A two-act play ‘The Homecoming,’ written in 1964 by Nobel laureate English playwright, screenwriter, director and actor Harold Pinter (1930-2008), will be staged tonight at Arghanoun Hall in Tehran, exclusively for the media.
The play, co-directed by Ramin Masoumian and Farid Qaderpanah, is now in its second round of performance, Theater Online (theateronline.ir) reported.
Masoumian and Qaderpanah, have previously worked on another work by Pinter ‘A Night Out’ and also collaborated in the play ‘April 1912’ based on a script of their own.
Homecoming started its public performance after participation in the 35th Fajr International Theater Festival in January 2017. It opened on February 3 and ran through March 1 at Arghanoun Hall. After the New Year holidays (March 20-April 2), the second run of the play started on April 13, and will run through May 3.
The play starts with Teddy, a professor of philosophy, who after having lived in the US for several years, brings his wife, Ruth, home for the first time to meet his working-class family (his father, uncle and two brothers) in north London, where he grew up.
Ruth finds London more familiar than their arid academic life in the US. Much tension occurs between the family members, resulting in Ruth’s staying behind with Teddy’s relatives as “one of the family” and Teddy returning to America without her.
In addition to the play being about Teddy’s homecoming on a literal level, critics have suggested that, on a metaphoric level, the homecoming is Ruth’s; that is symbolically Ruth comes “home” to “herself” and rediscovers her previous identity prior to her marriage to Teddy.
Jafar Barqi-Keyvan, Amin Jalali, Ramin Jafari, Mina Zarnani, Hamidreza Keshvardoust, Azadeh Moshashaei and Kaveh Marhamti are in the cast in the Iranian production.
The 75-minute show starts at 8:15pm. Arghanoun Hall is located at No. 1, Ziba Alley, Neauphle-le-Chateau St., Hafez Street.
