The regrets of an artist who saw his talented student in Attari

Charso Press: The 9th of May is the birthday of Hamid Thargyan, but his students usually congratulated him on Teacher’s Day so that it would be a double congratulation; Both birthday and teacher’s day. However, this schedule has changed from time to time. But in any case, the period between the 9th and the 12th of May, usually belongs to the master of the field, whether it is to congratulate him on his birthday or to appreciate an influential teacher.

For theater people, the name of Hamid Saarigian is equal to the love of this art, but this artist in love, sometimes the interval between his performances has reached 10 years. However, there are few people who doubt his interest in the art of acting.

Although he sometimes worked long distances, he always went to see the shows on the stage with great enthusiasm. He always followed the work of the young generation. Both in the university, he was concerned about his students, and in his own school, and when he was invited to see shows on stage as an artist with style. In all these situations, his heart beats for the theater.

On the occasion of his birthday, we will review some of his statements published in the book “This is my home scene”. With the hope that remembering the enthusiasm of this artist will come to our work today and open a knot in the theater problems of our country.

In the part of this book, which is his long conversation with the legend of Mahian, he said the following about the ambiguous situation of young people’s employment in the theater and also about his distance from this art:

“The situation is ambiguous for all theatergoers who start theater. Maybe for some people who are sure from the beginning or have an approximate certainty that they will enter the job market with relationships, this is not the case. Now, why am I doing this because I believe that the theater will return to growth with a turn, and if that happens, then I will not say that because the youth were disappointed, we also left and went to the service theater. We did not give I want to keep the memory of the theater alive. I want to keep my connection to the theater, albeit by a very thin and invisible thread, with the passion of sketching a Martin Held or Marlon Brando play or analyzing a character in The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi or analyzing a play. I have not resigned from being a theater person and for the time being I have withdrawn from a part of the work that was at the hands of those who don’t like anything happening in the theater for a thousand reasons!”

And in response to another question about the difference between yesterday’s and today’s students, he gave the following answer:

“Every time I enter university and every new school year, I have a feeling of who I will see. The doors and windows are duplicated for me, but the students are not duplicated. I usually walk to the university and if I happen to be in the bookstores in front of the university, I enter through the big and main door of the university. I greet the guards and prepare myself to go to class from the moment I arrive. Most of the time, I enter university with a dream. Sometimes these wishes are more and sometimes less. I always experience something in silence. For example, when I see those who work in the Mumtaz theater, I say that these were my students, but now they have reached the point where they are working in the Mumtaz theater and a part of this was in my hands, or when I see them on the stage of the theater and I am sitting in the hall next to some strangers. I feel so proud that I would like to tell those strangers that these were my students. This is important to me and this feeling cools when I see that the forces that I believed would be good are not anymore or have other jobs or are unemployed. I met a talented student who is now working in Attari. He was one of the talents that I believed would shine. “Whenever I say this, I get upset and what’s more painful is that I see more of these examples in today’s students than yesterday’s students.”

Hamid Sahargyan performed shows such as “The Shroudless and Burial Dead”, “Leocadia”, “Mr. Mississippi’s Marriage”, “Meeting the Old Lady”, “Strindberg’s Play”, “Rhino”, “Glass Zoo”, “Ghosts”, ” Hell”, “Seagull”, “Caucasian Chalk Circle” and… is one of the great theater artists of our country and many of our famous actors were directly and indirectly his students, so that he is considered as the greatest acting teacher of Iran. they recognize. As many of the world’s most powerful plays have been translated by him and introduced to the Iranian theater community.

This artist, who was born in 1310 in Tehran, died in July 2011 at the age of 81.