A Trip to the Moon

About the author:
For Tony-nominated actor Omar Metwally Sixteen Wounded, performing as Aram in off-Broadway's Beast on the Moon has been an amazing learning experience. Born in Queens to parents who immigrated to America, Metwally has come to appreciate their struggle for a new life in a new world. Richard Kalinoski's Beast on the Moon, which is currently playing at the Century Center for the Performing Arts, tells the tale of a married couple's efforts to start a family and a new life in America, but they are at a standstill when dealing with emotional scars from unforgettable torture and loss of family during the tragic Armenian genocide. Besides his Tony-nominated turn in Sixteen Wounded, Metwally's other stage credits include Homebody/Kabul, A History of God, Quartett, The Bacchae 2.1, Company, The Winter's Tale, and Summertime. Here, Metwally shares what he has learned in order to play the heartfelt Aram, and what is making him work so hard to send out the overall message of Beast on the Moon.

The first time I read Richard Kalinoski's play Beast on the Moon, I was deeply moved and excited by it. I thought it one of the most complex, heightened and beautiful scripts I had read in ages, full of humor and pain. It is a story about survival, about slaughter, about love. Beast on the Moon follows two young survivors of the Armenian genocide, Aram and Seta, a boy and a girl. The two have each lost their families in the tragedy and have eventually made their way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The play begins the day Seta arrives from an orphanage in Istanbul as a mail-order bride for her new husband Aram, who had come to America three years before. Beast deals intimately and intensely with the tragedies that befell these people in their native land, and with how their losses affect the relationship they try to build with each other. So the first thing I had to do was learn as much as I could about this tragic event that had shaped Aram's life.

Prior to my reading Beast on the Moon, I had only a vague awareness of the Armenian genocide of 1915-23. But as soon as I read the play, I rushed to the library to find out more. I was shocked to learn that between 1915 and 1923 the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire carried out an organized campaign to slaughter its Armenian population. This was done primarily through the rounding up and murder of the men, and the deportation of women, children and the elderly into the desert via forced march. While on these marches, the Armenians were subject to robbery, rape, abduction and murder by soldiers and roving gangs, and many more perished of starvation, exposure and disease. All told, between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives.

It was the first genocide of the 20th century, and I couldn't believe how little I had heard of this massive tragedy. And then I learned that the federal government of Turkey still denies the genocide to this day, 90 years later. Such denial not only prevents healing and dialogue between the affected communities, but it sends the message that crimes of this kind can go unpunished and even unrecognized. As my awareness grew, so did my urgent desire to help bring this important and powerful play to New York. But the thing about Beast on the Moon that I found most inspiring was the way that its central characters, in the wake of a horrific tragedy, refuse to abandon the hope and struggle for renewal. That's why I think the play is so relevant and why audiences seem to respond so strongly to it. In times where the value of human life seems to be widely forgotten or willfully ignored, a play about two people who find the strength to connect and heal in spite of such violence is very timely.

Beast on the Moon is also a story about America and the joys and struggles of being an immigrant in this country. As the child of two immigrants, this aspect of the play touched me deeply. The hope and excitement of what America meant to people around the world, as well as the confusion and pain of trying to make a life here are all a part of this play as well. In this regard, working on Aram brought me closer to understanding some of the struggles and journeys taken by my own parents.

The other part of my experience with Beast on the Moon has been the incredible good fortune to work with the artists who have been assembled for this project. My castmates Lena Georgas, Louis Zorich, and Matt Borish are all extraordinary actors and I have learned so much from each of them. And our director Larry Moss is the perfect shepherd for this play. His immense skills as an acting coach and his encyclopedic knowledge of the theater are a humbling and inspiring combination for any actor. He creates an atmosphere in rehearsal that truly encourages risk and exploration. So often these ideas are given lip service but not really honored. But Larry creates an environment that makes us feel relaxed and yet inspired to work harder than we ever have before.