Theater Students Stage Verbatim Performance at Yerevan Flea Market
The students who brought Qrji Bazar to the stage
Students at the Yerevan State Institute of Theater and Cinematography have created a verbatim theater performance based on real-life testimonies from Qrji Bazar, one of Yerevan's largest flea markets. The production, directed by Nadezhda Israelyan and Diana Radiel, features 15 students performing stories gathered through interviews with market vendors and shoppers. Verbatim theater uses subjects' exact words to create scripts from documentary research. The students conducted fieldwork and interviews to develop characters, with some vendors initially reluctant to participate. One actor, 22-year-old Mher Mheryan, portrays a woman in her 60s—an opera singer forced to sell secondhand goods for income. The project represents an uncommon approach to Armenian theater, which typically stages classical literature rather than original scripts based on contemporary social issues and real-life testimony.
