by Hrag Vartanian
There's a saying about New York that you hear again and again, "…if I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere."
Though such clichés grind on the nerves of most New Yorkers who are sick of the catch phrases that characterize their city to the rest of the world, there is a grain of truth to the Big Apple's tough streets, its sink-or-swim reality and nowhere is this more accurate than on the city's stages.
Making Broadway the Center of the World
The Armenian contribution to the performing culture of New York has a long history that spans the twentieth century. Prominent among those early pioneers of the city's theatre culture, Flora Zabelle and Rouben Mamoulian deserve special mention.
Proto-Broadway performer Flora Zabelle (née Mangasarian) arrived from Constantinople via Chicago. Before establishing a reputation as a silent movie actor at Astoria Studios in Queens, NY, she acted in a wide range of venues including the famed Astor Theatre.
She starred in The Red Widow (1916) with John Barrymore and a slew of films with her husband, vaudeville legend Raymond Hitchcock, including The Village Scandal (1915). For years she was one of the only Armenian images that permeated American pop culture.
During the roaring twenties, she was part of the emerging film and theatre colony that converged in New Port Richey, Florida, and included comedian Ed Wynn, actress Gloria Swanson, pro-golfer Gene Sarazen and infamous celebrity, Al Capone. They became the first of many jet sets synonymous with American celebrity and fame.
If Zabelle is known only to a faithful few, Rouben Mamoulian is viewed as a rare genius who innovated the American musical.
The son of a bank president in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Georgia, Mamoulian studied in Moscow, worked briefly in London and arrived in America in 1923. In a few years, he had already directed more than a dozen plays on Broadway.
His fame snowballed after directing the play Porgy (1927)'—Mamoulian's production was one of the original Broadway blockbusters with 367 performances. His version was progressive for hiring an all-black cast at a time when actors in black-face were still common in theatre. In 1935, Gershwin incarnated the story as an opera and based on his track record Mamoulian was asked to direct.
Hollywood quickly recognized Mamoulian's directorial skills and lured him westward. Fortunately for Broadway, his frequent clashes with film studios ignited by his mercurial temper brought him back to the Great White Way.
In 1943, he directed Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! that ran for an astounding 2,212 performances. He eventually settled in Los Angeles, but his legacy on Broadway is fresh in the minds of the theatre diehards as synonymous with the golden age of the American musical.
Only one other Armenian American enjoys a similar cult status in the oral history of New York. His first impressions of New York were recorded in a memoir years later, "Soon after I reached New York, I found the Palace Theatre on Broadway, paid a quarter, went to the top balcony, to the last row, and sat down, as James Barton sang Laugh, Clown, Laugh. Well, this was my theatre, American vaudeville was my theatre." The star-struck newcomer was William Saroyan.
Lucky for Broadway the young Saroyan arrived when he did. His 1939 play, The Time of Your Life, helped invigorate Broadway after the drab years of the Depression. He became the first American to win both the Pulitzer and the New York Drama Critic's Award for his play, but the writer's refusal of the Pulitzer made headlines. He insisted, "Commerce should not patronize art...," and jabbed, "it is no more great or good than anything else I have written."
It was the beginning of Saroyan's reign as a pillar of New York theatre, a man about town poised with a witty comeback to everything. When Time magazine wrote in 1949 that Saroyan was dismissed by New York based Theatre Arts magazine, Saroyan fired off a response, "I didn't know I had been hired and fired by Theatre Arts until I read about it in Time. What else has been happening to me lately that I ought to know about?"
As Producer Phillip Langner recalled years ago, "I remember Saroyan as being somewhat demented in a nice sort of way. During rehearsals he'd sit around eating pears and apples that he'd peel with a dangerous-looking pocketknife. He had all these cousins, an Armenian Mafia, who began coming in from the West Coast.
"'This is my cousin Joe,' he'd say. 'We've got to give him a part in the play.' 'You can't just give someone a part,' my father would protest. 'I'll write something for him.'"
Saroyan was constantly adding new parts. His plays had that crazy-quilt quality. Gene Kelly, who played Harry, was not an Armenian relative, but had danced in a little revue in my parents' summer theatre in Westport, Connecticut. After George Abbott and Richard Rodgers saw him in The Time of Your Life, they picked him for the lead in Pal Joey, and from there Gene went on to his great career in Hollywood."
By no means an exhaustive list, other names of performers on and off-Broadway include performer Leon Danielian, who was later better known as a ballet dancer, choreographer and Aritistic Director of the American Ballet Theatre, and Tamara Toumanova, one of choreographer George Balanchine's famed "Baby Ballerinas," who performed in the 1938 Broadway production of Stars in Your Eyes before finding fame on the silver screen.
Then there is the enigma that is Rouben Ter-Arutunian. A titan of theatre design whose work is legendary. Known for his flair at painting scenes with strong linear composition, his expansive career included work for Broadway, the City Ballet, pioneering work for 1950's television and experimental work for smaller New York companies.
All set design in New York's venues of high culture are subconsciously measured by the standard he established. Any history of Armenians and the New York stage would be incomplete without mentioning him.
Setting a Standard Uptown at the Met
The long tradition of Armenian performers began with Paolo Ananian with his debut in November of 1908 as the Registrar in Madame Butterfly. Little is known about Ananian's life but 14 years later a second Armenian name made many take notice of an Armenian that was born in Bulgaria and raised in Egypt, Armand Tokatyan.
Tokatyan performed in Egyptian and Greek cities but it wasn't until he moved to Paris that he fell in love with the bohemian mode of existence and worked at a Paris sideshow. Against his father's wishes he studied music in Italy and in 1921 he made his operatic debut in Paris.
In New York, Tokatyan succeeded legendary Enrico Caruso as the Met's primary tenor and for 26 years performed in principally Italian roles with the penchant for the roles of Almaviva in The Barber of Seville and Carmen's Don José.
Three decades after Tokatyan's last bows, Ara Berberian was the next male Armenian performer to draw the applause of Met audiences. He debuted in 1979 in the role of Kecal in the Czech opera, A Bartered Bride. The bass-baritone performed for decades with a voice that many have described as nothing short of elegant.
Of the historic divas that received applause and bouquets on the hallowed operatic stage Lucine Amara and Lili Chookasian are notable. Mezzo-soprano Lucine Amara made her debut in 1950 as the 'Celestial Voice' in Don Carlo. The off-stage role became a nickname chosen by Rudolf Bing, who handpicked Amara during his first season as General Manager of the Met. In true diva style, she honored Bing during his retirement concert in front of a packed house. Amara became for one last evening the Celestial Voice of Bing's and the public's imagination.
Amara completed 882 onstage performances, five opening nights, nine new productions, 57 radio broadcasts and 56 roles. Time Magazine once wrote that she, "…brought to the stage the kind of dazzling vocal splendor that made the Met famous." Her longevity has been resounding and her vocal artistry continues to inspire.
Chookasian was a Met fixture during the sixties and seventies. She made her debut at the age of 41, after encouragement from the conductor of the New York Philharmonic to sing for members of the Met, "The Met wanted to hire me right then and there and I said I can't get on the Met stage with one opera, and a year later they said we'll take care of everything, just come." She retired from the institution after contributing 25 glorious years filled with applause.
Today, two Armenia-born performers have been emerging as part of the new wave of virtuosi, Hasmik Papian and Gegam Grigorian.
A favorite of Germany's Bonn Opera, Papian premiered on February 3, 1999, as the lead in the Metropolitan's stunning production of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida. A rising star, she performs internationally and most recently she radiated during her performance with the San Francisco Opera in their world premiere of Tigran Chukhadjian's 1868 opera, Arshak II.
Grigorian has also been blessed with the lead of a recent Met opera. As Count Bezukhov in the company's debut of Prokofiev's War and Peace, the only sold out opera of the Met's 2001-2002 season, he demonstrated why he is no stranger to operatic stages internationally. A member of the first tier of the Soviet Union's opera system, the fall of the Iron Curtain allowed Grigorian to travel globally but he retains his connection to his homeland. Since Armenia's independence, he has become more involved in helping to shape the Armenian capital's opera culture. Recognized as a major talent, New York's Lincoln Center is becoming a regular stopover for the tenor who sings over 30 performances a year worldwide.
In 1994, when conductor Valery Gergiev revived Verdi's La Forza del Destino in St. Petersburg, he chose Grigorian for the difficult role'—a part demanding enough to make Plácido Domingo declare that it was unperformable. The Atlantic Monthly reviewed Grigorian's performance and not only gushed about the version but remarked that he invented a "thrilling alternative to the Forza we know."
Star Quality in the Spotlight
Today Andrea Martin, Leslie Ayvazian and the downtown master of the one-man show, Eric Bogosian, have all galvanized New York's theatre world. A singular talent, Andrea Martin's career spans three decades of film, television and the theatre. Early on her sights were set on an ultimate goal, "As a kid growing up in Maine, I always dreamed of being on Broadway." In 1992, her dream came true in the musical comedy, My Favorite Year, that was staged at the Lincoln Center'—it was her Broadway debut. "It was great to say, 'I have a part on Broadway,' but that's just my ego," Martin admits.
Martin excelled in her role as Alice Miller, a former performing partner turned comedy writer to the character King Kaiser, who coincidently was played by another actor with an Armenian heritage, Tom Mardirosian.
She received a Tony Award for her performance and when she took to the podium during the televised award show, she declared with her trademark tongue-in-cheek humor, "I want to thank my extended Armenian family for giving me my roots and my hairdresser Gary for restoring them to their natural color."
Martin says the experience was one of a kind, "I was fearless with no expectations at all. After you win a Tony on Broadway, I think anyone really honest would admit to thinking, 'Is this Tony potential?' about each job they are offered.
"But I also have pragmatic reasoning for performing on Broadway. I have a great apartment in New York," she says before breaking out in a laugh, knowing full well how much New Yorkers complain about finding a good apartment, and continues, "a lot of wonderful friends and it really feels safe. For some people, Broadway is more risky but I see it as more contained, safe and grounded."
An avid theatregoer herself, Martin is drawn to Broadway by far more than the sound of applause, "There's nothing I love more than sitting in a theatre, I love going by myself, I love shutting off every other part of the world. It feels like it's an honor and a privilege to share in a live production and watch what I know is unbelievably hard work and discipline. It's a little piece of magic for me."
Infected by the Broadway bug, Martin had the opportunity to perform in a 1997 production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide at the Gershwin Theatre. She recognizes that there is a certain history to each theatre that she hopes will allow her to perform in one of the city's more historical venues, "I was at the Ambassador Theatre recently where I saw Hedda Gabbler. I did feel like I was part of the history. I love how small the dressing rooms are or envision myself standing on the stage and realizing Helen Hayes was on the stage years before. I'm sure it's an invigorating feeling and I can't wait to be given that opportunity."
When actor/playwright Leslie Ayvazian performed on Broadway in Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers she shared a similar awe, "It was a fun thing to be on Broadway, it's fun standing on those elegant stages in the big theatres and having everyone in the audience totally quiet while you're speaking because they're all listening to you. You can feel the energy in the room of everyone breathing together."
Though most accomplished as a playwright, she is widely-known for her reoccurring role as a judge on NBC's Law and Order, a show that peppers its episodes with Armenian characters as part of the inevitable mix of New York. However, Armenian audiences will no doubt remember her for her memorable play, Nine Armenians.
Coincidently, the first reading for Nine Armenians was done at the Ensemble Studio Theatre on Manhattan's West Side with Olympia Dukakis as lead along with Dukakis' husband and daughter performing with the Oscar award-winning actress.
Ayvazian's recent one-woman off-Broadway show, High Dive, builds off an actual experience in Greece where she was asked by her son to jump off a high dive board. Driven by her inner conflict of wanting to be a good mom, hero for her son and horrendously fearful of heights, she tried for a week to jump but to no avail.
She knew there was a lesson that came out of her one-woman show, "As I approached 50, I realized that not jumping off the board was alright. I was still a good mom and in fact, I was a better mom by being who I was."
Its original format of including audience members made the encounter invigorating she says, "Every night it was a vulnerable, exciting and different experience. The community of theatre expanded past me and into them, the collaboration that happens in theatre happened every night with the audience. It wasn't humiliating the way audience participation can be."
The play has had an unexpected resonance since the September 11th attacks, "I've been asked to do the play a lot since the attacks and I've raised a great deal of money for the World Trade Center funds. I've gone into many communities to perform it at their requests. People are calling for it because it does bring a community together'—that's what it creates, a community in that room. Many people have told me that it's the first time they've laughed that hard since the tragedy. This play has done what I hoped it would do, which is offer people a moment of healing." Such is the power of theatre.
While the stages of Midtown Manhattan are internationally known, downtown another talent simmers with a firm grip on the pulse of the city.
If you take the downtown train south of 14th Street, you may come across New York-based writer and performer, Eric Bogosian. He's a personality that has developed his own brand of gritty roots theatre, by pushing his audience's buttons in order to see the hypocrisy of modern life.
"The artists that I liked were loud, confrontational and appeared crude. Eventually, I got a reputation for that and by the mid-nineties people were asking what I was going to do to shock people. I wasn't sure that was what I set out to do. I was amusing my friends who liked the same sort of thing I liked. Now, it's not about how do I maintain an edge, but how do I stay honest to myself," Bogosian explains.
Born in Woburn, Massachusetts, Bogosian explains, "Being Armenian had something to do with my family and that large extended family in Watertown and Medford was a big part and they really seemed as though they were from another dimension compared to the other suburban kids around me."
This notion of being on the outside looking in drew Bogosian to New York City in the late seventies after studying at the University of Chicago and Oberlin College. During the period New York was at the brink of bankruptcy and the future of the city was uncertain to say the least but Bogosian loved it regardless, "I felt the city was alive in its decay because I didn't feel threatened by what I was witnessing, whether it was intense street life, crime, subways or the underworld culture that has always been part of New York but it was really blossoming in the seventies with nightclubs and things like that. Having already lived in a big city, Chicago, I venture to say that New York had more dimensions than Chicago. Chicago was a city of three predominant ethnic types while New York had 20 different ethnic types, more like a mosaic, so I didn't have trouble fitting in."
Bogosian found himself in Soho, an international synonym today for artistic innovation, "It didn't seem to have any commitment to show business or any of the high arts but simply making exciting new work for the sake of making it'—it was utopian. I could take what I learned from the theatre and go into a big old loft and put on a new play or performance and not be concerned if it was going to be commercial. Downtown New York is a community like others except it is in the midst of a very sophisticated city. This nourished me for four or five years."
He moved on from those bohemian beginnings to a more conscious juggling of commercial success and artistic integrity. His most famous play, Talk Radio, is an indication of the success he achieved after overcoming a substance abuse problem he says is typical of many of his generation. "I realized that the work was the most important thing for me," Bogosian says about the achievement, "In 1984, my wife and I were living several thousand dollars below the poverty line in a storefront in the Lower East Side. By 1989, I had a movie out with Oliver Stone, Talk Radio, and I was being employed by various Hollywood studios."
Written in two months, Talk Radio was first performed in March of 1987 and by April of the following year shooting had already begun. For the film Bogosian won a coveted Silver Bear from the Berlin International Film Festival.
Focused on his work and family, Bogosian's Hollywood career never took over from his theatre work. It is an experience he spoofs with carnivalesque proportions in his one-man show Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.
Bogosian has written six plays that have been produced off-Broadway but still admits that the downtown persona he is so famous for is still part of his life, "I was a downtown guy so I rarely went above 14th Street and I still don't."
Today, Bogosian spends more time on his writing and recently published a novel, Mall, while continuing to write for the theatre. He is a symbol of the vitality of New York's downtown culture.
If Shakespeare was right and all the world is a stage, then New York is opening night and Armenians having been there for generations.
