Rumors, a play by French playwright, screenwriter, director and actor Jean-Michel Ribes, 69, is underway at Tehran’s Entezami House Museum.
“It is a children’s comedy about gossip, exaggeration and rumormongering,” translator, designer and director of the play Dariush Moaddabian, 65, told Mehr News Agency.
“Ribes is the managing director of the Théâtre du Rond-Point for over a decade … he is well known throughout Europe,” Moaddabian said. The theater, located in Paris, was established in 1838 and has been directed by great artists such as Jean-Louis Barrault.
Ribes is not unknown in Iran. Theater without Animal (French: Theatre sans Animaux) is his other work that has been staged. It is composed of 13 short plays. “My translations of his works are the current play, Rumors, and No One in the Street Looks at Me.
“Rumors is an innovative comedy with a beautiful, childlike humor, and has a surprise at the end. A woman in the play asks someone the time. When she gets her answer, the woman walks on without showing gratitude. This leads to tongues wagging and exaggerated accounts that ultimately cause a social disaster,” Moaddabian said.
“One reason why I chose the script is the frequency of such phenomena in our society. Social damage occurs because of gossip and the rumor mill. There are many courtroom cases that started with something insignificant but were aggravated by rumors,” he said.
Moaddabian is quite familiar with children’s humor. He has applied it several years ago in a TV program ‘Mahalle Borobia.’ The décor of his current play, adorned with childish paintings, reflects this special type of humor. “Actors behave in a way as if they are in their second childhood with their childish wickedness. But they are not aware of the consequence of their deviltry.”
The cast of the play are Moaddabian’s workshop students: Saeed Parsa, Asieh Otoufi, Miad Rashedi, Ali Dashti, Alireza Akhavan, Sepideh Saqeb, Houman Saleki, Hasti Razzazchian, Aryan Safaee and Bahar Shakouri.
The play opened on July 10 and will run through August 5. On Sunday and Monday it is staged at 7:30 pm, and from Tuesday till Friday, it has two performances at 6:30 and 8 pm.
