorative<br />
depictions of the <strong>Armenian</strong> alphabet.<br />
Seeroon’s work has been featured at<br />
UCLA’s Kerchoff Hall, Otis Parsons Gallery,<br />
as well as the J. Paul Getty Museum’s<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> and Iranian art festivals.<br />
She was even invited to participate in<br />
a large public-art installation commissioned<br />
by the City of Los Angeles in<br />
2002. If you were an Angeleno back in<br />
2000–2002, you may recall the “Community<br />
of Angels” project, in which<br />
dozens of unique, six-foot-tall statues<br />
of angels – commissioned by the<br />
city – were displayed near landmarks<br />
throughout Los Angeles. Seeroon<br />
– the only <strong>Armenian</strong> artist invited to<br />
participate in the exhibition – created<br />
her “Angel of the Century,” by painting<br />
angels of various ethnic backgrounds<br />
onto a statue that stood at the Century<br />
City Plaza Towers.<br />
Seeroon’s personal life has allowed her<br />
to embrace the best of <strong>Armenian</strong> art and<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> Paradise.<br />
literature. “We are book and art pushers,”<br />
she says, of her collaboration with<br />
her husband. Together, they have created<br />
a unique voice in the community.<br />
But that voice also feels strongly about<br />
supporting other artists. “If we support<br />
our artists, we are supported,” she says.<br />
Seeroon currently displays her work<br />
alongside other notable artists from the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> community, at the Roslin gallery<br />
in Glendale.<br />
f<br />
connect:<br />
roslin.com<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008<br />
C5
The Den of Geek interview: <strong>Adrienne</strong> <strong>Barbeau</strong><br />
The formidable star of<br />
Escape From New York and<br />
other cult classics chats<br />
with DoG about writing,<br />
bats, therapy, and kicking<br />
ass...<br />
by Martin Anderson<br />
Editor’s note: We are reprinting this interview<br />
with permission from Den of Geek,<br />
the British online entertainment magazine<br />
which published the piece earlier this<br />
month.<br />
<strong>Adrienne</strong> <strong>Barbeau</strong> negotiated a successful<br />
Broadway career – during which<br />
she originated the role of Rizzo in Grease<br />
- into a successful television career in the<br />
1970s on the hit comedy Maude. A meeting<br />
with John Carpenter, who was casting<br />
his acclaimed TV thriller Someone’s<br />
Watching Me, led to a role, marriage,<br />
their son Cody, and yet another career<br />
as an acclaimed “Scream Queen” in the<br />
likes of The Fog, Creepshow, Swamp Thing,<br />
Two Evil Eyes, and Escape From New York.<br />
Following the acclaim of her 2006<br />
memoirs There Are Worse Things I Could<br />
Do, <strong>Adrienne</strong> has now written a horror<br />
novel together with author Michael<br />
Scott, in which heroine Ovsana Moore is<br />
a rather <strong>Barbeau</strong>-esque <strong>actress</strong>... who is<br />
also a vampire! The novel follows her efforts<br />
in concert with an LAPD detective<br />
to find the serial killer who is slaying the<br />
“A-list” stars of Hollywood...<br />
[N.b.: Vampyres of Hollywood did not<br />
arrive on my desk until four hours before<br />
this interview took place, so I had<br />
only read the early chapters at the time<br />
- M.A.]<br />
Martin Anderson: Is Vampyres of<br />
Hollywood the first time that you’ve really<br />
looked for that creative voice inside<br />
yourself<br />
<strong>Adrienne</strong> <strong>Barbeau</strong>: It’s the first time<br />
I’ve applied it to fiction, yes. I guess I<br />
found a voice when I was doing There<br />
Are Worse Things I Could Do, and tried to<br />
bring it into this one as much as I could.<br />
M.A.: You seem like a really social person,<br />
so how does the writing life suit<br />
you<br />
A.B.: There’s a part of it that I love,<br />
and some of that is not being dependent<br />
upon anyone else for my creativity.<br />
I don’t have to wait for the script to<br />
come, I don’t have to wait for the offer<br />
to come in or for the money to be raised<br />
[laughs]. So it’s wonderful just to be able<br />
to get up in the morning and get the<br />
kids to school, and then come back and<br />
sit down and try to fashion something<br />
that didn’t exist before. Because there’s<br />
so much else that I have to do in terms of<br />
being a mom and continuing my acting<br />
career and all of that, I don’t sit at the<br />
computer for days on end without talking<br />
to other people. We have a house at<br />
the New Jersey shore, and we’re here for<br />
about five weeks - my husband has been<br />
loving enough and gracious enough to<br />
take the kids on some four-day field trips<br />
[laughs]. They’ve gone off to Boston, so<br />
Adrienna <strong>Barbeau</strong>: “I never set out to be a <strong>sex</strong> <strong>symbol</strong>.”<br />
I am able to just get up and sit down<br />
and just write straight through - but I’m<br />
able to balance the communication with<br />
other people with the communication<br />
with the computer [laughs].<br />
M.A.: So you’re developing your own<br />
routines<br />
A.B.: Yeah, I guess I am. It’s still new<br />
enough to me that I don’t trust how<br />
much time I can take away from it, if<br />
you know what I mean. So if my husband<br />
says “So-and-so’s having a party<br />
on Friday night and I think we should<br />
go,” I tend to think “I don’t know - how<br />
many words am I gonna get written<br />
this week” [laughs]. So I worked out a<br />
monthly deadline and when I get there<br />
and realize that I’ve written as much as<br />
I’m supposed to have written, then okay<br />
- I can go off and go shopping.<br />
M.A.: Many <strong>writer</strong>s say that they<br />
surprise themselves at what they come<br />
up with when they’re writing - has that<br />
been your experience That you have access<br />
to creative resources that you can’t<br />
normally get to<br />
A.B.: Yes, it has, and the way I would<br />
explain it is that I’ll go back maybe 60<br />
or 70 pages, or back to the beginning or<br />
whatever, and I’m reading through it and<br />
I find myself thinking “Did I write that”<br />
[laughs]. Where did that come from Out<br />
of me There are other times when I’ve<br />
written something and I think “Oh, that<br />
works,” and I’m sorta proud of that. But<br />
even as I’m aware of that, I’m also aware<br />
that it wasn’t anything that I thought of<br />
before I put my fingers on the computer.<br />
And it’s really fascinating.<br />
M.A.: You’ve said that you didn’t turn<br />
to George Romero or John Carpenter<br />
before the novel was completed. So was<br />
the feedback loop during the writing<br />
process between you and Michael Scott,<br />
or was there someone else to turn to<br />
A.B.: Hmmm... I don’t want to get<br />
confused between the first one and the<br />
second one, which I’m writing all by myself.<br />
That one I have definitely shown<br />
to my husband and I have two other<br />
friends, both of whom are <strong>writer</strong>s, that<br />
I’ve sent chapters to, asking “Am I still<br />
on track” - that kind of thing. Vampyres<br />
Of Hollywood I’m sure I showed to Billy -<br />
my husband - but I don’t think I showed<br />
it to anyone else as I was going along. I<br />
think there was one night when I got<br />
together with a bunch of girlfriends<br />
[laughs] and I read the opening pages so<br />
that they’d know what I was doing.<br />
With Vampyres, Michael and I were<br />
bouncing it back and forth. He’s an<br />
expert at these things, and that was<br />
enough - except for my husband.<br />
M.A.: Speaking of the opening pages,<br />
which I’ve read – “Death By Oscar’ [in<br />
which a deplorable actor who has just<br />
won an Academy Award is found dead in<br />
a taxi with the statuette shoved up his<br />
rectum]... – man, that’s a nasty death!<br />
[<strong>Adrienne</strong> laughs]. Is this maybe a case<br />
of having a little bit of payback on one or<br />
two real characters from your own life<br />
A.B.: I hadn’t thought of that part<br />
of it being a case of getting revenge! I<br />
have a feeling that if I go back and look<br />
at it, there’s probably a few things in<br />
there... [laughs]. I hadn’t really realized<br />
this about being a <strong>writer</strong>, but a friend of<br />
mine told me that another well-known<br />
author has always said to her “I’m the<br />
Goddess! I can do anything I want!” I’m<br />
just coming to realize that. If there’s a<br />
book I like that I’m reading, I can have<br />
my character read that book, and I can<br />
give that author a boost. And that’s<br />
great fun.<br />
M.A.: But it’s quite therapeutic as well<br />
as creative<br />
A.B.: I think so. You know, because<br />
you read the memoirs, that I’m not looking<br />
to drag too many people over the<br />
coals [laughs], but it’s fun to be able to<br />
get those little details in there that some<br />
people will recognize.<br />
M.A.: There’s a nice division in the<br />
book between Ovsana’s voice and the<br />
detective’s voice - is that how the work<br />
divided between yourself and Michael<br />
Scott in practical terms<br />
A.B.: No, actually - the voice is a<br />
real amalgam of the two of us. I think<br />
that the final chapters, the battle and<br />
the monsters and the Vampyrs and the<br />
Weres, more of that came out of Michael.<br />
We sat down and outlined the<br />
whole thing together, in the same room,<br />
saying that this was where we wanted<br />
to go and this was what we wanted to<br />
have happen. The structure of it is really<br />
Michael - he wrote the first draft of the<br />
chapter and then he sent it to me and<br />
said “This is your book, just do whatever<br />
you want with it.”<br />
So the voice, the actual words on the<br />
paper... the voice is more mine. The dialogue,<br />
the way they speak - that’s more<br />
me. But when we went back over it, we<br />
both agreed that we couldn’t tell where<br />
I had left off and he had picked up and<br />
vice versa. I had to look something up<br />
the other day and I thought “Is that in<br />
Michael’s first draft or mine” I couldn’t<br />
figure it out. We really found a way to<br />
blend the two, I think.<br />
M.A.: Ovsana seems like a melding of<br />
all the roles that you’re loved for, like in<br />
Escape From New York, Swamp Thing, and<br />
The Fog... surely there’s got to be a film,<br />
and you’ve got to play her.<br />
A.B.: [Laughs]. Well, I think she looks<br />
younger than I do! Well, you haven’t read<br />
it all the way through yet. But maybe I<br />
can play the villainess at the end - who<br />
looks like Betty Davis as Baby Jane Hudson<br />
in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane!<br />
C6 <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008
M.A.: Did you hesitate to put so many<br />
real-life Hollywood stars of the past as<br />
vampires in the book They’ve even got<br />
dialogue...<br />
A.B.: No, I just had to do a lot of research.<br />
We didn’t hesitate [laughs]! I<br />
didn’t always use these specifications,<br />
but I tried to find people who had died<br />
in a manner where I could logically conceive<br />
of bringing them back, like Olive<br />
Thomas, who died so young that she<br />
never aged, that kind of thing. In the<br />
end I don’t think I succeeded all the way.<br />
I just went back and I looked at some of<br />
the bios for the characters that we used<br />
- some of them did live quite a while!<br />
I tried to pick ones that had died of a<br />
death that could be faked, that kind of<br />
thing. But it was great fun.<br />
M.A.: How far advanced are you on<br />
the sequel<br />
I’m almost half-way through. I’ve got<br />
a deadline of January, and I’ll make it!<br />
M.A.: I’m asking blindly, since I<br />
haven’t read the whole of Vampyres yet,<br />
but can you tell us anything about the<br />
direction that Ovsana will take in the<br />
new book<br />
A.B.: There’s a relationship that develops<br />
between Peter and Ovsana, much<br />
to Maral’s distress, so I’m gonna explore<br />
that a little bit. But it’s a true sequel,<br />
picking up not long after this one ends,<br />
and dealing with the fallout of this one.<br />
M.A.: Would it have been harder to<br />
originate this first book alone<br />
A.B.: Yes... definitely! I don’t know if<br />
I would have! Michael was the driving<br />
force right from the beginning. I met<br />
Michael through another friend, and<br />
the first night I met him, he had read my<br />
memoir, and he knew my film history<br />
and my career, and he said you should<br />
be writing a novel for your 18-34 fan<br />
base, all the guys –<br />
M.A.: 18-41. Please.<br />
A.B.: [Laughs]. Ah, thank you! Since<br />
I’ve been doing these conventions, I’d<br />
say it was like 18 - death! People who<br />
like horror films, they don’t stop liking<br />
them! They are fantastic fans; it’s an<br />
incredible... support system! So he said<br />
“You should be writing a horror novel for<br />
your horror-genre fan base. And I said<br />
that I didn’t know, I’ve never written a<br />
novel, just this nonfiction book, and he<br />
said “Oh, I’ll help you - that’s nothing!”<br />
[laughs]. Okay - fine! So we sat down<br />
and he said “Okay, what do you want to<br />
write Science fiction, like Escape From<br />
New York, or a ghost story like The Fog”<br />
A.B.: And I honestly don’t remember<br />
how I settled on vampires. But what I’ve<br />
come to realize, now that I’ve written<br />
one and we’re in the middle of writing<br />
the next one, is that Ovsana’s character<br />
- a female vampire - is very much akin to<br />
the characters that I read all the time. I<br />
read Lee Childs, the Jack Reacher novels...<br />
he’s one of your countrymen, actually,<br />
although I think he lives here in the<br />
States now... but I read detective novels,<br />
or mysteries or thrillers or whatever<br />
you’d [call them], and Jack Reacher is one<br />
of my favorites. And when I think about<br />
it, Ovsana, she can kick ass [laughs], just<br />
like all these guys that I read, and like the<br />
characters that I usually play. So I guess<br />
that’s where she came from. What better<br />
format to write the kind of woman that<br />
I would like to be - and like to think that<br />
I am, on occasion, and that I play in the<br />
movies...the strong survivor, fighting for<br />
justice... [laughs].<br />
M.A.: Of course I was going to ask, is<br />
that tough “<strong>Adrienne</strong> <strong>Barbeau</strong>” character<br />
- for which you’re celebrated - someone<br />
that you’ve grown into or someone<br />
that you maybe admired and would like<br />
to be Is it a fantasy or a reflection of<br />
how you’ve lived your life<br />
A.B.: You know, I think it is. I think it’s<br />
a reflection of my heritage, in some ways.<br />
I’ve dedicated the second book to my <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
aunts and my grandmother. I’ve<br />
come from a culture of women - at least<br />
my relatives - that were survivors. They<br />
survived the holocaust. You’ve read the<br />
memoirs, so you know that I have one<br />
relative that walked away from her two<br />
year-old son and never saw him again in<br />
the hope that he would be taken in and<br />
survive; she escaped and she eventually<br />
lived a very long life.<br />
So I think some of it is in the DNA -<br />
and we use that with Ovsana, as she’s an<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> vampire. The rest of it, I guess,<br />
is the person that I became, or maybe<br />
that I grew up as and then became. I’m<br />
not a victim [laughs]. I’ve sort of spent<br />
my life trying to grow into... if I say a<br />
strong person, I mean a capable person,<br />
or a person who can take care of herself<br />
and hopefully take care of the people<br />
around her.<br />
I would like to think that if I were in a<br />
terrifying situation, I would act the way<br />
the characters that I’ve portrayed act<br />
[laughs]. I’m never tested. But I value<br />
strength in a person.<br />
M.A.: Aside from your physical attributes,<br />
do you think that it was the<br />
independence and strength of your onscreen<br />
characters that made you a <strong>sex</strong><br />
<strong>symbol</strong><br />
A.B.: I don’t know, Martin. You know,<br />
you’ve read the book. I never set out to<br />
be a <strong>sex</strong> <strong>symbol</strong>, and I don’t know what<br />
makes a <strong>sex</strong> <strong>symbol</strong>. I think that it was<br />
the camera, or the media or whatever,<br />
that made me a <strong>sex</strong> <strong>symbol</strong>. I wasn’t playing<br />
those roles, but they just… [laughs].<br />
M.A.: You talk about the visualization<br />
that helps you get the things that you<br />
need and want - were you visualizing<br />
something like the Vampyres project<br />
when Michael Scott turned up<br />
A.B.: I don’t know if I was visualizing<br />
something like this project. I think that<br />
years ago, before I ever started writing,<br />
it was in my head as something. I read a<br />
lot, and whenever I read somebody that<br />
I love I always thought “God, I wish I<br />
could write like that.” And I know that for<br />
years, going back, I thought “Wouldn’t it<br />
be wonderful to be a <strong>writer</strong>, and you<br />
could do it anywhere…” You could go sit<br />
on a beach, you wouldn’t have to be in<br />
Los Angeles or New York, on Broadway.<br />
So I was putting that kind of thought<br />
out at least, that it would be a wonderful<br />
career to have.<br />
I had a friend years ago, he was a therapist,<br />
he used to say “<strong>Adrienne</strong>, someday<br />
you’re going to reach a lot of people<br />
in some other way. I think you’re going<br />
to be a teacher or something, but<br />
you have something else you have to say<br />
that you’re not saying as an actor.” And<br />
I just thought “I don’t know what that’s<br />
all about.” But maybe this is it.<br />
M.A.: I get the impression that your<br />
own lifelong struggle to find your voice<br />
has given you character and attitude<br />
that you might have otherwise struggled<br />
hard to find<br />
A.B.: Yeah, probably so. The struggle<br />
or the search was always to understand<br />
myself, I think. And to communicate.<br />
I’ve always been fascinated with communication.<br />
I’ve taken a course... there’s<br />
a fella whose name just went out of my<br />
head [laughs], who teaches all over the<br />
world and has written a book called Nonviolent<br />
Communication, I think. I went<br />
and took a couple of weekend seminars<br />
with him. I remember back even before<br />
my first son was born, so that’s about<br />
25 years ago, reading Parent Effectiveness<br />
Training, and they talk about methods<br />
of communication, “active listening,”<br />
things like that... and it’s what I was in<br />
therapy for, I think... to learn to communicate.<br />
I hadn’t thought of it until just<br />
now, when you asked me the question<br />
[laughs]. I’m communicating again!<br />
M.A.:There were some really good <strong>actress</strong>es<br />
out there kicking ass in the 80s<br />
- and you were amongst them - but it<br />
really kind of took off in the 90s and beyond.<br />
Do you feel that you kind of paved<br />
the way for that, or maybe regret that it<br />
all happened later<br />
A.B.: What I feel is that I wish someone<br />
was still interested in seeing somebody<br />
like me doing it again [laughs]!<br />
M.A.: I’m interested...<br />
A.B.: Ahhh, thanks! Did you see The<br />
Convent<br />
M.A.: I did.<br />
A.B.: That came along just at the time I<br />
was saying to my husband “Ah, nobody’s<br />
gonna hire me to pick up a gun again.”<br />
But yeah, I wish that kind of character or<br />
those kinds of roles had been as popular<br />
when I was doing them as they are now.<br />
Or as “mainstream” as they are now.<br />
What with the advent of the popularity<br />
of video games and everything, so<br />
that you’ve got... well, I’m going back a<br />
ways now and thinking about Lara Croft.<br />
There must be something more recent...<br />
but you know... big films. Because I still<br />
love doing ‘em. But I’m just glad I had<br />
the chance, you know [laughs].<br />
M.A.: One of the things I loved in your<br />
memoirs was the story of “the trapped<br />
bat,” and I was wondering if you’d tell it<br />
again for our readers<br />
A.B.: Oh, poor John! [Laughs]. We<br />
had just moved into a home that we<br />
bought, up in Inverness, where we shot<br />
The Fog. A gorgeous part of the country,<br />
and this house was in the middle of the<br />
woods - there was nothing around. It<br />
was Labor Day weekend, which meant<br />
that Jerry Lewis was doing his telethon,<br />
for muscular dystrophy or whatever it<br />
is that he does. John [Carpenter] had<br />
to stay up and see it - that was his annual<br />
night-time watching. So I went to<br />
bed and I was sound asleep, and all of a<br />
sudden I hear John’s voice saying “<strong>Adrienne</strong>!<br />
<strong>Adrienne</strong>!” And I looked around<br />
and I didn’t see him... and he was on the<br />
floor, on his knees, with a towel over his<br />
head - the master of horror! And he said<br />
“There’s a bat in the living room!” And I<br />
said “Well... yeah” And he said “There’s<br />
a bat in the living room!” So I got up and<br />
got to the living room and opened the<br />
door and this little bat flew past me and<br />
flew out the door [laughs].<br />
M.A.: So cool - someone who makes<br />
horror movies is bound to be frightened<br />
of bats! Totally makes sense...<br />
A.B.: [Laughing] Yeah!<br />
M.A.: You talk about the hard time<br />
you had making Unholy at the end of<br />
your memoirs, and I kind of expected<br />
you to finish with “Oh boy, never again,”<br />
but instead you take it all in your stride.<br />
How do you get to think like that<br />
A.B.: This sounds sort of hokey, but<br />
for me it always begins with the words.<br />
So I’m always aware that something<br />
could come along and be really valuable<br />
because of the words, the script.<br />
But it may not necessarily be the one<br />
that somebody with a lot of money<br />
wants to finance. I just did another one<br />
last November that was just a wonderful<br />
character for me to play, and I’m<br />
so glad that I did it. But it was lowbudget.<br />
What I learned from Unholy<br />
is that I make sure I have a dressing<br />
room [laughs]. There were kids in that<br />
movie who were dressing in a tent at<br />
18 degrees, and I sort of draw the line...<br />
I’ve got to have at least a heater in a<br />
room [laughs].<br />
M.A.: I could feel the cold as I was<br />
reading it.<br />
A.B.: Oh, it was a nightmare. But then<br />
you turn around and do one like I did<br />
last year [Reach For Me]. Seymour Cassel<br />
is starring, and Alfre Woodard and<br />
LeVar Burton, and LeVar directed it. I<br />
loved the character and I got to do some<br />
work that I wouldn’t have gotten to do<br />
if I wasn’t willing to put up with the lowbudget<br />
aspect. I just like to work.<br />
M.A.: Have you ever wanted to take<br />
the reins yourself and do some directing<br />
A.B.: Never. It doesn’t interest me<br />
at all. What I think I might be good at<br />
would be directing an actor, maybe onstage<br />
or in a scene, but I don’t understand<br />
filmmaking at all [laughs]. I know<br />
what’s wrong... I know what an actor<br />
needs to do to get him where he needs<br />
to be, and I could probably impart that,<br />
but I’m not interested in directing.<br />
M.A.: Do you like horror any more<br />
now than you used to In your memoir,<br />
you say that you’re not a great fan...<br />
A.B.: [Laughing] No! My husband<br />
wanted to see The Happening, which just<br />
came out, and the previews looked really<br />
good. But I said “I don’t wanna go<br />
in there” [laughs]. I don’t want to have<br />
them do that to me! I don’t like it. I<br />
love action-adventure - I’m right there<br />
for James Bond or thrillers or anything<br />
like that, but if it’s gonna make me jump<br />
and scream...<br />
We went to see Get Smart yesterday<br />
[laughs], and my poor kids were sitting<br />
in front of me... I don’t know what happened,<br />
somebody stepped out of a closet<br />
or something... and I screamed! f<br />
connect:<br />
denofgeek.com<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008<br />
C7
The show must go on<br />
Paul Meshejian is the<br />
driving force behind<br />
the annual PlayPenn<br />
theatrical conference<br />
by Armina<br />
LaManna<br />
PHIL ADELPHIA<br />
and LONDON<br />
– As the founding<br />
artistic director<br />
of PlayPenn, Paul<br />
Meshejian is an integral part of the greater<br />
theatrical community of Philadelphia. Recently<br />
he stole a little time from his overwhelminlgy<br />
busy schedule to talk to me<br />
about PlayPenn and Another Man’s Son – a<br />
play written by Silva Semerciyan, which<br />
will be featured this month at the Play-<br />
Penn 2008 Conference in Philadelphia.<br />
Meshejian had spent several years<br />
working as an actor and director in Minneapolis,<br />
where he first came across<br />
the Playwrights’ Center – a big laboratory<br />
dedicated to the advancement<br />
of playwriting. “When I was getting a<br />
little tired of acting, I started to think<br />
about what work in the theater satisfied<br />
me the most,” Meshejian explained. “I<br />
found that it was my time there, at the<br />
Playwrights’ Center!”<br />
Realizing that Philadelphia had nothing<br />
like the Playwrights’ Center and how<br />
ephemeral work in the theater could be,<br />
Meshejian started talking to artistic directors<br />
around town about beginning a<br />
similar program in Philadelphia. “Almost<br />
everyone said that they needed something<br />
like this,” Meshejian said. “So one<br />
day I was talking to someone about this,<br />
and he asked me how much I needed. I<br />
foolishly picked a number out of the air,<br />
and this guy said that he’d give me half<br />
that for three years. And that kind of<br />
money – $20,000 a year for three years<br />
– was the seed money that allowed me to<br />
ask other people to invest. And they did.<br />
The first year, 2005, we raised $50,000,<br />
then last year our budget was around<br />
$94,000, and then this year our budget<br />
is $148,000. But we haven’t raised all<br />
that money for this year yet.”<br />
Meshejian described PlayPenn’s expansion:<br />
from four plays during the summer<br />
conference to six; from a single symposium<br />
to two; and then this year they are<br />
adding two extra readings. “It’s clear that<br />
there is a need for it,” Meshejian said,<br />
referring to the significance of PlayPenn.<br />
Even before finding success locally,<br />
PlayPenn made headway on the national<br />
scene. Out of the 14 plays developed<br />
so far, eight have been produced<br />
around the country. “One of the things<br />
I wanted to do was introduce new work<br />
to Philadelphia,” Meshejian said. “I’m<br />
very happy to say that of the six plays<br />
we developed last year, four are being<br />
produced this coming season, and three<br />
of them are seeing productions at local<br />
theaters: the Arden, Interact Theatre,<br />
and People’s Light.”<br />
I asked Meshejian about how he came<br />
across Semerciyan’s play: “Early on the<br />
ADAA [<strong>Armenian</strong> Dramatic Arts Alliance]<br />
got in touch with me, right when they<br />
“I’m very happy to say that of the six plays we developed last year, four are being produced this coming season, and three of them are seeing productions at<br />
local theaters: the Arden, Interact Theatre, and People’s Light.”<br />
Silva Semerciyan.<br />
Actors Harry Philibosian and Larry John Meyers.<br />
were first starting. I became a member.”<br />
Meshejian continued to tell me about<br />
how he searched for ways to reach out to<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>writer</strong>s who were doing work<br />
that would be interesting to a broader<br />
audience. “First, the richness of our history<br />
is worthy of reflection,” Meshejian<br />
said. “Second, the Genocide experience<br />
is lost in the shadow of the Holocaust.<br />
Not that there’s a competition, but there<br />
just hasn’t been any public, formal recognition<br />
of it.” To illustrate his point,<br />
Meshejian referred to Peter Balakian<br />
and his book, Black Dog of Fate. “What he<br />
[Balakian] says is that there is no way to<br />
understand a thing like this [Genocide]<br />
until art gets made from it,” he said.<br />
To this end, Meshejian said, he put a<br />
call out to the ADAA for <strong>Armenian</strong> plays<br />
tackling these issues. The response came<br />
in the form of two plays, one of which,<br />
Another Man’s Son, was a family drama.<br />
“The politics of this particular family reflect<br />
the invidious influence of tyranny<br />
and how that tyranny, which comes from<br />
without, gets exercised at home,” said<br />
Meshejian said, who seemed very enthusiastic<br />
about the play. I could understand<br />
why. I recently read the play and found<br />
myself drawn to the family, especially to<br />
Lucine, the heroine. The <strong>writer</strong>, Semerciyan,<br />
an American who has been living<br />
and working in England for the past ten<br />
years, will be making a special trip to<br />
Philadelphia for the PlayPenn 2008 Conference<br />
to see a reading of her play.<br />
When asked about where he sees Play-<br />
Penn in five years, Meshejian laughed<br />
heartily and said, “What I would love is for<br />
PlayPenn to extend the work of the conference<br />
outward throughout the year. I would<br />
like to offer a weeklong reading workshop<br />
to a worthy play and playwright. My fantasy<br />
would be to find the funds that would<br />
allow me to invite <strong>writer</strong>s here, give them<br />
a good enough stipend, so that they can<br />
establish themselves here, make relationships<br />
here with local theaters, and possibly<br />
become interconnected with the actors<br />
and directors of this theater community.”<br />
Meshejian continued to tell me that he<br />
would also like to be able to give local <strong>writer</strong>s<br />
the opportunity and resources to hear<br />
their plays performed by actors. All these<br />
plans require the support of the community<br />
at large. “It’s such a rarity that the<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> people, history, and culture get<br />
such exposure,” Meshejian said. “So this<br />
is a great opportunity for people who are<br />
interested in fueling this exposure to step<br />
up and contribute to PlayPenn.”<br />
Another Man’s Son is a play that tackles<br />
issues of filial duty, tyranny, loyalty,<br />
and love. Its protagonist, Lucine, a brave<br />
young woman, faces and confronts these<br />
issues head on. Semerciyan and I had a<br />
chance to discuss the play over the phone.<br />
As her determined and passionate<br />
voice came through the headset, I started<br />
to sense similarities between Lucine<br />
and her creator. “I studied playwriting at<br />
the University of Michigan,” Semerciyan<br />
said. “I was really taken by playwriting<br />
and knew that I’d always be interested<br />
in it. After my move to the UK, I had to<br />
move away from it, but then returned to<br />
it about four years ago. And I began with<br />
Another Man’s Son.”<br />
She went on to tell me that the knowledge<br />
she accumulated over the years<br />
about playwriting was applied to her play,<br />
which she hopes will one day come to fruition.<br />
“Along the way I wrote other plays,”<br />
she said, referring to Playthings, Filibuster,<br />
and Down the Packhorse. I asked Semerciyan<br />
about how the characters in Another<br />
Man’s Son came about. She explained that<br />
they were fictitious. “But even fictitious<br />
characters have antecedents in life,” she<br />
said. “Lucine is kind of like me, you know.<br />
What if I had been born back then And,<br />
of course, a little bit of imagination.” Semerciyan<br />
added that the father character<br />
was a composite of patriarchs that she<br />
had come across and heard about over<br />
the years. “The factual information about<br />
the father surviving the Genocide – I got<br />
from my grandfather,” she explained.<br />
“But to really bring characters into conflict<br />
the way that they do in my play, it had<br />
to come more from the fictitious realm.”<br />
Originally, Semerciyan had submitted her<br />
play to a contest held by the ADAA, then<br />
she was invited to submit it to PlayPenn.<br />
“I am hoping that hearing it out loud from<br />
start to finish at PlayPenn will give me a<br />
better idea of how it plays and how to better<br />
gauge the dramatic action,” she continued.<br />
“This is a great opportunity to see<br />
how it works.” When asked if there was<br />
a specific theater that she hoped would<br />
produce Another Man’s Son, Semerciyan<br />
simply said, “I would just like it to have a<br />
life after PlayPenn. To be seen!”<br />
The debut public reading of Another<br />
Man’s Son will take place on July 26, at 8<br />
p.m., at the PlayPenn 2008 Conference. f<br />
connect:<br />
playpenn.org<br />
C8 <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008
The voice behind the echo<br />
Ardzagang <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
Television continues to<br />
grow strong<br />
by Armina LaManna<br />
NEW MILFORD, N.J. – In last week’s Arts<br />
& Culture section, the <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong><br />
presented the story of a young and multitalented<br />
artist, Haik Kocharian. In that<br />
article Haik talked about the influence<br />
his parents, also artists, had on him. It<br />
is them – Haik’s mother, Karine Kocharian,<br />
in particular – that we shall tell you<br />
about today.<br />
An accomplished actor and a dedicated<br />
journalist, Mrs. Kocharian enjoys<br />
the love and respect of those who surround<br />
her and those who get to see<br />
her and her work weekly on the “Ardzagang”<br />
television program. Co-produced<br />
by Aram Manoukian and Haik<br />
Kocharian, the Brooklyn-based show<br />
offers news and cultural information to<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> communities in the tri-state<br />
area. Cablecast on Brooklyn Community<br />
Access Television, “Ardzagang” is<br />
also broadcast throughout Southern<br />
California.<br />
For those of you who have had<br />
the pleasure of seeing plays at the<br />
Sundukian Theater in Yerevan in the<br />
70s, 80s, and 90s, will undoubtedly already<br />
be familiar with Karine Kocharian<br />
– a woman whose talent, drive, and<br />
love of her people helped her overcome<br />
the difficulties of a homeland in great<br />
flux, and who, together with her husband,<br />
Ara Manoukian, created a muchneeded<br />
bridge between Armenia and its<br />
diaspora.<br />
Mrs. Kocharian is a graduate of the<br />
Yerevan Fine Arts and Theater Institute.<br />
“There is a funny story about how I got<br />
admitted to the program there,” she remembered<br />
fondly. “After the first exam,<br />
I fell and broke my foot. Obviously, I<br />
thought that I wasn’t going to be admitted<br />
since I missed the other exams.<br />
But, shortly thereafter, Vartan Ajemian<br />
sent me word that he would be taking<br />
me into the program.” She then continued<br />
to tell me that at first she went to<br />
university to study something else, but<br />
when her teacher noticed that she was<br />
not into her French exam, “she asked<br />
me why I wasn’t responding to the questions.<br />
I said because I wanted to be in<br />
the theater program. That’s when the<br />
teacher told me to just go to the theater<br />
program,” Kocharian explained.<br />
At the very young age of 19, Karine<br />
married Vladimir Kocharian, a renowned<br />
actor and artist in his own right.<br />
This was a union of love and to this day<br />
she fondly recounts her days with her<br />
husband. The couple later moved to<br />
Leninakan (now Gyumri), where Karine<br />
worked at the State Theater of Gyumri.<br />
“A couple years later, Vartan Ajemian<br />
and then Hratch Ghaplanian invited us<br />
back to Yerevan to the Sundukian Theater.<br />
Being invited to the theater was a<br />
big deal then,” recalled Kocharian. But<br />
tragedy struck in 1989, when Vladimir<br />
suddenly died. “This was a great, great,<br />
great tragedy for me,” she stated.<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008<br />
As we spoke, it was clear to me that<br />
she was greatly fond of the Sundukian<br />
Theater and her years there. After all,<br />
she thought of that theater as her home.<br />
There she appeared in many leading<br />
roles, ranging from Shakespeare to Ostrovsky.<br />
“My life’s meaning has always<br />
been in the theater!” Kocharian said.<br />
“And I feel a great void now that it’s not<br />
part of my life.”<br />
Kocharian then excitedly told me<br />
that later this year she will be back on<br />
stage at the Sundukian Theater, to play<br />
the title role in Brecht’s Mother Courage.<br />
“This is a dream come true for me,” she<br />
commented. To Kocharian, teaching<br />
proved to be another source of much<br />
happiness and joy. “My students at the<br />
Yerevan Fine Arts and Theater Institute<br />
and the Pedagogical Institute gave me<br />
life,” she said. Talking about her teaching<br />
years and her students was a very<br />
nostalgic moment for Kocharian. She<br />
spoke about the guilt she felt for leaving<br />
her students when she resigned<br />
from her teaching post. She said she<br />
even wrote a play about a similar scenario<br />
– only in her play the students<br />
were able to get their teacher to return<br />
to them.<br />
At this point in the conversation, Kocharian<br />
told me about a truly joyous<br />
moment in her life: her reunion with<br />
Ara Manoukian, a fellow actor, in 1994.<br />
Before coming to the States, Manoukian<br />
and Kocharian performed in Europe for<br />
a couple months. They continued acting<br />
in America and even performed for what<br />
was then a small <strong>Armenian</strong> community<br />
in Colorado. Manoukian finished Ghaplanian’s<br />
theater program in Yerevan and<br />
has been seen in many plays and films<br />
in Armenia. “To this day Ara and I still<br />
don’t know what kind of force brought<br />
us together,” Kocharian said. “But what<br />
I can say is that Ara gave me a will to live<br />
again.” Kocharian credited Manoukian<br />
for the fact that she is still around and<br />
that she is still creating. “I had cancer a<br />
few years after we arrived in the States.<br />
We lived through many troubles,” she<br />
recalled.<br />
In the mid 1990s, it was suggested to<br />
them that they begin a television program.<br />
The rest, as they say, is history.<br />
Kocharian and Manoukian went back to<br />
college, got certified as producers, and<br />
began their new careers in the fledgling<br />
world of <strong>Armenian</strong>-American television.<br />
“It was on April 3 of 1996 that our first<br />
program aired,” Kocharian remembered<br />
and proudly stated that “Ardzagang” has<br />
Above: Ara Manoukian<br />
and Karine Kocharian.<br />
Right: Karine<br />
Kocharian. Below:<br />
Kocharian and<br />
Manoukian’s many<br />
characters.<br />
been on for 12 uninterrupted years. “Ara<br />
is in charge of the filming and I write<br />
the texts and programs,” Kocharian explained.<br />
The show covers topics ranging<br />
from culture and education to religion<br />
and politics, and features profiles of and<br />
interviews with cultural leaders, clergy,<br />
and politicians.<br />
“For the past two years I have also<br />
been working for Voice of America,” Kocharian<br />
said. “I prepare programs which<br />
I send to Washington and from there<br />
they get sent to Armenia.”<br />
Karine moved on to talk a bit about<br />
politics and the relationship between<br />
Armenia and the diaspora. “When Armenia<br />
was closed to the diaspora, that<br />
same diaspora cherished <strong>Armenian</strong>s<br />
from their motherland,” she said. “Then,<br />
when Armenia first opened up to the<br />
diaspora, something similar to animosity<br />
ran amongst everyone. Now it is my<br />
opinion that after getting to know each<br />
other better, the diaspora and Armenia<br />
are once again united.”<br />
Kocharian added that it is the specific<br />
mission of “Ardzagang” to better investigate<br />
the differences between <strong>Armenian</strong>s<br />
of various countries of origin, to help<br />
us see each other in a more informed<br />
light, and ultimately strengthen the ties<br />
that bind us. “Healthy criticism is a good<br />
thing,” Kocharian said. “But there are<br />
times and situations when we have to<br />
have a more constructive attitude rather<br />
than a judgmental one.” It is to this<br />
vision that Kocharian and Manoukian<br />
wish “Ardzagang” to ‘contribute.<br />
“‘Ardzagang’ is television for our diaspora<br />
here in and near New York and is<br />
about our diaspora in New York,” Kocharian<br />
said and added, “We cover everybody,<br />
no matter what their political associations,<br />
no matter what their religious<br />
denomination. We treat everyone fairly.”<br />
Since the launch of the program, “not<br />
once have we had a rerun,” Kocharian<br />
continued. “Recently there was a flood<br />
and we lost almost all our equipment. Yet<br />
even then, our programs did not have a<br />
break. After all, ‘Ardzagang’ is like a child<br />
to us!”<br />
f<br />
C9
Program Grid 14 – 20 July<br />
USArmenia is a 24-hour broadcasting station specializing in the full spectrum of HD-quality <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
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Located in Burbank’s famed media district, our headquarters comprise 15,000 square feet of studio<br />
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Space matters<br />
John Halajian’s<br />
riveting account of<br />
lunar exploration<br />
by K. N. Mouradian<br />
Moon Stories: A Roadmap to Lunar<br />
Exploration and Beyond is the last<br />
book written by John Halajian, a<br />
pioneering engineer and an expert<br />
on <strong>Armenian</strong> architecture died last<br />
year.<br />
As with his previous works<br />
– like 2006’s <strong>Armenian</strong> Church Architecture:<br />
From Dormancy to Revival<br />
– Moon Stories reflects the<br />
author’s expansive knowledge of<br />
multiple aspects in the sciences<br />
and arts. Halajian writes his stories<br />
as a quest to understand the<br />
moon, and pays homage to the unsung<br />
heroes he worked with while<br />
serving as a technical consultant<br />
to NASA during the peak lunar-exploration<br />
years of the 1960s.<br />
Halajian begins with a chronology<br />
of events that led to the photometric<br />
mapping of the moon. The<br />
ensuing narrative is as much a<br />
scientific account as it is a human<br />
story, and unfolds the trials as<br />
well as the excitement and humor<br />
of the uncharted journey. During<br />
the course of the moon stories, the<br />
journey itself becomes the destination,<br />
and the author conveys how<br />
events came together, through either<br />
coincidence or fate.<br />
The book also depicts the means<br />
by which discoveries are made and<br />
transformed into new technologies.<br />
The antithesis of the book may be<br />
initially viewed as the post-lunarlanding<br />
days, and the premature derailing<br />
of many lunar research programs.<br />
But further reading offers an<br />
optimistic view of the reinvention<br />
of ideas, from the mapping of the<br />
moon to that of our own planet.<br />
Specifically, the author’s invention<br />
of the first computer-compatible<br />
digital imaging system to map the<br />
“integral brightness,” polarization,<br />
and color of the moon inevitably<br />
led to the evolution of the digital<br />
camera we use today. As the book<br />
approaches its final chapter, the author<br />
becomes more philosophical,<br />
touching on human origin and destiny.<br />
Moon Stories is a must read for<br />
those with an appreciation of the<br />
sciences and a sense of adventure.<br />
Halajian was the co-inventor<br />
of a version of the digital camera,<br />
which he developed to map the<br />
moon. He is also known as a <strong>writer</strong><br />
of essays on a variety of subjects<br />
including history, science, religion,<br />
architecture, and music. He built<br />
his own house in Long Island, New<br />
York, where he lived until his final<br />
days with his family. During the<br />
latter part of his life, Halajian lost<br />
the use of his arms and legs following<br />
spinal-cord surgery. However,<br />
with the help of an energetic support<br />
team of caregivers, friends,<br />
and family, he was able to channel<br />
his knowledge and creative ideas<br />
into books.<br />
The recent revival of the lunar<br />
exploration program on a global<br />
level is a tribute to the author<br />
and his pioneering peers. Halajian’s<br />
moon stories are an important<br />
link in the continuity of new<br />
lunar discoveries and innovative<br />
technologies.<br />
Technical papers and reports<br />
written by the author on photometric<br />
measurements of simulated<br />
lunar surfaces and other related<br />
lunar topics can be found on the<br />
NASA Technical Reports Server at<br />
ntrs.nasa.gov/.<br />
f<br />
Moon Stories: A Roadmap to Lunar Exploration<br />
and Beyond<br />
By John Halajian. Tate Publishing, 2007.<br />
Available at abrilbooks.com, amazon.com,<br />
and other booksellers.<br />
John Halajian’s last<br />
book, Moon Stories<br />
C10 <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008
Watch Armenia TV on Dish Network. To get a dish and subscribe, call 1-888-284-7116 toll free.<br />
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Remembering Harry Barba<br />
by Christopher Atamian<br />
He believed that writing should<br />
instruct and elevate the soul. He<br />
turned out finely crafted, oldfashioned<br />
realist prose. And he<br />
spent much of the latter part of<br />
his life concerned that he and his<br />
writing had already been forgotten<br />
by the general public. Noted<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong>-American <strong>writer</strong> Harry<br />
Barba died on December 4, 2007,<br />
at the age of 85.<br />
A Pulitzer Prize finalist for his<br />
1985 novel Round Trip to Byzantium<br />
and an accomplished shortstory<br />
<strong>writer</strong>, Barba belonged to a<br />
pioneering group that helped pave<br />
the way for succeeding generations<br />
of <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>writer</strong>s in the<br />
United States. Barba tackled issues<br />
of ethnicity and assimilation, perhaps<br />
in a more indirect but no less<br />
important manner than his more<br />
famous contemporaries William<br />
Saroyan and Marjorie Dobkin.<br />
Barba belonged to a generation<br />
of <strong>Armenian</strong>-American <strong>writer</strong>s<br />
who often lived their ethnic identities<br />
half-in, half-out, and who,<br />
for whatever reasons, occulted<br />
their own and their characters’ <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
roots. Another successful<br />
Barba novel, For the Grape Season<br />
(1960), introduces readers to a<br />
group of seasonal grape pickers<br />
who move to a remote Vermont<br />
valley and are never explicitly identified<br />
as <strong>Armenian</strong>. Rather, we are<br />
led to believe that they are Tatar<br />
or Iranian, or simply from some<br />
nebulous genetic starting point in<br />
the Caucasus.<br />
Barba belonged to a<br />
pioneering group that<br />
helped pave the way for<br />
succeeding generations<br />
of <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>writer</strong>s in<br />
the United States.<br />
In Round Trip to Byzantium, an<br />
American Fulbright professor<br />
travels to Syria to teach English<br />
literature. At one point, a female<br />
student is dismissed by her Arab<br />
classmates as “an <strong>Armenian</strong>.” Later<br />
on, the main erotic interest in the<br />
book is a mixed Armeno-Byzantine<br />
Lolita character who could have<br />
walked straight out of a Middle<br />
Easternized version of Nabokov’s<br />
imagination. Once again, however,<br />
a Barba protagonist, in this case<br />
the professor, is never identified<br />
as <strong>Armenian</strong>, although he is obviously<br />
based on the author himself.<br />
And in the racy short story “Love<br />
in the Persian Way,” the over<strong>sex</strong>ed<br />
teenage protagonist, who makes<br />
a favorite pastime out of bedding<br />
every female in his household, also<br />
has an indeterminate ethnic identity.<br />
The orientalized, the exoticized,<br />
the repressed Other: all these<br />
things haunt Barba’s prose like<br />
ghosts from an ethnic past, clawing<br />
at the edge of page and story,<br />
waiting to come out of hiding and<br />
declare themselves for who they really<br />
are. But Barba – who was born<br />
Nahabed O’Hanessian – is relevant<br />
to the general public as well. His<br />
insistence on “socially functional<br />
writing,” which posits that literature<br />
has both a redemptive and a<br />
moral value, is certainly a powerful<br />
if somewhat out-of-vogue viewpoint<br />
these days. And some of his<br />
short stories, such as “The Man<br />
Who Didn’t Want to Box Muhammad<br />
Ali” and “The Plum Tree Plunderers,”<br />
are simply outstanding.<br />
It’s good to be<br />
reminded of literature’s<br />
redemptive powers.<br />
It’s good, as well, to<br />
read well-crafted and<br />
sometimes salacious<br />
prose.<br />
In the end, it’s good to be reminded<br />
of literature’s redemptive<br />
powers. It’s good, as well, to read<br />
well-crafted and sometimes salacious<br />
prose. Finally, it’s good that<br />
we have had people like Barba, for<br />
whom writing and teaching, along<br />
with family life, represent a raison<br />
d’être unto themselves. Thanks in<br />
part to Barba and his generation,<br />
those ghosts from the <strong>Armenian</strong><br />
past have finally made their way<br />
onto the page in bold letters, jinns<br />
sprung from the bottle, never to<br />
return.<br />
f<br />
<strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008<br />
C11
C12 <strong>Armenian</strong> <strong>Reporter</strong> Arts & Culture July 12, 2008