The play ‘Memoirs of the Actor in a Supporting Role’ directed by Afshin Zamani is underway at Sangelaj Theater hall in Tehran.
A 1983 Persian play written by the critically acclaimed theater and film director Bahram Beyzai, it is set in Tehran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Honaronline reports.
The play recounts the urban adventures of two rural men Mowhebat and Zolfaqar in Tehran during the street demonstrations preceding the revolution. Driven by drought and poverty, the two arrive in the big city in the dying days of the rule of the former Shah, in search of work. They end up as hirelings in the groups of mercenaries and hoodlums demonstrating against the revolutionaries, with catastrophic consequences.
Beyzai’s works are characterized by his unique and archaic Persian writing style, yet the current play “has a different, informal style of text that presents a decoupage of cinematic and drama elements in a modern framework, which is interesting both for the viewer and the director,” Zamani said.
The story of the play can be “applicable in other settings in any region and time period.”
First published in the spring of 1983 in Iran by Damavand Publishing House, it was later published in the United States from an English translation by Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar in 2010.
The play was staged at the International Iranian Festival of University Theater in May 2009. Earlier in a 2003 autumn production in Tehran directed by Hadi Marzban, it was staged with a cast of 42 members with well-known folklore artist Farzaneh Kaboli in a leading role.
Mohammadreza Khademi, Pante’a Marzbanian, Soheil Saei, Maryam Goldouz Tavakoli, Amir Sotoudeh, Afshin Zamani, Mehdi Bozorgzadeh, Mohammad Abouhamzeh, Mahdis Tavakoli, Vahid Koliaei, Nariman Abedi, Mania Safdari and Arsham Safari are the cast in the current play, which will run through February 26 at the hall, located at Behesht St., after Park-e Shahr, South Hafez Avenue.
