Puppet troupe Yas-e Tamam, led by director and playwright Zahra Sabri, is performing ‘Count to One’ at festivals in Poland and Germany.
The troupe staged the show on Wednesday in Warsaw at the 10th International Festival of Puppet Theater and Animated Films for Adults, ‘Puppet is a Human Too,’ (October 12-20).
From Warsaw, the troupe will leave for Munich to perform the show at the ‘Big, Small World International Puppet Theater Festival,’ October 14 to 25, Mehr News Agency quoted Sabri as saying.
“The Polish festival, focusing on puppet shows for adults, opens with traditional performances and ends with modern shows,” Sabri said prior to the European tour, adding: “This is a competition and participants will be judged by an international jury. The most creative and outstanding work will be awarded.”
Based on the work by Persian poet Omar Khayyam, ‘Count to One’ is about three soldiers in no man’s land who decide to stop fighting. To express themselves, they start making sculptures with mud.
Groups from Belarus, Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Jordan, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Slovakia and Poland are also competing in the event.
Earlier in May, Sabri staged ‘The Earth and the Universe’ and ‘Count to One’ at the Swedish Biennial for Performing Arts in Malmo.
‘The Earth and the Universe’ is an adaptation of seven stories taken from Rumi’s ‘Masnavi’. Rumi, (Mawlana) is a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic.
As is the troupe’s usual custom, Sabri said the show ‘Count to One’ is dedicated to her late husband Ebrahim Khalil-Habibi, theatre director. Two performances in the Munich festival will be dedicated to award-winning Iranian actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, and actress Fatemeh Naqavi.
