Every time she rides her bike, Samaneh thinks of Neda. Neda who, in her freedom, would hurtle down the still-deserted streets of Tehran; Neda who won't come back from her exile in Sweden. She thinks back on that New Year's Eve when, stuck in the girls' dorm at her university, she thought she heard a man's laughter coming from Neda's room. Was it a real voice, there alongside her friend she thought was alone, or one conjured by her own adolescent fantasies? Too late. The rumour of what was an absolute transgression spread like wildfire. A report was made to the dorm's prefect. For the past twelve years, Samaneh has relived over and over again the interrogation to which she was subjected, has dwelt on those answers she can no longer change, and relived this “nightmare of a woman trapped by guilt.” A subconscious sanction that Amir Reza Koohestani, in this chiaroscuro work, highlights with a blue line that refuses to go away. That voice is also the dramatic engine of the play. It's the subjective camera of the Iranian director that explodes the spatial limitations of the theatre and the sensory ones of the representation; a subtle journey through the elliptic but universal waters of the unsaid, where private and social currents meet, and the dull violence of a life defined by taboos gushes out.
Distribution
Text, direction and stage design Amir Reza Koohestani
Video Ali Shirkhodaei
Music Ankido Darash, Kasraa Paashaaie
Lights Saba Kasmaei
Costumes and props Negar Nemati
Assistants director Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh, Mohammad Khaksari
With Mona Ahmadi, Ainaz Azarhoush, Elham Korda, Mahin Sadri
Production
Production Mehr Theatre Group
Co-production La Bâtie Festival de Genève, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt am Main, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts Brussels
In partnership with RFI, France 24 and Monte Carlo Doualiya