Puppets Perform ‘Suitcase & Lapdog’

A product of Deemak Theater Group, ‘Suitcase and the Lapdog’ is underway at Tehran City Theater.

Written and directed by Iranian playwright, theater director and producer Albert Beygjani, the 40-minute play opened at Sayeh Hall of City Theater on July 2 and will run through July 21, Honaronline reported.

‘Suitcase and the Lapdog’ is a free adaptation of ‘The Yalta Game,’ a short play by Irish dramatist and story writer Brian Friel (1929-2015) written after ‘The Lady with the Dog,’ a famous short story by Russian writer Anton Chekhov (1860-1904).

The ongoing play is a musical comedy on amorous relationship. It is the story of a Russian woman and an Italian man meeting each other at a café of a railway station. In spite of their linguistic differences and all the unpleasant incidents happening to them, they eventually fall for each other.

Beygjani has used life size puppets in the play. Each puppet is in fact a head and an upper body garment worn by a thespian.

“The play is accompanied by the French and Russian musical compositions of the 19th century, also by Argentine tango music (which also developed in the 19th century),” Beygjani said.

Earlier performances of the play took place at the 16th Mobarak International Puppet Theater Festival, held last August in Tehran, and the 14th High Fest International Performing Arts Festival, last October in Yerevan, Armenia.

“I thought part of the play failed to establish connection with the audience; so I included the scene with coffee fortune telling. The play has had no other changes,” Beygjani added.

“We’ve been invited to perform the play in Georgia after the ongoing show. Another program for the show will be in early fall in Ukraine,” the director noted.

Previously, we had been invited to Italy; but in spite of the efforts made by the Performing Arts Department (affiliated to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance), we couldn’t receive Schengen visa,” he added.

Except Saturdays, ‘Suitcase and the Lapdog’ will go on stage each evening at 7 pm. Tehran City Theater is located at the intersection of Enqelab and Valiasr avenues.