Given the socio-economic situation in Armenia and the obsession most Armenian women and girls have with South American soap operas that represent a welcome escape from the drudgery of life in a former Soviet and patriarchal society, I’ve often lamented the fact that there has so far been no attempt at creating a local Armenian alternative.

I suppose that it’s little wonder given that Armenian TV is geared up towards broadcasting everything BUT the reality of life here, but coming from the UK where soap operas reflect an albeit dramaticised version of real life in the form of Eastenders and Coronation Street, I still think it’s a pity.

EastEnders is set in the fictional London Borough of Walford. However, the central focus of the show is that of the equally fictional Victorian square named Albert Square.

The show’s creators were both Londoners, but when they researched Victorian squares, they found massive changes in areas they thought they knew well. However, delving further into the East End of London, they found exactly what they had been searching for: a real East End spirit — an inward looking quality, a distrust of strangers and authority figures, a sense of territory and community that the creators summed up as ‘Hurt one of us and you hurt us all’.[1]These themes that were found for the setting can still be found in a present day episode of EastEnders.

[…]

The storylines focus on the experiences of families and their interaction, and on relationships between people of different ages, classes and social structures. In some ways Coronation Street has charted the changes in public attitudes towards religion, politics, community, family breakdown, the gentrification of working class areas, etc.

Personally, given the amount of gossip in Armenian society, the way that the sexes interact with each other, as well as the way that socio-economic hardship permeates through society, I think an Armenian soap opera would be an instant hit. Throw in corruption in the Armenian medical and education sectors as well as military conscription and human rights abuses in light of the current land grab in Central Yerevan, it would be a classic.

Now that the neighboring Republic of Georgia is shooting it’s own home-grown serial, perhaps an Armenian TV company will follow this precedent in the near future. Via Global Voices Online, Breed has more.

The idea of the scenes I’m in is that there’s a Georgian mafioso whose young trophy wife is unhappy in the marriage. She goes to a bar, and picks up a young American guy (that’s me). She takes him home, invites him in, and then up comes here husband’s associate, who berates her and chases the young American guy off at gunpoint. I figure, this is all pretty much within my range as an actor, inasmuch as it involves me just kind of doing that thing I do. There’s no onscreen (or other) kisses, just me learning my lines and not bumping into the furniture.

[…]

There were also some amusing things in the script, or lack thereof, that I thought betrayed a certain cultural misunderstanding. Like I said, I play an American who a Georgian gangster’s wife picks up in a bar; she takes home, and invites him in. So what does he do? He refuses.

Remember the phrase “my range as an actor?” I’m playing an American who turns down a trophy wife’s come-on. I have yet to meet an American who will do this sort of thing. This is not American I know. But what the hell, learn lines, no bumping into furniture.

So the next improbable thing that this American does as he takes his leave is… to quote Shakespeare. I confess I can rip off a couple of lines of Shakespeare, okay, but what kind of American quotes Shakespeare’s love poetry to women? English people, okay, fine; Doctor fucking Octopus, okay; but (a) I think it’s generationally inappropriate, and (b) the Shakespeare I know is mostly from things like Lear and the Tempest, and that’s not really a turn-on for the ladies, unless they’re the gothic kind of ladies. My last attempt to read poetry to a lady was met with “Fuck off and leave me alone.”

[…]

Only problem, really, was that at the beginning of the scene, the trophy wife and I step out of the car, move to the back, and I crack a beer, and take a swig. Again, no acting necessary. Problem is that we did, like, 10 take of this at the beginning of the night; and by the end of that I wasn’t drunk as such, but there were certain hydraulic necessities that couldn’t be ignored. Were there honey buckets? There were not. No problem; drinking and pissing on walls is a skill set I have mastered. Unfortunately, while we were in an urban area, which you would think would afford a variety of nooks and corners in which a fellow could TCB, they were all occupied by crew who were doing sthe sort of thing that crew does when they’re not working. I briefly considered hitting a level of insouciance I rarely achieve while sober, and pissing on someone’s leg, but it wasn’t really in character for the Shakespeare-quoting American. Fortunately, lots of folks here drive big SUVs, so I pretended to admire a Mercedes and all was, again, well.

I got home at 4 a.m. and crashed. Woke up at 4:30 this afternoon; I suspect the jet lag will not be helped by this. We shoot again Sunday or Monday, and I promise I will have pictures.

Funny, real beer. In European and U.S. films and TV series the actors drink cold tea which can look like flat beer to avoid the inevitable, but not in the South Caucasus. Perhaps that’s what makes living here so much fun at times. It’s simply the way they do things here regardless. Anyway, here’s hoping we get an Armenian soap opera one of these days, and if anyone wants to hire a Brit for a scene or two, give me a shout.

Sure as hell, a show that depicted the life of the filthy rich, the extremely poor, and the majority of the population inbetween would be a great social picture, and could also include the token Diasporan and expat living here. However, I guess that most local Armenians would say they’ve had enough of the reality of life here without having it beamed into their living rooms as well. I wonder what the reaction is in Georgia?

Anyway, Breed’s blog from Georgia is here.