Theater house, a union concern for an artist or a politician?!
According to the theater reporter of Fars news agency, a meeting was held by the theater directors association under the title of theater rights and with the aim of examining censorship in the performing arts. The guest of this meeting was Mahmoud Salari and directors such as Shahram Gilabadi, Mohammad Rahmanian, Behrouz Gharibpour. , Masoud Garbish and Reza Kianian addressed the problem in this meeting.
Maybe if you were present at this meeting or you have seen and read the videos or written reports about it, a sentence from Mahmoud Salari has caught your attention. He considered it political and said: “I know the purpose of this meeting, but I participated in it based on the Supreme Leader’s emphasis on the necessity of free-thinking seats.”
He continued: “The concern of this meeting is not the audit, but the issue is that some friends have had meetings with some politicians, that under the pretext of discussing the audit, they will bring some people into discussions because they are going to prepare to participate in the elections.” In any case, the issue of audit will bring votes for them, and that is the purpose of this meeting.”
At the beginning of the meeting, these sentences were a subject that attracted many attention, but in this situation, it is admirable that Salari is present in this situation, a presence that shows that he is supposed to be accountable.
After this meeting, some media reported a difference of opinion in the theater director’s association and considered it a failure in front of Mahmoud Salari. Regardless of these issues and its political views, this association has refused to answer the question raised by Salari until now. And apparently he is more interested in marginalizing these words, Salari had stated in this meeting: “During the corona era, the Theater House received 700 million funds for the purpose of helping the treatment of artists who suffered from the corona virus, and it is still in the account, and in addition Why is there still 3 billion in the budget of the theater house?!”
These were issues that were not seen either during the meeting or in the statements and talks after that.
After this meeting, the director and theater teacher Rahmat Amini, in a conversation with one of the media, positively evaluated the presence of Salari in this meeting and of course stated that maybe a high-ranking official will not come to this meeting because the presence of the artistic deputy in basic issues can be in the meetings More seriously, think together and make more serious decisions in the think room with the presence of the people of the theater and away from the inflammatory and journalistic atmosphere.
He also said in response to the question whether he evaluates the presence of Salari as positive: “I definitely have a positive opinion. I think that not only dialogue should be held, but “dialogue” should be formed in its strict sense, and immorality and accusations and all obstacles to not creating an understanding should be avoided, otherwise, like election debates, we will witness a fruitless political debate. However, these recommendations are also present in our religion, and it should not be the case that we claim to be religious and go back to the era of ignorance when we act.
Statement of the evaluation and monitoring council of the show
Now and after this meeting, the evaluation and monitoring council of the show has published a note in response to the meeting of the association of theater directors, which was held on Tuesday, August 24, with the presence of Mahmoud Salari, the artistic deputy of the minister of culture and Islamic guidance, at the theater house.
The text of the published note is as follows:
“Theatre should be political, but playing politics is not good at all; This sentence is perhaps one of the highlights of the words of Mahmoud Salari, the deputy of artistic affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, an art scholar and the former CEO of the Dramatic Literature Foundation of Iran, at the meeting of the 24th of August at Khaneh Theater.
A meeting of the Iranian Theater Directors Association, centered on Shahram Gilabadi Chandi, will be held on the subject of censorship in the theater in a house that should belong to the theater residents and examine their livelihood, work and professional concerns. Unfortunately, the meetings whose content analysis shows that morality is the missing link, and the people participating in them did not spare any insults and destruction with the keyword of censorship towards the deputy of artistic affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the General Directorate of Performing Arts and finally the culture and art structure of the country. .
In 1994, in a meeting with students, the Supreme Leader pointed out an important point about theater: “Unfortunately, in our artistic environment, theater was born badly from the beginning. That is, our theater or useless cancellation theater or pointless protest theater. “It has been without correct direction.” A part of the country’s theater productions in recent years happened to be related to protest theater. A theater that is mixed with politics but has not had a proper direction. The reason is also clear; Political play and political play have replaced political and protest theater, that is, the same point that Mahmoud Salari also pointed out in his speech to a number of theater people.
Political play and political play which is clearly aimed at achieving two important goals: First, paying attention to the factional, gang and intellectual interests of a certain group who seek to achieve other goals in the country’s political arena from the theater platform, and basically theater is not their concern and goal. Rather, it is a means to achieve the same specific and predetermined goals. And secondly, creating division, hypocrisy and disrupting the cheerful and hopeful atmosphere that has dominated the country’s art at different times, and this atmosphere is an important factor for resistance and preventing the aforementioned thinking from reaching its desired goals, and in this context, abandoning ethics and creating Division in different ways has been their mainstay many times throughout history.
Just as Niccolò Machiavelli justified any means to achieve a predefined goal (politics, governance, militarism) without considering moral principles (good and bad, earthly or heavenly) and believed that what should not be considered in politics is ethics. . Inspired by this point of view, the mentioned thinking seeks to establish itself as much as possible and make its own ideal views the rule, even though these views and goals provide for work, job, intellectual, artistic needs, etc., and there are not many theater people. The key word of censorship is often heard from the mouths of theater house operators and some artists.
Actors and artists whose career records in at least the last two years show the sad fact that the monitoring and evaluation apparatus, or as the censors say, has had the most interaction, appeasement, and neglect with them and benefited from the subsidy. Government halls or government grants are another part of this story that is hidden from everyone’s view because when friends face the media and artists’ booths or take over a podium, they start criticizing and obscenity loudly, but when They go after their personal and factional goals and reach the privacy of the government, that’s what they do!”
No one benefits from the margin!
After all these events and statements, it must be said that if someone is sympathetic to the theater, he will definitely not benefit from the margin. It has just come to life, but it seems that this concern exists in the least possible way in the body of the theater house, an institution that should consider union support of artists as its main responsibility.
We do not deny that the presence of people and veterans such as Reza Kianian, Masoud Garib, Behrouz Gharibpour or even Mohammad Rahmanian is because of their concern for theater, a look at some of their statements will confirm this proposition. But some of these events after the meeting and the stance of some of the residents of the theater show something else.
In this meeting, referring to the performance conditions of the play “Father” in which he played last year, and its performance was stopped last October, Kayanian recalled: “At the suggestion of friends, we decided to stop the performance due to last year’s unrest. When we wanted to perform again, they said to get permission again because we have given the turn to another group, and I reached out to Mr. Salari to give permission, and the problem was solved, and now we are happy!
But then they said that from above (where we never know), they told Reza Kianian not to go on stage. I reached out to Mr. Salari again and I heard him shouting on the phone to someone behind the line, and I don’t know who he is, that you can’t remove Reza Kianyan from acting in this country!”
These sentences show both Mohammad Salari’s personal efforts to solve the problems of the theater and Reza Kianian’s fairness in dealing with the artistic deputy, which means that both sides, perhaps with two different thoughts, have a common goal, and that is to elevate the art of drama.
What is important for artists and of course theater managers, and to achieve a result, they must stay away from political processes and games, was best expressed by Salari in this meeting: “Theatre should be political, but playing politics is not good at all.”
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