TEHRAN -- Prominent Iranian playwright and director Bahram Beizaii will stage reading performances of his latest play “Ardaviraf’s Report” at Stanford University on January 24 and 25.
The play is Beizaii’s theatrical rendition of an ancient Zoroastrian text that chronicles the journey of pious Ardaviraf to the other world where he travels through paradise, purgatory and the inferno. Ardaviraf meets many of the mythic and historic figures of Iran on his journey
The play is based on “The Book of Arda Viraf”, a Zoroastrian religious text from the Sassanid era in the Middle Persian language. It is considered an early precursor to Dante’s “Divine Comedy”.
“Ardaviraf’s Report” will be performed at the Cubberley Auditorium of the university in the Persian language.
Beizaii previously performed a shadow play performance of “Jana and Baladoor” at the university in June 2012.
“When We Are All Sleeping” was the last film Beizaii directed in Iran in 2006. A few years after, he left the country to pursue an educational career at Stanford University as a visiting professor of Persian studies in the United States of America.
Considered as one of the most intellectual auteurs in Iranian cinema, Beizaii has written and directed several films including “Killing Mad Dogs”, “Travelers”, “Bashu, the Little Stranger”, “The Journey” and “The Downpour”.
SB/YAW
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