A play reading event to raise funds for artists suffering from cancer, will be hosted by Giti theatre group, said its director Roohollah Jafari.
The seven-day program is slated for August 17 -23 at Chaharsoo hall, Tehran City Theater.
It will host over 100 artists and several well-known plays, including ‘Antigone’ by Sophocles, ‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare, ‘The Cherry Orchard’ by Anton Chekhov, ‘Blood Wedding’ by Federico Garcia Lorca, ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ by Ernest Lehman, will be read at the sessions.
Two other plays ‘Le Dernier Godot’ (the Last Godot) and ‘Paianjenul in Rana’ (A Spider in the Wound) by Matei Visniec will also be read out, the Persian-language daily Etemad reported.
Giti has staged Visniec’s plays for a decade.
Visniec is a Romanian-French playwright, poet and journalist living in Paris. He is globally known especially for his writings in the French language. He graduated in 1980 from the History and Philosophy Faculty of the University of Bucharest. Between 1977 and 1987 he wrote eight plays in two or three acts, 20 short plays, and a few screenplays, but all were censored.
The two selected plays among the numerous works of Visniec are slated for the last day of the reading session.
Numerous Fans
Jafari said the Visniec plays have numerous fans and are expected to see “a warm reception” by Iranian audiences. The money on ticket sales will be used to help artists suffering from cancer.
Artists Majid Bahrami (1977-2014), Mostafa Abdollahi (1955- 2015) and Bahram Reihani (1978-2014) succumbed to the deadly disease. Many are unable to afford the costly medicine and treatment.
Theatre artists have no job security, insurance coverage and other basic facilities, often turning their life stories to tragedies. “The loss of veteran theatre artists sparked the idea of holding the event for the first time to raise funds in support of the needy,” Jafari said.
Siamak Safari, Farzin Sabuni, Nasim Adabi, Bahareh Rahnama, Azadeh Samadi, Negar Abedi, Kazem Hajir Azad, Elika Abdolrazzaghi, Amin Zendegani, Roya Nonahali and several other cinema and theatre artists will attend the event.
In December 2014, theater artist Homa Rousta held a similar program for cancer victims in the art fraternity. She directed ‘Anna Karenina,’ a novel by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, at a reading session at the National Library.
Taraneh Alidousti, Hassan Ma’jouni, Reza Behboudi, Setareh Pesyani, Leili Rashidi and Mohammad Charmshir, participated in the session.
