Blood on the Cat’s Neck Coming to Baran

‘Blood on the Cat’s Neck,’ a 1971 absurdist play originally written by German filmmaker and actor Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) will be staged July 31-August 13 at Tehran’s Baran Theater.

The play is sometimes subtitled ‘Marilyn Monroe vs. Vampires.’ About its plot, the director and dramaturge of the work Mohsen Moini said: “A woman named Phoebe Zeitgeist, an alien vampire, lands on Earth to search for freedom and love.”

‘Blood on the Cat’s Neck’ deals with how an intelligent alien from outer space might view humanity. Phoebe, originally a 1960s comic book character, is surrounded by horrible people at a party.

The play has three sections: an opening section in which the main characters give revealing monologues; a second section in which Phoebe speaks one-on-one with the characters, picking up certain phrases from them; and the final section, in which Phoebe, using her limited vocabulary, repeats back their aphoristic and self-justifying slogans.

Moini has also designed the décor. Thespians on stage are Afsaneh Mirbaqeri, Solmaz Naderi and Maryam Fat’hi. They interact with the video projections of another trio, Rahim Norouzi, Majid Moshiri and Mehdi Moqadam, ILNA reported.

From July 31, ‘Blood on the Cat’s Neck’ will start each evening at 5. Baran Theater is located at No. 292, Felestin (Palestine) Street, south of Enqelab Avenue. Tickets are available at the website of Tiwall (tiwall.com).