Bringing out the complexities of her character

Gloria Gaddar’s dynamic turn in the comedy Moliere Plays Paris

by Anna Margaryan

Published: Saturday September 20, 2008

Gloria Gaddar.

At first glance Gloria Gaddar - dressed in a black tank top and black slacks, with her dark hair pulled back and revealing a simple pair of silver hoop earrings - doesn't physically resemble the colorful and eccentric women she portrays on stage. However, this is merely a fleeting first impression, for she does indeed command the room with her presence.

Born Liana Shakhnazaryan in Namangan, Uzbekistan, Gaddar moved to the United States in 1991 with her family.

Having grown up in Uzbekistan, where her family immigrated from Karabakh and Baku after the turmoil of World War I and the Armenian Genocide, Gaddar was always conscious of her Armenian heritage, although she was unable to speak the language.

"I'm so proud to be Armenian," Gaddar, 31, says. "We were raised with a strong sense of who we are. Unfortunately, we did not grow up speaking the language. At that time there were no Armenian schools, so we went to Russian schools. We came here [the U.S.] and fortunately we learned Armenian."
Gaddar's love of theater was ignited at an early age, when she would put on puppet shows and plays for family members.

Inspired by the great traditions

Gaddar's desire to be an actor was cemented in 1991, when, en route to America, her family had to pass through St. Petersburg. It was there that her mother introduced her to some of the greatest theaters in the Soviet Union.

"In Russian theaters I saw some of the actors that I'd grown up watching on television," Gaddar says. "Those actors commanded the stage like nobody's business. That's when I really realized that was what I wanted to do. I loved it and I wanted to be as good as those people."

She wouldn't have to wait long. Shortly after arriving in Glendale, California, she enrolled at Herbert Hoover High School, where she was immediately drawn to the theater department and took roles in school productions. She continued to do so at Glendale Community College, where, in 1997, she played Norma in Neil Simon's Plaza Suite. The play would prove to be momentous for her, as there happened to be critic in the audience who nominated her for the Kennedy Center Theater' Festival's Irene Ryan Scholarship Award.

The nominees traveled to the Kennedy Center in Washington, where they showcased their talents with the hopes of winning a scholarship.

"It was such an honor," Gaddar says. "I got to go to the festival and present my monologue. I didn't win, but it was a great experience."

After earning a bachelor's in psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, and seriously considering pursuing a master's degree, Gaddar reevaluated her career goals and realized that she still had to make a journey of self-discovery before she could commit to a non-acting career.

"Since I've always done acting on the side, my parents just thought of it as a hobby," she says. "They think one day I'll wake up and do something else, but they are more accepting of it now. They are proud of the things I've done."

The hobby has blossomed into a full-time career for Gaddar, who spends her days between rehearsals and a job with Kaiser Permanente's Southern California Care Actors, where she and her colleagues enhance doctors' bedside manner by portraying different doctor-patient scenarios.

"In Los Angeles there are a lot of cultural differences and mis­communications between doctors and patients, so our program helps to teach people how to approach patients of other cultures," Gaddar explains.

Gaddar is also a member of the 3KO Broadway Theater Company, where she occasionally moonlights as a director, a screenwriter, and even a set builder.

The credits roll on

Gaddar's portfolio of independent film and theater includes The Lighter's Journey, The Secret Admirer, Necessary Targets, Uncle Vanya, Anthony and Cleopatra, Finding Verity, and The Right of the Womb.
The actor has also made an entry into Armenian theater circles. In 2004 she was cast in The Hard Killer, at the Luna Playhouse in Glendale. The play is based on Gagik-Sarkis Karapetian's novel The Killer. Gaddar and her cast mates joined the proprietor of the playhouse, Aramazd Stepanian, in taking the play to Berlin for the annual German-Iranian Theater Festival.

"Aramazd showed me that in Los Angeles, where everyone is so concerned with making a living, the spirit of culture could be brought back," Gaddar says.

Although she has not yet discovered that coveted role of a lifetime that is on every actor's wish list, she is grateful for the roles that she has been fortunate enough to be offered. There is one genre that she would love to act in: children's fairy tales. However, it's not the role of the Disney princess that Gaddar is enthralled by, but rather her darker counterpart, the evil queen. It's a bit Tim Burton meets Cinderella.
"I would love to do something with a fairy tale and the aspect of mystery," she says. "There's something about evil queens that's very attractive."

Playing Madeleine

Despite the fact that it is the eve before the opening of Nagle Jackson's Moliere Plays Paris, in which Gaddar will perform in the role of Madeleine Bejart, she appears to be surprisingly calm. Looking at her cool demeanor, one would never guess that tomorrow is the first time she will be trying her hand at the commedia dell'arte - a form of improvisational theater that utilizes the traditional themes of love, jealousy, adultery, and old age as well as stock characters.

"I feel fine," says Gaddar. "Commedia is a new form for me. I'm a little bit nervous, but I think it's okay to be nervous. I think you're supposed to get little butterflies in your stomach."

Directed by Christina Howard, Moliere Plays Paris reconstructs the major events in the life of the famed 17th-century French playwright and actor Moliere into the course of a single climactic night.