Reviews from the Edinburgh Festival

BLACK ANGEL, THE LIFE OF ARSHILE GORKY STORMS NEW YORK BEFORE GOING TO THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

Read a Transcript of BBC Radio 3 Interview of Nouritza Matossian

Nourtiza Matossian's book, 'Black Angel, A life of Arshile Gorky' captures and tells a full and remarkable story - compelling, sure, accurate, and full of the substance of the life and times of the artist and his people. The story is historically intriguing, and the totality of the tale makes it very difficult to put down until you have wound your way through the personal and individual substance and feelings. It is a well researched work that makes a marvelous 'read' leaving the reader better informed and more understanding and much wiser about the times, emotions, and forces that shaped this creative life and its work.

In addition, the author gives a 'performance' which compliments and enhances the book in ways that leave one rereading and re-examining the work - understanding better the complexities of the tale, the times, and the history of Gorky and his people. Her grace and style, give a dramatic and forceful sense of the tale to told, read, and understood.

Patricia Smalley
First Director of the David Rockefeller Fund

Nouritza Matossian has taken the brave and imaginative step in making a performance from her work as a the biographer of the Armenian artist Arshile Gorky, The result is both touching and illuminating. She presents for all to see the multiplicity of view points that must be melded together to gain a semblance of the whole. With music, images and dance she talks of Gorky through the women closest to him and brings him to dimensional life. Her performance becomes something of a live equivalent to Richard Holmes's "Footsteps" and is captivating.

Helen Wilks
Artist and Lecturer in Art

Other Letters

I attended a perfromance of Black Angel at the Hill Street Studio; you handed me a flyer at the Edinburgh Book Festival and I promised to come. Maybe because I was struck by such honest commitment.

Despite making a decison to attend no drama this festival year, I was drawn along. I was transfixed. There are many elements contained in successful theatre - money, scale and profile are no guarantee that these elements will be present. ( I once slept through a King Lear).

In Black Angel for me all the elements were there. For instance on the purely mimetic level it appeared as if you had stepped out from one of Arshile's family portraits. Your performance was infused with this sort of magic. As I said  afterwards, the dealing with huge themes simple and beautifully.

But most importantly and especially, a performer can connect with her/his audience on a personal level and on rare occasions the performance may change a life. For various reasons the mixed themes of loss, love and art hit me like a hurrican. Not a catharsis, but . . . well I don't have the words.

The performance apart, thank you for introducing me to Armenian art andhistory. My previous experiences are at best vague.

Letter from an Edinburgh Fringe theatre-goer

email Nouritza Matossian

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