TEHRAN – A large carnival of puppets accompanied by popular Iranian puppets Zizigulu, Jenab Khan and Makhmal opened the 16th Mobarak International Puppet Theater Festival on Monday.

Families with children holding their dolls walked from the Vahdat Hall on Shahriar Street to Daneshju Park and Tehran’s City Theater Complex during the celebration, Persian media reported.

A vast collection of puppets and dolls ranging in size from very large to very small welcomed the children on the way, while a live music group livened up the program.

The festival running from August 22 to 28 will play host to 27 Iranian plays and seven plays from different countries.

Iranian director Afshin Qasemi will stage his puppet show “Khombazi of Fence Lady”, an adaptation of “Haft Peykar” (The Seven Beauties) by Nezami Ganjavi (1141-1209) at the festival.

The performance is a combination of the Iranian traditional play of khombazi (a show performed by a single puppeteer inside an urn) and the Spanish Don Cristobal (a traditional play in which the puppeteers perform inside a booth).

The original puppet play of Don Cristobal (Retablillo de Don Cristóbal) is a play for puppet theater by the twentieth-century Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca written in 1931.

“Mobarak and Flying Carpet” by Hamed Zahmatkesh, “Leer Khan” by Reyhanh Baghbadi and “Princess Sara” by Mehdi Salehyar are some of the Iranian plays at the event.

The international lineup includes “Extraordinary Voyage”, a puppet show by a German company with Russian roots named “The Fifth Wheel”.

Japanese puppeteer Nori Sawa will present the famous legend of “The Pied Piper” with shadow puppet theater and music performed by Japanese musicians.

“The Writer”, a co-production of Ulrike Quade Company (Amsterdam), Jo Stromgren Kompani (Oslo) and the Nordland Visual Theater (Stamsund), is another highlight of the festival.

Also included is “Shirin” by Kaveh Ayreek, an Afghan mime artist, writer, director and actor who currently resides in Kabul. 

RM/YAW