BEAST on the MOON

By Richard Kalinoski

Education Resource Pack

Created by Sarah Stephenson
sarahs@nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk

This play is especially suitable for KS4 and 5 English, Theatre Studies, Drama and Performing Arts.
The content and themes may also be useful for General Studies and Citizenship.

Contents
• Synopsis, cast and production team lists.
• Themes
• Background information: Armenian genocide stories and historical information.
• Set design and interview with Dawn Allsopp, designer.
• Interviews with Giles Croft, director and Karine Bedrossian and Youssef
Kerkour, actors.
• Pre and post show activities: Get writing, Get talking, Get active and Get
creative.
• Script extracts
• Photos of the cast in rehearsals.
Synopsis
1920s Milwaukee. When Aram’s teenage mail-order bride arrives, the young
photographer believes his future can finally begin. His sole desire is for a large family
– a family to replace the one ripped from him. But when the effects of recent events
begin to surface their American dream has to find a new focus.

A young wife tries to forget the traumas of the past; a young husband tries to
recapture lost happiness. Join them as they embrace a new world and look to the
future to heal their past.

Production team
Director: Giles Croft
Designer: Dawn Allsopp
Lighting design: James Farncombe

Cast
Aram Tomasian: Youssef Kerkour
Seta: Karine Bedrossian
Gentleman/ Vincent: Paul Greenwood

Themes
Family
Role of women
Marriage
Religion
Grief
Childhood
Memory
Love
Background information
The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust or the
Armenian Massacre was the forcible deportation and massacring of hundreds of
thousands to over 1.5 million Armenians during the government of the Young Turks
from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire.

It is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern, systematic

genocides, as many Western sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll as
evidence for a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the Armenians. The event is
also said to be the second-most studied case of genocide. To date twenty-one
countries have officially recognised it as genocide. The government of the Republic
of Turkey rejects the characterisation of the events as genocide.

Wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?

It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and
1923. There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire
on the eve of W.W.I. Well over a million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of
thousands were butchered outright. Many others died of starvation, exhaustion, and
epidemics which ravaged the concentration camps. Among the Armenians living
along the periphery of the Ottoman Empire many at first escaped the fate of their
countrymen in the central provinces of Turkey. Tens of thousands in the east fled to
the Russian border to lead a precarious existence as refugees. The majority of the
Armenians in Constantinople, the capital city, were spared deportation. In 1918,
however, the Young Turk regime took the war into the Caucasus, where
approximately 1,800,000 Armenians lived under Russian dominion. Ottoman forces
advancing through East Armenia and Azerbaijan here too engaged in systematic
massacres. The expulsions and massacres carried by the Nationalist Turks between
1920 and 1922 added tens of thousands of more victims. By 1923 the entire
landmass of Asia Minor and historic West Armenia had been expunged of its
Armenian population. The destruction of the Armenian communities in this part of the
world was total.

www.armenian-genocide.org.genocidefaq.html
After The Genocide

After the war ended, the Turkish government held criminal trials and found the
triumvirate guilty in abstentia. All three were later executed by Armenians Armenia
and the Turkish government. What is now called Wilsonian Armenia included most of
the six western Ottoman provinces as well as a large coastline on the Black Sea.
Cilicia, a separate Armenian region on the Mediterranean, was to be a French
mandate. Mustafa Kemal's forces pushed the newly returned Armenian refugees and
forces from these lands and forced a new treaty to be written which was an insult to
Armenian victims. They were basically told never to return and that they would never
receive compensation. The Kars and Ardahan provinces of Armenia were taken as
well in an agreement with the Soviet Union.

www.armeniapedia.org

‘Several countries have formally recognized genocide against the Armenians (and, in
the case of France, outlawed its denial), but it remains illegal in Turkey to call for
recognition. As recently as last year, the Turkish foreign ministry dismissed
allegations as ‘unfounded’.

One authority on extermination who did recognize the Armenian genocide was Adolf
Hitler. In a 1939 speech, in which he ordered the killing, ‘mercilessly and without
compassion’, of Polish men, women and children, he concluded: ‘who after all,
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’

Simon Usborne. The Independent Tuesday 28 August 2007

Set design
Interview with Dawn Allsopp – designer

What were the initial ideas that you wanted to include in the script?
I wanted to create the feeling of the set being like an island; a haven of sanctuary
sitting in the middle of a bigger space. This also had to have an area around the
outside, for the gentleman to inhabit. Within that outer space the suitcases and
bundles of belongings represent the things that people carried with them when they
left their homes, heading for a better life.

It was important to create elements of naturalism, to reflect the dialogue between

Seta and Aram, but as this is a memory play I decided to leave out some of the
details. With memory some parts are clearer than others and this is what I have tried
to achieve with the set – so the wallpaper is realised but the skirting board is
deliberately missing.

It was also important for it to feel intimate, as we get the in-depth look in to
character’s lives. The angle of the set coming out into the thrust section of the stage
helps this. The table is quite far forward, so the intimacy of action taking place
around the table is a focus.

How did you research for design ideas?

It is hard to find pictures of American houses from the time the play is set, so I
contacted the Milwaukee library for help. They found details of the duplex style of
housing, built in Milwaukee around the 1920s. I also had discussions with Giles Croft
and decided that the characters would be renting the house, having just arrived, so
the interior reflects the budget they would have had. The sparse floorboards were
indicated by Kalinoski in the stage directions while the grey and sepia tones of colour
are suggestions of Aram’s passion for photography. There is some colour in parts
however, and this is the memory idea again. Some parts of the memory are faded
and in dull tones and some parts are brighter and more vivid.

The costume design took me to the Sears catalogues that were out in America at
that time. One of the Sears factories was actually based in Chicago, not far from
Milwaukee. I imagined that Aram and Seta may have ordered clothes and other
items from these catalogues to fit in their new American lifestyle. The costume
designs will be a mixture of made and stock and in particular for Seta it would be nice
to use vintage pieces.

The costumes and set will change slightly after the interval to reflect the passage of
time from Act 1 to Act 2. The set will have small additions – for example, a new set of
matching chairs and different styles of costume for both Aram and Seta.

Which item on stage are you most looking forward to seeing how it eventually
looks?
I’m looking forward to seeing how the portrait on the easel will look on the stage, as
it’s so key to the action.
Capturing the Beast
Emma Jones interviews Giles Croft, Director of Beast on the Moon

What attracted you to direct Beast on the Moon?

I saw a production of it in the mid-nineties at the Battersea Arts Centre: I found it very
moving and that evening has stayed with me. It’s a play that I think will work in this
theatre and the story that it tells will be intriguing and engaging for our audience. The
story is quite a simple one but with a complex background. The events that lie behind
it are those of the Armenian genocide, which took place in Turkey between 1915 and
1921, when 1.5 million Armenians were massacred. There is some controversy over
this and some disputes about figures and events. It’s one of those rarely told stories
and the play is a way to bring that history to people’s awareness through a very
powerful love story.

The play is so sincere and so simple. What do you think Nottingham audiences
will get out of it – obviously there is the understanding of this little-known
genocide, but do you have any ideas as to what else they may take away?
I suppose in the end what you want people to take away is what you want them to
take away from any visit to the theatre – something that engages both intellectually
and emotionally, something that gives them some insight into their lives and the lives
of others. This particular play is quite emotionally charged and is a very powerful and
evocative love story. In the end what I want people to take away is the feeling of
having lived through these years with these people and at the same time learned
something about that story.

I found it thrilling when I read it. The story was incredibly moving. But one
character that I think might be really hard to portray is Aram: I found it hard to
like him at the start, but I did move with him and come to understand him by
the end.
Aram is very stiff and very contained emotionally and very repressed and controlling
and old-fashioned in his ideas. At the beginning of the play one shouldn’t like him
terribly, but there are two things that happen during it. One is that you come to
understand something of his family – or the history of his family and his culture –
which explains something of the difficulties in his personality. And of course the other
thing is that he learns throughout the course of the play. He’s educated by Seta and
by the boy and that’s the journey, if you like – one of becoming to some degree
softened and coming to an accommodation with his past. That’s why we’re travelling
with him. Seta also has to come through the same process; it’s just that she does it
with a degree of warmth and humanity that you don’t immediately get with him.

The little boy Vincent really helps them along that journey too.

One of the things they are trying to do, or Aram is trying to do, is recreate his
Armenian family – but that doesn’t happen. The play of course starts with the family
photograph in which he’s cut the heads off the dead members of the family. So the
arrival of the boy, who is not their child, is the catalyst for the accommodation they
finally reach. That’s the thing they’re looking to have in the end – a family portrait.

I think it’s quite poignant that Aram is a photographer and is trying to paint this
picture-perfect family throughout. I think that symbolism flows beautifully through the
play.
Beast on the Moon is a love story but also tackles much darker issues. How
will you approach balancing the darkness and the romance?
I suppose in the same way the play tries to, by creating a mood and narrative in
which all the darker stuff is slowly introduced. The narrator figure, the older man,
informs us a lot about the events that have occurred so that we are given a bit of a
history lesson alongside what’s going on. That is a hard balance because what you
don’t want to do is hold up the story for the bits of history. It has to affect the
audience; they have to learn something. One of the reasons for writing the play was
to inform people about this terrible story that has been kept quiet for so many years.

The Turkish government has never recognised that this happened, but is
starting to now.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. In the years immediately following the overthrow
of the Young Turks – the three young leaders who instigated the genocide – the new
government, under some pressure, accepted responsibility. In the early 20s they
were acknowledging it and apologising for it; there were statements in parliament
and some people were actually put on trial. But then Ataturk came to power and as
Turkey began to coalesce around this charismatic figure, the story began to be put to
one side because they didn’t want to deal with it. Now there is an extraordinary
situation in Turkey where it’s denied, but some people are coming out and saying it
did happen. Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish Nobel Prize-winning author, made a
statement about the genocide and he was prosecuted for it. A Turkish-Armenian
newspaper editor who wrote articles about it was assassinated. There are often
demos and riots relating to it because the Armenians are trying to bring it to the fore.
There is some sense in which things are being made a little easier for people who
want to talk about it now, but that may be partly because Turkey wants to join the
European Union. It hasn’t been recognised everywhere – in America, for example,
it’s still not officially acknowledged and there is an ongoing attempt to get the US
government to recognise the genocide. The photo that we use in the production has
come from an archive in America that holds lots of fascinating photographic records
of the Armenian immigration as well as the history of the genocide. There’s all sorts
of information that’s becoming available to people at last.
Interview with Youssef Kerkour and Karine Bedrossian
What interested you in working on the play?
Karine: I’m actually Armenian, my parents were and it’s a side of my heritage that I
haven’t really explored before. Since working on the play I have gone back to ask my
dad more questions. My grandfather was actually a captain in the Turkish army. My
family were marched for 2 days into the desert, when the genocide happened. My
uncle was just a baby at the time and my grandmother couldn’t carry him any more,
so left him on the roadside. Fortunately another family member came past and
picked him up. My other grandfather was a priest so he asked for them to be
released; they eventually returned, and the family moved to Cyprus. My other
grandmother was not allowed to speak Armenian as a child and was made to speak
Turkish. I won’t go to Turkey myself now, after all that happened there.

Youssef: I understand something of what it is like to experience immigration issues,

since I moved from Morocco to America aged eighteen to study at university. I
therefore know what it feels like to be an immigrant in America, having to leave
‘baggage’ behind in both senses of the word and eventually accepting your heritage.
In some was Aram begins the play in the place that I am in now.

What research have you had to do in preparation for the play?

Youssef: There have been so many layers of research to do – from reading all I can
get hold of about the genocide itself, including a book featuring eye-witness accounts
that I have used to build a person history for Aram in my mind. I have also
researched American culture in 1921, Milwaukee as an area, research what Aram’s
journey would have been like, on New York ships and how to work a camera of the
time.

Karine: I have been researching much of the above, linking times and places to
create a history for Seta. I was shocked to read how girls were auctioned off during
the genocide and how pregnant women were stabbed. I think it’s important to
remember that it is a play about love, at the end of the day, and their past is just
beside them. I have also researched the mannerisms and sayings in America at the
time, along with the type of food that they would have eaten.

What challenges do you have in playing your character?

Youssef: With good writers you can’t take the writing of the play for granted. All the
pauses and beats that he writes in are important, it is a clue to what the writer is
thinking in his head. It’s important for me to map out what the writer would have
wanted from the character. In some contexts it is tempting for actors to map out the
character for themselves but Aram is so clearly written I want to stay true to what
Kalinoski would have wanted. I like to also find choices of way to play a character to
bring to the director, for him to decide.

Karine: I’m trying to understand the emotions that Seta would have been feeling and
dig deep to link it to things I have experienced of being somewhere new. When I play
Seta at 15, in Act 1 I’m trying not to exaggerate this, as I would have been
emotionally younger than her at that age. I’m also working on creating a back story of
the 10 years that pass between Act 1 and 2. What would she have done in those
years?
Pre and post show activities
Get writing
• Research Armenian genocide stories. Write your own script involving one of
the people you find out about. What happened to them next?
• Write a comparison list of Armenian and American characteristics/cultures.
e.g

Role of man as dominant Role of men and women

in relationship equal

Get talking
• Read ‘A View from the Bridge’. Discuss the parallels between the two
plays.
• Read the extract from act 2, scene 1. Discuss the meaning of the title of
the play. Could it have been called something else? If so, what?

Get active
‘Beast on the Moon is a play about people who speak what they speak in order to
survive. Part of what they say is silent. I hope the reader will look for and hear the
silence in the room when these characters speak.’ Richard Kalinoski

• Examine the quote above. What are the silences in the play, the unspoken
words? Hot-seat the character of Aram and Seta to explore what they would
really like to say.

• Alternatively, take script extract 1 and stop after each line to thought track
what the characters are feeling.

• Create your own memory play in the style of ‘Beast on the Moon’, with a
narrator, who was a character in the story, adding in their monologue
reflections years later. Consider using the key props in the story – the doll, the
black coat, the stamp, the photograph with faces cut out etc as starting points
for new stories.

• The play is written in a way that either the same actor can play the role of the
Gentleman and Vincent or two, separate actors. Using the extract Act 2,
scene 1, what choice would you make as a director. Try the scene both ways.
If using the same actor how would you work through the transition between
the two characters?

Get creative
• Design a new prop that could link the past world with the future. This could
also become a practical activity. Why was the prop significant in the journey
over? Did it have to be hidden at some point? You could also design another
gift that Aram could present to Seta that has been influenced by the new
American world.
• Find examples of the 1920’s Sears catalogues, that design Dawn Allsopp
used to influence the costumes. Design your own costumes using the
magazine as an influence.
Script excerpts
From scene 3
Seta: I made a new cake. Fudge cake. I got the recipe from Mrs. Binetti. It’s an
American recipe.
(He looks)
Mr. Tomasian: (Amused) This piece is so big, Seta.
Seta: I thought you would like it.
Mr. Tomasian: It would stuff me.
Seta: It’s very special.
Mr. Tomasian: It’s bigger than my foot.
Seta: Maybe you will love it. (He takes a bite)
Mr. Tomasian: (cheerfully) It’s a wonderful cake. Thank you. (They smile at each
other)
Mr. Tomisian: Delicious. Very. (He takes a second bite and chews. He remembers
the time and looks at his watch.)
Seta: Don’t you want to finish?
Mr. Tomasian: I can finish later.
Seta: (Thinking) Oh. (pause) The Binettis are going to start to sell ice cream in their
grocery. Mr. Binetti bought a freezer.
Mr Tomasian: Good Luck. Freezers are expensive. It’s about time.
Seta: You don’t want to finish the cake?
Mr Tomasian: I can eat cake later. You’re well? You’re not sick? Seta?
Seta: (very quickly) Mrs Binetti loves the portrait of her new baby, Nicky. She went on
and on, oh, she’s funny, she is… her voice is so big and…musical…like big bells. I
thought you would like the cake – you do like the cake?
Mr. Tomisian: Seta, it’s time.
Seta: Now? I think I’ll eat some cake. (She starts to gobble the cake)
Mr. Tomisian: I see you like the cake.
Seta: Oh yes. (With cake in her mouth)
Mr. Tomisian: You can finish the cake later.
Seta: It’s so delicious…it has a hint of orange, did you taste that? I added that.. That
hint of orange is mine…
(He takes her hand. She stops, a huge chunk in her mouth.)

Mr Tomasian: Chew.
(She does. The lights fade to near darkness.)
From act 2, scene 2

Gentleman: Some of you are sitting too far away to see this. (He hold a portrait into
the light. Long pause) Aram and Seta Tomasian. They came from a time that I want
to understand. (Pause) I wanted you to see this (He clutches the portrait to himself)
You see, in Turkey, in 1893, before Aram and Seta were even born, there was an
eclipse of the moon. In villages and towns the Turks came out into the night and
shot their cannons and their guns at the ‘wild beast’ in the sky covering the moon.
Their Turkish neighbours shouted at the beast on the moon. The Armenians
watched. And then, two years later in 1895, the Sultan, worried about a few upstart
Armenians, declared a Holy War, a jihad, and instantly the Turks came out again into
the night and shot their guns. But not at the ‘beast on the moon’. They shot their
neighbours, the Armenians, who flew into closets, and scrambled into ditches and hid
in corners. Shouting, the Turks came into the streets and shot them. Aram and Seta
came from a certain place at a certain time. I am looking for it.

(The gentleman places the portrait on the case and covers it with the sweater.)
(Lights reveal a small boy, perhaps 12 or 13. He sits at the table , his mouth bursting
with meat and bread. Seta watches him quietly. He eats. Seta is a little amazed.)
Vincent: Yer shure nice to me fer feedin’ me like this Missus Tomasin. I owe ya.
Seta: No, Vincent. YOU don’t owe me anything.

Vincent: Ya, I do. Nuthin’ ain’t free. I could carry some messages fer ya somewhere.
Like to yer husband at his work maybe. I can scrub yer walls fer ya.

Seta: Vincent, you just enjoy your food.

Vincent: Fine with me. I can do that.

Photos of the cast in rehearsals

Giles Croft directs

Youssef Kerkour and Karine Bedrossian

Karine Bedrossian as Seta

Paul Greenwood as the gentleman/Vincent

Karine Bedrossian and Paul Greenwood