Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Over a decade ago a stranger approached playwright Joyce Van Dyke in the lobby of a theatre. "My name is Martin Deranian," the elderly gentleman said. "Your grandmother and my mother were best friends and they were deported together from their homeland in 1915. I think you should write a play about them."
3 comments:
In this age of unspeakable tragedies seemingly every day, it is easy to lose the weight of history. I remember learning about the Armenian genocide in history in high school, in one class, as a paragraph in a text book. It was hard for me to connect the facts and figures to tangible history, especially since the Armenian genocide was not a people or part of the world I had been previously familiar with. This play seems like a great way to expose the atrocities that the Armenians had to face; it seems to give body and figure to the facts and numbers I am sure had been the most many Americans had known of the Armenian genocide. I especially appreciate that this is a story of hope and strength in a time of terror. Not to undermine the seriousness of the topic, but in terms of marketing, I am sure many more people are willing to see a play about hope than one about despair. Hopefully, this play will expose more people to the Armenian genocide and spark more conversation about the topic.
I learned about the Armenian genocide when I was in high school and was stunned. A couple of the people at my school were of Armenian descent and had lost family in this genocide. I think it is truly incredible that the Turkish government still denies that it ever took place. While it wasn’t quite as large as the German Holocaust, it was still the lives of one and a half million people. I am blown away by what Joyce Van Dyke has to say about her play. By changing the story from one of tragedy to one of hope and healing I think she made the play relate to a much much larger audience. People are always trying to relate to the others around them and understand why they are that way. This play sounds like it helps to bring clarity to what it was that made these women the way that they were.
I love the story telling of these type of plays. The fact that mass numbers of people are killed in the any genocide is devastating and tragic but this play offers a sense of hope for humanity. It shows our ability to move on and heal which I think is one of the strongest attributes of the human race. Any time we hear the words "genocide," or "holocaust," we automatically shrink back in our seats because we know that we're about to hear graphic and unsettling information. Because of this, some may turn a blind eye to these events. This will not be the case for this as its story of hope both educates and reminds us of the horrors of humanity but also tells of how we can survive through the connections and love we build. This is what theatre is about to me – showing a story so that the audience gains a perspective that they did not have previously.
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