Wallace McCamant (Will Brill, left) goes over upcoming testimony with Tatos Cartozian (Nael Nacer, center) and Tatos’s son, Vahan (Raffi Barsoumian), in Talene Monahon’s Meet the Cartozians.
Two different views of immigration and assimilation hold sway in Talene Monahon’s Meet the Cartozians. Directed and expertly cast by David Cromer, the first half of Monahon’s play finds a naturalized Armenian American defending his citizenship in a landmark court case in 1925. In the second part, set a century later, the Armenian community has both thrived and splintered.
The old-fashioned, lace-curtain parlor (by Tatiana Kahvegian) in Portland, Ore., where Act I is set, will resonate with anyone who has Middle Eastern ancestry—and perhaps others too. There, lawyer Wallace McCamant (Will Brill) is coaching Tatos Cartozian (Nael Nacer) about an upcoming hearing to prove he is white. Assembled with Tatos are his daughter Hazel (Tamara Sevunts), his mother, Markrid (Andrea Martin), and, arriving a bit late, his son Vahan (Raffi Barsoumian). McCamant launches into a history lesson:
Hazel (Tamara Sevunts, left) and her brother Vahan (Barsoumian) watch as their grandmother Markrid Cartozian (Andrea Martin) reads McCamant’s future in coffee grounds.
In 1790, the good men who founded this country extended the offer of naturalized citizenship to all “free white persons of good character.” That was who they felt oughta become American citizens. … After the Civil War, the category of folks who could naturalize expanded to include “persons of African descent.” And so, as the law stands today, those are the two groups of people who can naturalize. White people, and people of African descent.
That changed in the 1920s. Courts were faced with Asian immigration—people who weren’t white or African—and, explains McCamant, “the folks in the government are trying to understand all these people … and if they qualify as ‘white people,’” who “deserve” citizenship. But other factors come to bear as well, including appearance and Christianity.
McCamant: What about these hats? Frankly, a person might think there’s some sort of Mohammedan influence here.
Tatos: This is Armenian clothing.
Vahan: Yes. And Wally, you know, Mohammedans wear turbans. And the women, they cover their hair.
Hazel is taken aback by a fumbled romantic pass from McCamant. Photographs by Julieta Cervantes.
Unfortunately, Act I is mostly plodding exposition, occasionally alleviated by quaint culture-clash humor. When Vahan enters, Markrid greets him in Armenian: “Jeegerut oodem.” “Now what does that one mean?” McCamant asks Hazel. “I think the translation is ‘Let me eat your liver,’” she tells him, “or uh, maybe, ‘I will eat your liver’?”
Act II proves livelier, as it jumps ahead a century, to a TV studio in Los Angeles where several Armenians are to be interviewed on Meet the Cartozians. But the hostess, a celebrity descendant of the family, has been delayed—she’s with her “glam team.” The stage manager, Alan O’Brien (Brill again), urges the guests to rehearse what they are going to say. As immigrants whose citizenship is now secure, they still squabble about issues of ancestry, race, and perception.
Martin is now an imperturbable Rose Sarkisian, who brags to Alan that her son is a TV actor. Rose’s pride in her family’s success leaves her blind to ethnic slights: she doesn’t recognize that the “Armenian” costumes they’ve been asked to wear on TV are ridiculous.
But on weightier issues both sides present reasonable arguments. Nardek Vartoumian (Barsoumian), a swarthy university professor, recounts his “lived experience” of being singled out at airports: “The reality is that most white people don’t have to leave for the airport four hours in advance to account for being stopped and interrogated.” Rose responds that she always leaves early: “That’s being a prudent traveler.”
Politically, too, the community has diversified. Nardek deplores the celebrity host’s use of private planes, claiming that “she and her family and all their private air travel are personally expediting the destruction of the earth.” Leslie Malconian (Susan Pourfar), a poet, argues that Armenians should have their own census data; they have always been counted as “Middle Eastern.” And whereas their ancestors balked at mentioning the genocide, the moderns attend public commemorations of it.
Modern-day Armenian Americans Robert Zakian (Nacer), Rose Sarkisian (Martin), and Leslie Malconian (Susan Pourfar, right) differ in their opinions.
There are clever social echoes with Act I. For instance, Leslie has baked Armenian pastries, as Markrid did; on the set, commercially produced candy is on offer, rather than homemade ones. And a corporate sponsor of the show produces skin tanner—an ironic twist after the historical necessity of proving Armenians were white.
But Monahon’s granular attention to the Armenian experience can be a slog until the bittersweet last scene, when it finally resonates as something perhaps more universal. A lone interviewee, Robert Zakian (Nacer), meets the tardy celebrity (Sevunts), and they share memories of visits to Armenia. Says Robert: “There must be something Armenian that is eternal—something that endures and stays constant and essential.”
The question of identity remains for descendants of immigrants: Is it ever possible to let go of the past and fully embrace a new homeland?
The Second Stage production of Meet the Cartozians plays through Dec. 14 at the Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit 2st.com.
Playwright: Talene Monahon
Director: David Cromer
Scenic Design: Tatiana Kahvegian
Costume Design: Enver Chakartash
Lighting Design: Stacey DeRosier
Sound Design: Lee Kinney
