Lecture Performance on Migration at City Theater

Actor, playwright and theater director Amir Dejakam, 54, is participating in the 35th Fajr International Theater Festival with a humanitarian play on the phenomenon of migration. 

The festival opened January 20 and will run through January 31.

‘Glass,’ written and directed by Dejakam, will have four performances on January 25-26 at Saye Auditorium of Tehran City Theater, Mehr News reported.

The play revolves around migration and its immediate problems, as well as the political and economic ramifications. It has a solo character, a role played by Australian actress Shila Marielle, 21, in the English language.

“The idea of the play came to me after I read a news item in a newspaper about a group of migrants on a boat heading for Australia. But 50 of them drowned when the boat sank near Christmas Island,” an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean south of Java, Indonesia.

“The captain, who was supposed to take 200 asylum seekers to Australia, deliberately sank the boat,” Dejakam said.

“I conducted a series of researches on migrants and ‘Glass’ is the result of the research, an analytical view of the issue.”

Glass is the story of a smart, genius girl who decides to leave her country due to a number of problems. But she drowns and the audience hears the story of the dead girl.

The play has a totally humanitarian approach in dealing with migration. “I have discussed the reasons behind migration, motives of human traffickers, the laws preventing migration and the losses inflicted on civilian populations due to migration,” he said.

 Rehearsals on Skype

The rehearsals were done via Skype. “The work is more of a lecture-performance,” a medium that combines functional presentations with artistic performance.

The play is simple and Dejakam is looking forward to welcoming the audiences who can watch the 45 minute-play without “expecting an exciting experience.” This is why he didn’t enter the competition section and is in Guest Category.

The subtitles of the play in Persian are done through video art. “The performance is realistic, but the décor and the atmosphere are abstract. The story is narrated by a dead girl after all. I wanted to give the account from the perspective of one drowned migrant among the 50,” Dejakam added.