TEHRAN – The acclaimed Iranian director Mohammad Rahmanian will stage “The Ballad of Aurash” at the 32nd Fajr International Theater Festival, which will be held in Tehran from January 14 to February 1.
The play will be performed by the Vanac Theater Group, which is composed of Vancouver-based Iranian actors and actresses. The troupe performed the play at Vancouver’s Kay Meek Center in mid-July 2013.
Rahmanian’s wife Mahtab Nassirpur will play the main role and Aria Arianejad, Sonia Mahbub, Nazanin Mihan, Sona Sanaju, Anita Zanganeh and Ramin Bayat are also among the members of the cast.
The full name of the play, which was written by the acclaimed director and playwright Bahram Beizaii, is “Ballad of Aurash as Performed by the Inmates of the Half-ruined Asylum of Freedom with a Look to the Drama ‘Marat-Sade’”.
Beizaii wrote the play based on a Persian myth and German dramatist Peter Weiss’s “Marat-Sade”, which is set in 1808 in a Paris asylum after the French Revolution, and is a depiction of class struggle and human suffering.
Legend has it that Arash or Aurash shot an arrow from the peak of Mount Damavand (Iran’s highest mountain) to mark the border of Iran and Turan after the long-lasting war between the two countries. He had pulled his bow with all his strength, collapsed to the ground on Mount Damavand and passed away.
In Bahram Beizaei’s perception of the myth of Aurash, he is not a hero but only a horseman forced by Turanian king Afrasiab to be the archer. In Iran’s army everyone accuses him of being a traitor. Everyone has ostracized him and he finds himself isolated. He sees himself as the sole individual to do this task.
SB/YAW
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