Ayub Agakhani: I am not a custom maker!

Theater News Base: 26 years ago, he formed a group called “Folder” and escaped in various literary and artistic ways. He has experienced acting, narration and acting, but Ayub Agakhani’s name is tied to the theater scene. Writing and directing plays in various genres, on the one hand, has been a remarkable record for him, but on the other hand, making plays with the themes of sacred and religious defense has caused some critics to harass him with titles such as “custom”. In an interview with Sharq, the Aga Khani emphasized that judging his record by selecting only three works would not yield the right result. This writer and theater director strongly defended his works and considered himself the only artist of his generation who had a different view on the subject of war. We sat down with him on the pretext of performing the play “Paris Trilogy”, which was a huge success at the box office and was well received by the public and critics. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Ayub Agakhani:

تئ For some time now, theaters and theaters have been selling maximum tickets for shows, and there is no longer any news of social distancing. You are one of the few artists who emphasize that spectators sit next to each other at a distance. Why did you make such a decision despite the economic losses?

It is very clear that everyone should follow this view. I had many obstacles along the way to prevent me from performing the play “Paris Trilogy”; There were many obstacles that were considered administrative barriers and were in fact related to swimming in the opposite direction of the water. We were accused of why, when the barriers to reopening the halls are removed, you try to insist that these barriers be revived? There were a lot of stutters and frictions in the direction of my decision, but I believe that in a situation where it is not very strong, continuous and established, we should try to stay hydrated and stay hydrated. Part of this effort can also be harm. Haven’t we lost in the last two years? no problem. The more we endure, the easier it will be for us to have stability in the activity, dynamism, and openness of theaters. However, I did not find many defenders and followers, and many of them oppose my opinion based on their desire to sell and look at the maximum capacity of the hall. Unfortunately, Iranshahr Theater did not allow me to put a space between the seats, even in the ticket sales system. In fact, I try to achieve this personal approach by selling up to 50% of the audience in the hall. I hope this genre, despite being a bit uneconomical, can also be current-generating.

‌ The play “Paris Trilogy” went on stage for about a month. Given your box office success and, of course, the fact that audiences and critics have shown considerable success, why did you have so few performances?

Unfortunately, we were only on stage until the 17th of January. Depending on the number of mid-month breaks, we actually had less than 22 or 23 performances. This number of performances naturally puts serious economic pressure on the group, given the fragile economy of the theater and the enormous cost of production. Few groups like me dare to continue to take measures in favor of health conditions, despite such an economic image of the investment process and the return of capital from the box office. In any case, various abuses are now being applied to theaters in various halls. For example, in such a situation, no matter how much work traffic there is, two performances should not be performed in one hall in two chances, but it happens that the practice is not very defensible and is unfortunately common in well-known and well-established halls.

‌ Your resume is full of different artistic experiences; From acting as a presenter to theatrical activities. In the theaters you have staged, you have also avoided various genres such as social, religious and sacred defense. In the meantime, there are different interpretations of your artistic personality that are sometimes in conflict with each other. Have you always been committed to art and social concerns, or in other words, “social artist” or, according to some critics, you are a custom worker and a custom work can be found among your works?

Obviously I am judged; Like any other person who does art work. I can not stop this judgment; But his honesty is that if both you and someone else thinks that judging is his responsibility, you will see that in the end of my career, I am ultimately an artist overseeing social examples and themes. If someone thinks that because I have done three plays in the field of sacred defense or war, then I am a custom, I think he is so superficial that we do not even have to think about what he says, because the “Paris Trilogy” This is my twenty-fifth show. 25 plays and finally three – double at all and say six – war-related plays; Can he completely swallow the whole record of 25?

Obviously not, but what if they think they should make such a judgment? Let them make such a judgment. I have no problem being known as someone who has also worked in the field of war. By the way, let me be clear here. I did the most impressive work of war in the 1990s, and I believe no one else on my hand could do it. I said this to let you know that I am even proud of those things; But what? I have done different work in a field that has no background in theater at all. I called them “portraiture” myself. I have based the play on important and influential war characters; Pilot Shahid Keshvari, Shahid Chamran and Shahid Jahanara.

Who did this before me? The greatest works of war; Either they included some general critiques of the position of the critical work in the field of war, which were very good and spectacular, or they were remarkable works in terms of production that had no dramatic value. In all these three things I did, I tried to get close to the psychology of the characters and get a magnifying glass on their various dimensions. I can say with conviction that no one did that. I mean come up with a documented raw material and come to a conclusion that in the end, whether we agree or disagree, we have to call it dramatic. Getting a dramatic result from a documentary raw material is not everyone’s job, it is bound by all these do’s and don’ts. The characters’ work was like the “Paris Trilogy”, or a duet or a quartet.
I want to say that I am proud of those who are even the jewels of my record; But in response to the views and judgments of someone who abandons 21 or 22 works including “Holy Land”, “Yellow Days”, “Lament for a Lightweight”, “South to Northwest”, “Eclipse” and “Hot Roof” and “Look,” he says exactly. He has done these three things, so this man is a holy and customary defense man, “I say. “But a person who has such a judgment is not a person with dignity at all.”

In the words of your question, “social artist”, a person who is obsessed with the society in which he lives, and someone who looks at the society in which he lives, can never be what some people call him. His name could not be customized. One who is aware of the society around him is part of the society around him is at war. A person who is aware of the society around him, part of the society around him is sometimes religious ideologies. One who is aware of the community around him sees what instances the community around him is involved in, so why not work on him? Because a short-sighted person is going to stamp and stigmatize him later? Let it beat. If I was going to change my way because of such a judgment, then how humiliated, depraved and evil I was, and I did not have the ability, dignity and possibility to be present in the sacred arena of theater and the sacred space of art at all. A committed artist is committed to the community around him. The community around him demands that he pay attention to the various things that afflict that community. The general policy of the “Folder” theater group and the servant, as the founder and leader of this 26-year-old group, is to always be in direct contact with the community in which it lives and produces content; So if you look at my resume honestly and well, you will see that I have not worked on a show in any year that you can sit in a corner and say, “What did this show have to do with anything?”

All my plays at the time and place of their performance are clearly related to a necessity, clearly related to a request and clearly related to an order. What custom? My recommendation to myself as someone who is committed to the community in which he lives, considers this community as his own and considers it his duty to reform and improve this community.

‌ The genre of the artist’s activity, willingly or unwillingly, places his name in the default categories and causes the audience to find a mentality towards him. Part of your artistic career also leads to your presence in such categories. How do you differentiate between genres and draw the right conclusions about your artistic personality?

I emphasize that I do not bother those who like to draw a line and put some on this side of the line and some on the other side of the line, but I do not think this view is correct. I would like to add and emphasize that in my generation as a theater, incidentally and especially as a writer, I am someone who has all the genres, traditions, tastes and interests in my record; That is, unlike many of my colleagues, I have not limited myself to a specific space; Because I believe that if you are a professional writer, you are required to be a technician and a professional. I have a lot of social highlights, I have comedy, I have absurdities, I have archaic and rhetorical language, I have distractions that do not seem to have dramatic coherence, but following a certain style and taste, there is to be an institutional dialogue based on the ignorance of the audience. It’s hard work, and it’s harder to write than to write. I also have a grotesque; In addition to all this, as you say, I have work on war, I have work on pseudo-documentary, historical work of all kinds, from myth to epic and historical documentary, meaning a work that is based on a character in history; All these things are together. Few people in my generation have such a diverse track record. If these categorizations insist on its existence, I will not stop, but I myself strongly believe that if I am going to be somewhere and in a category, that category should definitely be the place where such a definition of a theater or artist is presented; Someone who has a social concern and perspective, even when it comes to history.

‌ You emphasized the artist’s social outlook and attention to the surrounding community, but some of your students believe that Ayub Aga Khani’s texts are not necessarily relevant to society and do not narrate ideas. Do you agree with such a statement?
Incidentally, because of the explanations I gave, I think this interpretation is not correct or my words are misunderstood. Incidentally, what I usually say to my students is not that there is no reason for the work to have such a concern, but I say that there is no reason for the work to shout its own concern. Yes; I always say this.

I say if the Westerners have won in the field of theater and cinema and we are still struggling and getting less points, it is because we shout what we have in mind and they stand in attractive layers of story, narrative and situation. I always say in my classes that thought must be in its precise and measured layer, which is never the upper layers of the work. According to the Western view, this layer is the fourth of six layers. When we consider this point, the work certainly achieves relative gains in comparison with its similar effects in our society and country.

Because of our inattention to the reasons for the West’s victory in drama and theater, we sometimes fell behind. Yes; I say this, but to say that we have no social concerns is a mistake and a misinterpretation of what I am saying. I say, “Let’s not shout our worries” and this is the best way to produce cultural content in entertaining contexts like cinema and television.

///.