Interviewwith a Playwright: Alexander Dinelaris


We asked Alex a fewquestions about the play, being Armenian and hiswriting process. Here’swhat he had to say: Where does the title Red Dog Howls come from?


AD: I extracted “Red DogHowls” froma poemthat I use in the play by an Armenian poet. His pen name is Siamanto and his actual name is AtomYarjanian. He’s a famous Armenian poet who died during the genocide.He has a poemthat says, "The red dogs of the desert all howled one night after hopelessly moaning over the sands for some unknown, incomprehensible grief," and it struckme as a good title because it extracted the feeling of the play, as I intended it.


This feels like a very personal piece for you.What inspired you towrite Red Dog Howls?


AD: I think that plays, one way or another, are always personal. I think people who ask me if this play is personalmean, ‘is it autobiographical,’which in a way it is, but not from the perspective of this particular genocide story.


Whenmy father passed away in 2005, Iwas leftwith a lot of questions. And when I married my wife shortly afterwards,wewere expecting a child, and it occurred tome that in the history ofmy family there was a lot of sadness and dysfunction and depression, and things that I've been working throughmywhole adult life.And I began to be afraid that I would pass that on to my child once it was born, as insane as that sounds. That notion of “passing on the curse,” if youwill. In the play I call it a plague, and it started to fascinateme. Then Imade a trip toGreece, and Iwas in the theatre ofDionysus, and I started thinking about the structure of the Greek plays, and Oedipus in particular—that he is the source of a plague for his family. And the idea of the play started to come together. The play is really a story about aman trying to find out about his past so that he might have a better grasp at solidifying his future. And that's how it started to come together. Little by little it started to unravel in structure as amystery, almost.


And through writing it, I got to explore my own Armenian roots. My grandmother, my father's mother, was Armenian and she raised me from a


young age, when my mother wasn't around. She passed away when I was young, and so I was never


very close to my Armenian roots. Through writing Red Dog Howls I was able to explore this part of myself that I have never known. The character of Rose is fundamentally based on my memory of my grandmother. As a matter of fact, they share the same name. My grandmother was Vartouhi, which in Armenianmeans Rose. Afratian was hermaiden name. And she was a piece of iron, that woman. 5 foot 2 and a piece of iron. And shewas stern, but at the same time, when she was stern she was very funny about it. Very dry wit. She could put you in your place immediately. She also happened to be the warmest person who would smother you with affection, but she had this very austere, rigid sense of humor,whichwas very funny. And it seemed like she could carry any weight on her back. So when I startedwriting this play, the characterRose became a woman who, because of the course her life has taken, was required to be stronger than anybody could possibly imagine. So in fleshing out the character, I wanted to make the physical trait and the emotional trait feel so strong that by the time you get to the end of the play you imagine that she could have superhuman strength, that somebody would need superhuman strength to survive what she survived.


Alexander Dinelaris. 14


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