A role that is and is not Ahmad Reza Ahmadi + Poet’s handwriting

Theater News Base: Reza Behboodi is currently performing the play “Airport, Flight No. 707” along with a number of other theater actors; A play that bears the familiar and popular name of Ahmad Reza Ahmadi as a writer and is directed by Kourosh Soleimani. This play has been staged in Iranshahr Theater and we have a conversation with Reza Behboodi, the actor who plays the role of a poet in this play.

The actor talks about the charms and difficulties of acting in such a play, a poetic and imaginative play that is very different from our definition of theater. He also regrets the vacancy of theatrical groups and asks his colleagues not to take the idea from the theater under the pretext of the spectator’s boredom and boredom, and not to reduce it to a means of entertainment.

We will also have the signature that Mr. Shaer wrote to the director of this play and it has been published in the brochure of this play.

Challenges and charms of playing the role of Ahmad Reza Ahmadi

Reza Behboodi says at the beginning about the biggest challenges and at the same time the charms of the play in this play: The biggest challenge has been and is that on the one hand I am going to know the inner and outer coordinates of the role, but on the other hand we know Mr. Ahmadi this play and his other plays Has been published under the title of the poet’s plays, and it is very clear that not only all of his plays have a character named after the poet, but this poet is a reflection of Mr. Ahmadi himself. Certainly his sensibilities and poetic world have entered these plays. Therefore, both the specific aspect of this character’s plays must be realized and this role must be played with a look at Mr. Ahmadi himself.

He, of course, emphasizes that in doing so, he has avoided imitating Ahmadi’s movements: “Of course, I have not consciously tried to imitate his gait or the way he reads or speaks poetry. Although there are documentaries that I have seen before and I know more or less about him, but we personally came to the conclusion by talking to the director that we are not going to reconstruct him on stage, and I did not try to play the role I play. Let Mr. Ahmadi himself be similar. Rather, I saw it as a poet, and in this respect it is a challenge because it should not be irrelevant to Mr. Ahmadi himself.

I do not insist that this poet must be Ahmad Reza Ahmadi

Improving to play the role, he found a solution that explains it this way: So I’ve learned some of their behaviors, but I’ve been more careful in understanding their world. Fortunately, I have been acquainted with his poetry since I was a teenager, and I have read a lot from him as far as I can understand, and this is the charm of my work. I have found the honor and opportunity to play his role in a sense. Of course, I do not insist on saying that the role of the poet is definitely his, but there is certainly the presence of Mr. Ahmadi in this character and the characters of his other plays as the poet.

The play “Airport, Flight No. 707” is a play by a poet; Full of fantasy and metaphor, which is very different from conventional plays, but this can be both a weakness and a strength of the work.

Iranian human life is intertwined with poetry

Behboodi explains about the game experience in this imaginative show: “The show has a special atmosphere. These are not the usual plays that have a specific story meaning the Aristotelian beginning, middle and end, or those twists or dramatic situations or even the kind of conventional character-plays that we mostly expect from a play. This play is along the poetic world of Mr. Ahmadi, and he himself does not claim to have written it in the conventional sense of the play, but it could be a very interesting event that, given the breadth of theories and the difference in styles, we might accept another text and world. And the challenge here is to be able to understand and perform this imaginative and poetic atmosphere, whether in directing or in the genre of games, staging, music, and so on. I hope this happened to an acceptable level.

He, who considers acting in this play as a special experience for himself, continues: This play is really a special experience because we all deal with poetry more or less, even the most ordinary, general and illiterate people of Iran have heard poems. And they know poems and our proverbs that are full of poetic points or come from the heart of poems. So our everyday language is somehow intertwined with our classical or contemporary literature, let alone as an actor in a play whose literature or dialogues have a poetic atmosphere.

“The conversations here are not the usual dramatic ones,” he notes. There is no conflict between the poet and the radio character. I asked permission not to say any word that signifies agreement. Especially the answers that the poet gives to the questions and come from the world of metaphor, allegory and imagination.

How much can we maneuver?

An improvement from this play is given as an example from the play: Suppose the poet says, “I had better go and buy a match.” Maybe winter will make me forget one day for fear of matches. “Radio, which disturbs the comfort of this poetic world and represents another thought, says you do not have to buy matches because you are in the hospital, tell the nurses to give you matches and they will give them to you.” This is the difference between the poetic world and the non-poetic world. The radio’s understanding of this poetic world is quite everyday and in the true sense of the word. That is, matches in the world of radio are just matches, but matches in the poetic world The poet can bring back winter, but this is not at all understandable for radio and others. This was an example from the text where I want to say that playing a role in which literature and the world are like this is both enjoyable and dangerous in the sense that we have to think about the audience anyway, whether they get tired of the volume of these interpretations and the poetic world. Or not or how much we can maneuver in such weather.

The actor then talks about the difference between the world of literature and theater: in any case, poetry and drama are each a special medium, and theater is another medium as a stage event. The two are ultimately in the realm of literature, and theater is in the realm of performance. It is easy to go to a purely poetic and literary expression, but it is better to go to the point that in the end these are characters who talk and walk on stage and talk poetically for a while. This was a challenge that we had and still have in the group from the first day and we are trying to find its limits and dimensions. Let me go out and do the serious work that has been put on me.

Behboodi, one of our brilliant actors, has been a member of the Liu theater group for many years, and this is his second collaboration with Kourosh Soleimani. In the continuation of this conversation, we talk about the necessity of having fixed groups in the theater, and he, citing his experiences, says: “This is my second collaboration with Mr. Soleimani. We performed the play “Crumb of Bread” three years ago. Consecutive collaborations lead to more recognition, and certainly in more collaborations, people get to know each other’s tastes better and are even better able to resolve their challenges and differences. They are better able to talk and get results. The same thing has happened and is happening in the group “Liu”, of which I have been a member for many years.

An old problem that has weakened groups

He mentions the lack of a group as one of the problems of our theater and says: “Certainly, along with other problems, the lack of a group is one of our theater problems and despite all efforts, for various reasons, the groups are disintegrated or breathe weakly.” This is unfortunate. We do not have theatrical departments, and unfortunately our faculties do not lead a single point of view in some kind of theater, and often there are specific instructors in all of these faculties and even art institutes. Even in the field of science, most of our faculties do not have an outlook, while all over the world, this should be and is one of the most important characteristics of a university. Suppose the difference between Oxford and Harvard is not only in the size of the college or the number of classes, etc., but also in the different views they have on science, art, history, philosophy, and so on. Unfortunately, we have not seen such a thing in Iran for years.

Behboodi says about the problems of private theater in Iran: “On the other hand, private theater means that someone has a theatrical space and takes responsibility for it from A to Z and can be financially independent, to a thousand and one. One reason does not happen, especially in the days of Corona, many of these limited halls are either bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy. This has also prevented groups from forming or sustaining. This dilemma persists, and I do not know how much it’s to our social psychology that we can not work together and constantly disperse, and how cultural deception is, and to what extent cultural policies fuel this and prevent groups from forming. I hope that the part related to individual and social psychology will be resolved in us and we will learn to be together and help each other and listen to each other and work together.

Another part of this conversation is about the difficulties of working during the corona, which describes the improvement of our experience during this period as follows: We tried to practice in a place that is suitable for ventilation. We practiced for hours with a mask and tried to follow the protocols. Especially that we practice more safely after vaccination. It is heard that the halls will continue to operate at full capacity. Little by little, there is no need to worry and we hope that our other colleagues will join and keep this light on.

We were worried and we are

The survival of the art of theater during the Corona and even after is a serious concern for some members of this family, and Behboodi says in this regard: Apart from personal passion and spiritual need for theater, acting and meeting spectators and return During the performance, the fact is that consciously and because in these two years, the scenes saw less theatrical color, I considered it my duty to take my small step as much as possible and try, along with other loved ones, the halls to the previous conditions. To return. We were and are really worried about whether the situation goes back to before Corona or not, of course in terms of the theater as a whole and not in the sense that everything was good before Corona, but in terms of the performances starting, the halls flourishing and the audience choosing And theater, which is one of the few spiritual entertainments that can happen in our country along with other cultural activities, should happen again and lead to a better society in its effective extent.

This theater teacher goes on to mention an important topic; Explains the important place of thought in theater, he explains: I understand that in every way we are going through difficult times that need not be recounted, but I urge the audience not to view the art of theater as merely entertainment. Efforts should be made to entertain the audience, but not at any cost, and our performance may not entertain the audience in the conventional sense due to the poetic atmosphere and the concerns of the writer and the performance team, but it can certainly be achieved with a little patience and attention to deeper needs. The concerns of a poet and an executive group were met and I hope it can be used spiritually as well.

Do not make excuses for spectator fatigue

Reza Behboodi continues his closing remarks to his colleagues: My address to my colleagues is that under the pretext of the spectator’s fatigue and especially the difficult conditions today, we do not fall into the trap of stereotyping just to entertain him and even a little thought in a text from Let him refrain, with the justification that it is difficult for the spectator and he is bored, or that the period of such professions has passed and we go to texts that are written just for fun, and even if there is some thought in the text, Remove the excuse that the viewer does not accept. Fortunately, I had two different experiences with Mr. Rezaei Rad; Performance of “Based on the Duchess of Mulfi” and “Angel of History”, both of which lasted at least three and a half hours. After the first week, the audience gradually realized that they either had to look at this performance differently or make room for the audience who are interested in these spaces. As far as I know, such a long performance has not been staged with such hard and archaic literature before. Incidentally, these two performances were well received. So, under the pretext of the spectator’s impatience, we should not go to a theater that has nothing to say, and we should not just look for his laughter and fun, even though a good group should pay attention to the spectator’s entertainment in the right place.

We see the handwriting that Ahmad Reza Ahmadi wrote for the executive team of this play.

The photos attached to this conversation are by Mustafa Ghaheri.

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