Articles tagged with: Aaron Lamm
Role Playing: Sophia Menendian reached back (but not far) as plucky Armenian refugee of 15
Interview: The most disarming, lovable character I’ve seen on a Chicago stage this season has to be 15-year-old Seta, refugee of the Armenian genocide and mail-order bride in Richard Kalinoski’s “Beast on the Moon,” played with big-eyed, open-hearted exuberance by Sophia Menendian, who’s all of 20. She says she captured Seta’s buoyancy by recalling her own unbridled spirit as an adolescent.
‘Beast on the Moon’ at Raven: After Armenian genocide, an improbable pair retool their lives
Review: Outwardly, Richard Kalinoski’s play “Beast on the Moon” is about a young man and a teenage girl, refugees from the 1915 Armenian genocide who have lost their families and embark on a new life together as immigrants in Milwaukee. But as Raven Theatre’s exuberantly funny and sensitive production so urgently telegraphs, this tragi-comedy is ultimately about the beast within – a fearsome creature of the mind spawned by terror, isolation and guilt. ★★★★
‘The Cryptogram’ at Profiles: Waiting up for Dad and absorbing a harsh message about life, lies
Review: David Mamet’s eerie play “The Cryptogram” is the kind of stage experience that follows you home. Certainly in the wake of a hyper-intense account at Profiles Theatre directed Joe Jahraus, it continues to work on you, this brief, emotionally fraught and fractured tale of a little boy who’s so excited about a promised camping trip with his dad that he can’t sleep. For that matter, neither can his mother, or an old friend of the family who drops in. ★★★
