For me, theater is Dealing with form and structure[1]
A Season For Hunting Kites, 2015
Jalal Tehrani is a credible and familiar name in Iranian theater and associated with Maktab Tehran. Jalal Tehrani has a strange and unique mental world, which is now a characteristic of his works. Jalal Tehrani, who returned to the Iranian theater after a break of several years, has always had his own audience. He left Iran at the height of his success and while he had presented himself as one of the talents of the theater, upon his return with the opening of Maktab Tehran, his presence found a different manifestation. Because in addition to creating different works, he also educates and empowers young people. What Maktab Tehran provides is an environment where students gather together and learn from each other, and this environment is a place where people discover their talents. If not, art is not something that you can teach someone; A person who wants to do artistic work should work, study, even not necessarily in his own field, but in another field, strengthen himself and respect himself. These are Tehrani's words about Maktab Tehran and its philosophy.
Now Tehrani has announced a new play. Kite Hunting Season is the name of this one-person show, which will be staged in the main hall of The City theater and Behnoosh Tabatabai will be the actor of this work. In an interview with Etemad, Tehrani talked about the reasons for choosing this work for a performance: Actually, in the troubles managing Maktab Tehran, I wanted the theater projects to go on and the performance of the works to continue. I thought that if it is a single character work, I can also advance it in addition to managing these works.
All those who are familiar with Jalal Tehrani's works know that he has his own view and perhaps his own manifesto about theater. As he himself says, he has never been thematic. I have always said that theater for me is directly about form and structure. I have never gone to the theater for thematic reasons. As a form, this is a new experience for me. Single character-based works, both in directing and acting, is a full-fledged challenge. This is why performing these types of works can always be a sign of maturity and ability. Especially if Jalal Tehrani wrote the text and directed it.
This is Behnoosh Tabatabai's description of this experience: "t is very attractive to me. If I'm not mistaken, as I heard, only Mr. Pesiani performed a one-character work in the main hall. This fact adds to the charm of the story and make it very difficult. But with the knowledge I have of Mr. Tehrani, I know as the actress you should just leave it to him and be lost in the text. Tabatabai, who is supposed to be the actor of this work, in an interview with Etemad, emphasizing that it is difficult to explain the atmosphere of this work, said: "The works of Jalal Tehrani cannot really be explained. Everyone should see and have their own perception. With the knowledge I have of Mr. Tehrani's works, I can only say that Mr. Tehrani creates a world in his works that is not unfamiliar, but strange, and everyone encounters it in a different way. Like Cinderella's theater. We sought to create that atmosphere until the end of the last night. As an actor, I had a new discovery every night, and even after the performance was over, I realized that the work was not complete. Because the work had many different interpretations. I want to say that it depends a lot on the mental space of each viewer.
Tabatabai says that Jalal Tehrani had initial talks with her in the fall of last year, and she read the text in February and the rehearsals have more or less started. Of course, the rehearsals were not continuous at the beginning because at that time I was involved in a TV series and was rehearsing Mr. Rahmanian's work. But then our exercises continued and we continued working. But this actor, who also played a role in the Cinderella, considers the experience of working with Jalal Tehrani to be a pleasant experience. The characteristic of Mr. Tehrani is that he knows what he wants in detail, but he does not dictate it. He injects it very calmly and with special techniques, and suddenly you see that you have become what the director wants, but you, as an actor, have had all the pleasure of discovering! This is delightful. A kind of soft guidance without dictating the actions harshly and putting pressure on the actor. For example, in the rehearsals of the Cinderella, we did whatever we wanted with the étude we thought was good, but in the end, we were moving in a certain direction. The same direction that the director wants and the play demands. It's so fun and wonderful. Jalal Tehrani is also active in the field of screenwriting. It's Raining in Hell, The Complete Story, Carrie, Thank You are among his scripts. One of the interesting points about him is that his strange view of the world is also evident in his scripts. For example, Mercy is the story of a genie that comes to Tehran to fulfill the wish of its owner, who is an old man, but the old man has no wish! We have to wait and see how Kite Hunting Season as a one-person play on the stage of the main theater hall of the city theater will show the abilities of this director and his actor in front of the audience. Of course, considering Jalal Tehrani's work experience, we can wait optimistically. Tabatabai has also shown that if there is a good text and direction, she can appear effective. This play is going to be performed from the middle of July.
Payam Rezaei
[1]Etemad newspaper, 2015