The victims and the perpetrators of the mass murder of a million-and-a-half Armenians haunt a dying septuagenarian circa 1982 in Leslie Ayvazian’s edifying, impressively performed, if problematic World Premiere drama 100 Aprils, the latest from Rogue Machine.

Despite being the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide (1914–1923) remains a good deal less widely known than the Nazi extermination of six million Jews, making Ayvazian’s 70-minute one-acter an eye-opener if nothing else.

 Indeed, from its opening sequence, one that pits a hallucinating Dr. John Saypian (John Perrin Flynn) against imagination-figment Ahmet (Robertson Dean), 100 Aprils proves a power-puncher as horror after horror get spelled out in devastating detail: “Women and children forced from their homes to walk to Syria where they died of starvation in the desert. Crucified bodies. Women nailed to crosses, their heads bowed, their hair falling over their face. slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks under the guise of World War One because they were Armenian and Christian and lived on your land.”

 As John conducts his running dialog with Ahmet, his wife Beatrice (Ayvazian) and adult daughter Arlene (Rachel Sorsa) do their best to calm him and stay calm themselves while trying to reason with a man who is quickly losing his mind.

It soon becomes clear that John’s rapidly declining mental state is the result of a combination of factors, from being strapped to his bed for his own protection to Demerol withdrawal (John has been overdosing himself with the pain reliever for years) to a bedside morphine drip to the congestive heart failure now filling his lungs with fluid.

It turns out too that if John’s fevered brain has conjured up this particular Ahmet, it is no coincidence that his attending physician (Dean again) not only shares the same name and nationality but also the identical dismissive attitude towards the Armenian Genocide that the Turkish government maintains to this date.

 Indeed, it’s easy to understand playwright Ayvazian’s angry need to raise public awareness of horrors still officially denied by the country that perpetrated them, and it’s equally easy to fathom John’s obsession with early childhood events that robbed him of beloved family members, and for this reason alone, 100 Aprils has indisputable power.

Not everything works, however.

 Trying to figure out what’s up with Arlene (is she on the spectrum, mentally retarded, or just very quirky?) proves as distracting as the sudden bee-sting that sends her into a tizzy. John’s somewhat stilted English seems at odds with his entirely unaccented speech. And an eleventh-hour confrontation that ought to lead to charges of assault and battery appears to have no consequences whatsoever.

 As for Ahmet, though it is entirely reasonable to hold the Turkish government to account for its revisionist history, it seems unfair to demonize the entire population by turning the play’s sole Turk into a two-dimensional villain.

There can be no quibbling whatsoever with the trio of lead performances elicited by director Michael Arabian.

Flynn’s fiery, irascible, Lear-like star turn as a man whose life-long demons now hold possession of his mind anchors the production, with Ayvazian’s long-suffering, patience-tried Beatrice and Sorsa’s loving if peculiar Arlene providing solid support.

 Janet Song registers too as a tart but ultimately caring nurse, and Dean does his best with the two Ahmets.

John Iacovelli merits major snaps for designing a set that works just as well as John’s hospital room as it does in multiple-locale mode for the concurrently running Mexican Day. Brian Gale’s lighting and Kevin Anthenill’s sound design are especially impressive whenever John’s fantasizing turns nightmarish, and Kate Bergh’s costumes are her accustomed fine choices for each character.

Cecilia Fairchild is assistant director. Amanda Bierbauer is production manager. David A. Mauer is technical director. Ramon Valdez is stage manager.

100 Aprils is produced by Flynn and Elina de Santos.

Though too much of a polemic to fully hit the mark, 100 Aprils is worth seeing if for no other reason than the light it shines on a holocaust second only to The Holocaust in modern times.

Rogue Machine @ The MET Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Hollywood.
www.roguemachinetheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
July 2, 2018
Photos: Michelle Hanzelova

Tags: Leslie Ayvazian, Los Angeles Theater Review, Rogue Machine