TEHRAN – The cinematheque of the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran will show the 2017 filmed theater “National Theater Live: Yerma” directed by Simon Stone and Tony Grech-Smith on Wednesday.

It will be screened at 5 p.m. as the 43rd program of the IAF cinematheque in the series of prominent filmed theater screenings, Honaronline reported.

The story happened in London, in the present day. A woman is driven to the unthinkable by her desperate desire to have a child.

Written by Simon Stone, this radical new version of Federico García Lorca’s achingly powerful masterpiece of yearning and loss won universal critical acclaim when it premiered at the Young Vic in 2016. “Yerma” triumphed at the 2017 Olivier Awards, with the production winning Best Revival, and Piper winning Best Actress. She also won the Evening Standard Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress. Maureen Beattie, Brendan Cowell, John MacMillan, and Charlotte Randle received unanimous praise for their performances.

“Yerma” by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca was written in 1934 and first performed that same year. García Lorca describes the play as “a tragic poem”. The play tells the story of a childless woman living in rural Spain. Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime.

The original play was intended to be a story of the earth, nature, fertility, and the impact that failed pregnancies have on a working-class, young Spanish couple in the 1930s. In the final moments of the play, the female lead named Yerma (the translation of barren) kills her husband in a burst of frustration.

However, in Simon Stone’s 2017 adaptation, the play focuses on the story of a middle-class couple from the evening they move into their new house in London. The female lead that remains unnamed throughout the whole performance, played by Billie Piper, expresses to her boyfriend her desire to have a child. Both characters are in the middle of extremely successful and stable careers, and John (played by Brenden Cowell) agrees. 

Over the course of the next few months, John’s efforts to have a child become less committed. As a result of the travelling provided by his work and his girlfriend’s growing obsession to have a child, John turns to alcohol, eventually contributing to him cheating on Billie Piper’s character. The years pass, and the obsession becomes stronger and far more deeply rooted, which the actress expresses in her character’s online blog, a forum attracting many readers each day. 

The couple gets married and turns to IVF, which they eventually spend a quarter of a million pounds on, ruining both lead characters' lives. The honesty with which the female lead writes creates a strain on their marriage and her relationship with her mother and sister. 

Her blog reveals that she was satisfied when her sister had a miscarriage. In addition, she states that she had developed a loathing for other people’s children. Consequently, in the dying moments of Stone’s play, John informs her that they are sixty thousand pounds in debt and that he is leaving her. Billie Piper’s character finds a knife and threatens to stab him before he escapes and kills herself with a stab to the womb. A symbolic ending.

SS/SAB