Beast on the Moon review – portrait of a marriage and a massacre

Finborough, LondonRichard Kalinoski’s deeply touching play is about the fraught relationship between two escapees of the Armenian genocide living in 1920s MilwaukeeDrama can tackle big subjects obliquely. That is certainly the case with Richard Kalinoski’s play – first seen in America in 1995 and since produced in more than 20 countries – which has only four characters but is haunted by the memory of Turkey’s systematic elimination of 1.5 million Armenians. I found its portrait of an immigrant marriage deeply touching, while wishing it told us more about the Armenian genocide of the 1910s and early 1920s.Kalinoski sets the action in 1920s Milwaukee, where Aram, a young Armenian photographer who has miraculously survived the mass killings, meets his 15-year-old bride, Seta, who is a similarly orphaned refugee. Aram behaves like a traditional patriarch but Seta is too spirited and inquisitive to be a submissive consort. The marriage is also shadowed by Seta’s inability to bear children. If the relationship is saved, it is through Seta’s temporary adoption of a 12-year-old street kid, Vincent, who is in flight from persecution at a Catholic orphanage. Continue reading…
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