Esmaili: South of Tehran has become the base of field shows

According to Fars news agency, at the beginning of this meeting, referring to the history of field shows in the country, he said: In 2004, a new genre in the field of theater was created by Behzad Behzadpour as a director and Ehsan Mohammad Hosni as a producer in the form of “Sunny Night”.

This work made a lot of noise in the eastern hills of Tehran and the barracks of Imam Hassan Mojtabi in the month of Ramadan 2004. And the report of this performance reached the Supreme Leader, he said that it is a completely Iranian and indigenous work and emphasized that field theater groups should be multiplied.

He added: The second phase was performed in 1985 and 1987, and the third phase was gradually performed in different cities, and then other groups performed Setareh Sobh field theater. In these two decades, many field shows have been performed, and the Ouj organization has accelerated these performances since its establishment.

In 1997, Simai Faqnoos group created its performing arts section, the first work was “Tana Taraz Masih” which was performed in the same group in 1997 and had a continuous performance for 50 nights, which had an audience of about 350,000 people. After that, due to the Corona incident, the activities of the Field Hall were closed, but from the beginning of this year, this flow was started again with works such as “Roshana Shab Tar” and “Lonelier than Christ”.

A show with an audience of several thousand people
Ali Esmaili continued: In the first six months of this year, 206,000 people watched “Roshnai Shab Tar” in Bostan Velayat, and more than 250,000 people watched “Lonelier than Christ”.

In the city of Qom, at the same time as the Martyrs’ Congress of Qom province, nearly 200 thousand people watched the “Season of Mania”. The big show “Jehan Bano” is about the history-making women of the world from the beginning of creation to today, which has an audience of nearly 30,000 people and will continue until November 25. The show “Jahanbanu” originally starts from the fall of Adam and Eve and narrates up to the contemporary history.
Regarding the historical background of field shows, he said: “Sunny Night” show was performed in the east of Tehran in those years, it was well received and it made a lot of noise. After that, the report of the show went to the supreme leader and after seeing the pictures, he said that this work is not like western theaters and is a local work and emphasized that different groups should work on this style and continue in different cities of the country. This project started from that year and continued in several phases in the following years, and after that the second work named Setareh Sobh was shown. In these two decades, many field shows were made, which accelerated with the cooperation of the organization.
Esmaili continued: In 1997, Simai Ghoqnos started the performing arts department and created the first work called “Lonelier than Christ”, which had an audience of 350,000 people in 50 days. In the Mania Night that was held in Qom, from the first night of its performance, we said that we would perform twice every night, and that is why we were able to host 11,000 people a night.
Esmaili said: During the days of Corona, the shows were closed, but after some time we performed the show “Arz and Shams” in Syria until the shows started again in the country after the Corona subsided. Our first show was “Roshana Shab Tar” and then the third season of “Lonelier than Christ” and now we are performing “Jahan Banu” which has been researched for a long time and the production of its content has been started since 1997. The amount of scenes in this work is high and its production is heavy, so that it took 6 months.

He continued: “A big event has happened in the south of Tehran to create a demonstration base for work.” Tehran municipality has many cinema and theater campuses, but the field show never had a fixed base until it was built here and became known to the people. Now we have reached the infrastructure so that the next show can be done in two weeks, which is a short interval for performing two shows. The field is large and this is because of the infrastructure that exists here.

The issue of Jahan Bano has nothing to do with recent issues
This producer told a reporter about the coincidence of this show with the theme of women and recent events in society: The name of this work was originally “Women in Heaven” and the coincidence of this show with the recent situation is a coincidence. We
We were involved in this work for a long time and it was not intended to connect with the recent atmosphere.

He said about the cost of this show: If we wanted to sell tickets, the real value of the work is 700 thousand tomans to 1 million, while in Tehran, other works with simple decor are sold close to this amount. In this show, the IRGC has provided us with 250 soldiers and cadres that we can use.

The municipality provided infrastructure and land, but the cost of this work has reached 5.5 billion riyals. Besides that, at the height of the cultural vow, we built a large number of people who contributed, and 20-25% of it is currently paid by people.
In response to whether you are thinking of producing a film of such shows to broadcast in other countries, Esmaili said: “We have done these shows several times without an audience and the camera recorded the scenes, but the truth is that Cameras do not have the ability to display this work.

Its type of decor should be seen alive and real, and all its features and characteristics are in seeing it alive. As in previous years, Oj is trying to make movies with the space and facilities of this show, but this show itself cannot be turned into a movie with its features and characteristics.
Also, Hassan Bezra, the director of this work, said about the reason for not using famous actors: This type of show did not rely on faces from the beginning, but it relies on the work of the team that moves it forward. The work of Ahl al-Bayt does not remain on the ground, and whoever withdraws from this work, others will take his place. Of course, maybe we would have gone to famous actors, those dignitaries wouldn’t accept and maybe it wasn’t financially possible.

Teamwork is also attractive by relying on form and content. Of course, the people who act have strange talents and some of them have changed their life paths and today some of them have become assistant directors and today they are directing 250 actors. I wish the armed forces work more on this issue so that after two years the soldiers can work in the profession they like and become professionals. The soldiers in this show are really actors.

In the end, Esmaili emphasized: Our policy since the first day has been that these drama texts are available to other groups with our help in the collection of the Oj organization and that the field shows find a popular base. Fortunately, this will happen in the near future.

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