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OLD HORRORS THAT HARROW THE LIVING: 'RED DOG HOWLS' SPEAKS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
BY LINDA WINER
Newsday (New York)
September 25, 2012 Tuesday
ALL EDITIONS
It is hard to imagine a more sensitive production of "Red Dog Howls"
than the one now at the New York Theatre Workshop. With Kathleen
Chalfant as a strong but isolated 91-year-old survivor of the 1915
Armenian genocide, playwright Alexander Dinelaris has the very model
of humane gravitas - her hard bones and hollows can turn mordant, then
loving with all the magic and mystery of a blue-period Picasso woman.
But sincere plays about unfathomable horrors are a daunting challenge,
and this one, for all its sober intentions, has the secondhand quality
of terrible events retold conscientiously.
Director Ken Rus Schmoll divides the playing area into three spaces -
one for the old woman's surprisingly overdecorated Washington Heights
apartment. The others, far more stark, are for scenes of affection
and strife with a young married couple - tenderly played by Florencia
Lozano and Alfredo Narciso.
He portrays Michael Kiriakos, narrator of this story, a man whose
deep Greek roots and motherless family history are pulled out by what
the old woman finally tells him. When his father died, he was left a
mysterious box of letters he was to burn. The son copies the address
and seeks answers, which the old woman parcels out more parsimoniously
than her Armenian soup. She wants him to get strong. Meanwhile,
Michael's pregnant wife gets pushed away.
Michael begins with a monologue that tells us, portentously, "There
are sins that cannot be absolved." The writing is both poetic and
way too pedestrian. "I don't know who I am, but I am trying to find
out if I can be a man," says Michael to his incredibly tolerant wife.
According to a note in the program, Dinelaris - whose writing range
includes the ironic gay musical "Zanna Don't!" and the book for the
new London musical adaptation of "The Bodyguard" - has been working
on this at least since 2007. Clearly, he is haunted by the material,
which is not the same as being able to haunt us.
WHAT "Red Dog Howls"
WHERE New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. Fourth St.
INFO, 212-279-4200, nytw.org
BOTTOM LINE Unbearable horror retold with good intentions
BY LINDA WINER
Newsday (New York)
September 25, 2012 Tuesday
ALL EDITIONS
It is hard to imagine a more sensitive production of "Red Dog Howls"
than the one now at the New York Theatre Workshop. With Kathleen
Chalfant as a strong but isolated 91-year-old survivor of the 1915
Armenian genocide, playwright Alexander Dinelaris has the very model
of humane gravitas - her hard bones and hollows can turn mordant, then
loving with all the magic and mystery of a blue-period Picasso woman.
But sincere plays about unfathomable horrors are a daunting challenge,
and this one, for all its sober intentions, has the secondhand quality
of terrible events retold conscientiously.
Director Ken Rus Schmoll divides the playing area into three spaces -
one for the old woman's surprisingly overdecorated Washington Heights
apartment. The others, far more stark, are for scenes of affection
and strife with a young married couple - tenderly played by Florencia
Lozano and Alfredo Narciso.
He portrays Michael Kiriakos, narrator of this story, a man whose
deep Greek roots and motherless family history are pulled out by what
the old woman finally tells him. When his father died, he was left a
mysterious box of letters he was to burn. The son copies the address
and seeks answers, which the old woman parcels out more parsimoniously
than her Armenian soup. She wants him to get strong. Meanwhile,
Michael's pregnant wife gets pushed away.
Michael begins with a monologue that tells us, portentously, "There
are sins that cannot be absolved." The writing is both poetic and
way too pedestrian. "I don't know who I am, but I am trying to find
out if I can be a man," says Michael to his incredibly tolerant wife.
According to a note in the program, Dinelaris - whose writing range
includes the ironic gay musical "Zanna Don't!" and the book for the
new London musical adaptation of "The Bodyguard" - has been working
on this at least since 2007. Clearly, he is haunted by the material,
which is not the same as being able to haunt us.
WHAT "Red Dog Howls"
WHERE New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. Fourth St.
INFO, 212-279-4200, nytw.org
BOTTOM LINE Unbearable horror retold with good intentions