Koohestani’s ‘Ivanov’ Among Portugal’s Top 2016 Plays

The adaptation of the classic Russian play ‘Ivanov’ directed by Iranian theater director Amir Reza Koohestani, has been selected as one of the top 10 performances in Portugal in 2016 by Publico, a Portuguese daily national newspaper published from Lisbon.

A production of Mehr Theater Group, the play was staged in the cities of Porto and Lisbon in March and was welcomed by the Portuguese audience, Mehr News Agency reported.

The play is a four-act drama which tells the tragic story of a man who is at the end of his rope. The first of the renowned Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s full-length dramas, it treads a fine line between broad comedy and tragic melodrama.

Ivanov, the young estate owner, is too intelligent and too bored to endure his provincial life. He is a superfluous man, attracted to a beautiful young woman who threatens his moral foundations and leads him ultimately to tragedy.

“I was interested in the very lonely character, surrounded by several people, all trying to get something out of him; the woman who wants to arrest him at the wedding, the lover who wants to rescue him for another life, the friend who tries to get him money for their own investments, the father of the lover who demands payment of a debt,” Koohestani said.

In Koohestani’s version, Ivanov seems indifferent, trailing in an almost sedated way, as if he had lost hope for a better life, as if he had been defeated, suppressed.

Mohammad-Hassan Madjooni, Reza Behboodi, Saeid Changizian, Negar Javaherian, Mahin Sadri, Fariba Kamram, Vahid Aghapour, Ali Bagheri, Fatemeh Fakhraee and Mohammadreza Najafi are the cast.

Koohestani adapted the play in 2011 and successfully staged it in Tehran for several weeks. Later he staged it in Belgium and Germany in 2013, and Switzerland and the Netherlands in 2014. After its first performance five years ago, the group performed the play again in Tehran in July and August this year after their return from Portugal.