Main Story: Nourie Hadig is a story about a very beautiful Armenian woman and her very beautiful Armenian daughter named Nourie Hadig. You can think of them as the early Kardashians. Basically, the mom is Kris Jenner and Nourie Hadig is Kim Kardashian. So, every month, Kris Jenner asks the new moon who is the most beautiful and the moon says you are Kris. Until, one month, the moon says Nourie Hadig. And Kris flips out and tells her husband–Caitlyn Jenner–to go murder Kim. But Caitlyn loves Kim. So Caitlyn leaves Kim in the woods and brings back a fake bloody shirt to show he killed Nourie Hadig.

While in the woods, Nourie Hadig finds a cabin and inside the cabin is a prince who is asleep and Nourie hears a voice telling her to cook for the Prince for seven years and that when he awoke they would be married. So, Nourie does it.

And, meanwhile, her mom asks the new moon who is the most beautiful of them all and the new moon says Nourie Hadig and her mom is seriously ticked off. Maybe so ticked off that her husband was still Bruce until she found out that he hadn’t offed Kim and so she turned him into Caitlyn. Anyway, the mom seriously wants to find Nourie Hadig bad.

So, Nourie is cooking for this Prince for seven years and leaving food for him while he’s sleeping but it’s hard work so she hires some help. But then the Prince sees this new girl and thinks she must have been doing all the work and so out of gratitude promises to marry her. Nourie Hadig is so sad. And the Prince figures Nourie must have done something so he offers to buy her something from the market. So, they go shopping! Which Kim loves. And while they’re there they find a stone of…uhhhh…some kind of magical stone. A stone of sorrows…I think. Anyway, you tell your worries to this stone and if you’re telling the truth about your worries then the stone swells and blows up. But if you’re exaggerating your worries then you swell up and blow up. And this is such a worry that the guy who sells the stone says to the Prince to watch his servant while she uses the stone because he doesn’t want her to blow up. You don’t want your property blowing up on you.

So, they go home and Nourie tells her worries to the stone and it’s about to blow and the Prince bursts in and tells her to stop. He’ll marry her. Except our Prince is Kanye who is the King.

So, then Nourie’s mom asks the moon who is the most beautiful and the moon says Princess so and so. Or Nourie Hadig West. And she’s like, “Oh! She’s married to Kanye now.” And so the mom goes to get her with a ring that makes her fall asleep. She gets the ring onto Nourie’s finger and it looks like she’s dead. So now Nourie’s mom asks the moon who is the prettiest and it doesn’t say Nourie and Nourie’s mom is so happy.

But the Prince gets all the best doctors to come and cure her. And they can’t until one of them–the dirty thief–tries to still the ring and Nourie wakes up. So, he quickly puts the ring back on and then waits until the prince returns so he can pretend to cure her and get paid big G’s. And then the next month, Nourie’s mom asks the moon who is the prettiest and it says Nourie. And Nourie’s mom straight up dies out of jealousy.

Background Information: Alex Chinian’s family is originally from Armenia. He heard this story from his grandmother.

Context of the Performance: The story was performed in my dorm room at USC.

My Thoughts on the Piece: Alex is hilarious. I loved how he recast Nourie Hadig and her family as the Kardashians. That was awesome. Alex talks all the time about how all most people know about Armenia is the Kardashians and so he has a running joke where he relates everything Armenian back to that. I thought it was really cool how he blended the Armenian folklore with the modern folklore of the Kardashians.