• Sati Spivakova and the Moscow Theater of Nations soon in Yerevan

  The role of the legendary opera diva Maria Callas will be portrayed by the actress and television presenter, Sati Spivakova, who is the daughter of the esteemed Armenian violinist Zareh Sahakyants and the wife of the renowned violinist and conductor, Maestro Vladimir Spivakov....

At the Sos Sargsyan Theater “Amazgain”, Simon Abkarian’s Penelope was staged in Armenia for the first time. Previously, the play had been performed in various cities as part of festivals; now it has come to Yerevan, to an audience that knows all too well what it means to wait for someone to return from war.

The play is based on Homer’s Odyssey, modernized by Abkarian for our times. Here, Penelope is Dinah, played by Honored Artist of Armenia Narine Grigoryan. She has been waiting for her husband for twenty years, not knowing where he is, whether he is alive, and unsure whether the unknown or the truth is more terrifying. But Dinah is not a submissive shadow of expectation. She is a woman who has not been broken by years, by pressure, or by the advice of others; she is capable of going to the end, even if that end demands a cruel decision. She accepts her suffering as part of her choice, does not seek justification, and fears no judgment—acting according to her heart, even if the world around her calls it madness.

Penelope is not only about marital fidelity. It is about fidelity to one’s inner law. About holding onto one’s values even when the world offers convenient compromises. Anteus, who pursues Dinah for status and power, feels frighteningly contemporary. For him, it is not love but control—over her fate, her life, her body. He is a businessman who achieves what he wants by any means, however unscrupulous.

The play’s central figure is Elias, the Odysseus returned from war. He arrives not as a conqueror but as a man who no longer wants to kill. His pacifism collides with the harsh logic of his mother, convinced that the world must be defended by force. In this conflict, there is no simple moral answer. There is a heavy question: if you refuse violence, will your home survive? And if you choose violence, will you remain yourself?

A modern Athena also appears on stage—not the shining goddess of school illustrations, but hardened, sharp, seemingly worn down by centuries of human mistakes. She guides, reproaches, and grows angry. In her divine reprimands, one can hear exhaustion from endless wars, from repeated patterns, from humanity itself. And yet she does not leave. She continues to push humans toward choice, toward finding a way out, even if that path is not obvious.

It can safely be said that the play resonates painfully closely with the contemporary viewer. Because this story—about human greed and loyalty, about the fear of losing and the fear of knowing the truth, about how war reshapes destinies—is, unfortunately, still relevant today. Times change, sets are updated, but human nature, it seems, remains the same.

Liana Agadzhanyan

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