There was a constellation of names in the history of the Armenian theater at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, and Armen Armenian was one of the stars of that constellation.
Armen Ipekian, his actual name, was the elder brother of Kaspar Ipekian (1883-1952), who would also become an important figure of Armenian theater and public life in the Diaspora. He was born in Constantinople, where he received his education, on September 10, 1871. He apparently jumped from one school to the other: from the Armenian elementary school in the neighborhood of Pera (Beyoglu) he went to a German school in the same area, then became a boarding student of the Mekhitarist Congregation in Kadikeuy, a student of the school of Ortakeuy, and finally, he graduated from the newly open Central (Getronagan) School.
Newly graduated, he was mesmerized by the great actor Bedros Atamian in 1889-1890, and deeply impacted by his death in 1891. He had to fight against the wishes of his family, which opposed to his theatrical interests, and finally had their consent to perform on the condition of never using the family name. This is how Armen Armenian was born. His first role was in Alexandre Dumas’ “The Dame of the Camellias.
His father wanted him to become a merchant, and sent him to Hamburg, in Germany, in 1894. While taking care of family business, he also watched Eleonora Duse and later, during a trip to Brussels, Sarah Bernhardt’s play. He got in touch with the “divine Sarah” and asked for her assistance. Later, he moved to Paris and entered Sarah Bernhardt theater, where he performed silent roles and became the assistant to the technical director, while following the art of Bernhardt, Mounet-Sully and his younger brother Paul Mounet, and others. He learned theatrical speech and the art of classical tragedy and comedy at Paul Mounet’s private studio in 1895-1897. He later performed at the Bouffes du Nord theater and at the Comedie Francaise.
In 1902 he was invited to Tiflis, where he performed and directed French plays, and then went to Baku as director and actor of the local Armenian theater group. In 1904 he moved to Nor Nakhichevan and formed a theater group, with which he toured the Armenian communities of Northern Caucasus and Russia
By 1908 Armenian had become a well-known director and actor, and joined forces with another recognized colleague, Hovhannes Abelian, to form the “Abelian-Armenian” theater group, which was particularly successful during its five-year run, with Abelian as the spirit of the group and Armenian as the director, with lengthy presentations in the Ottoman Empire, the Caucasus, and Russia. Armenian, who was the first director to stage Levon Shant’s famous play, “Ancient Gods,” was also an accomplished actor in the roles of Yago and Shylock (Shakespeare’s “Othello” and “The Merchant of Venice”), Franz (Friedrich Schiller’s “The Brigands”), Harpagon (Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid”), and others.
Armenian continued his theatrical activities in the Caucasus from 1914-1917, and went to Iran from 1917-1921. He returned to the Soviet Union in 1921, and worked in the Northern Caucasus, Baku, Tiflis, Alexandropol (nowadays Gyumri), and other places. He was the director of theaters in Alexandropol and Sukhumi, on the Black Sea shore. From 1935 he worked at the State Theater of Leninakan (Gyumri’s name from 1924-1991), and received the title of Popular Artist of Soviet Armenia in the same year. He staged a total of more than 100 plays in his life, and played about 150 roles. In 1954 he published his memoirs, entitled Sixty Years on the Armenian Stage.
Armen Armenian passed away at the age of ninety-three, on July 20, 1965, in Leninakan.
