TEHRAN – Iranian playwright and director Nasrin Khanjari plans to stage a puppet show warning about the garbage crisis around the world.

The play entitled “No Place for Garbage” is scheduled to be performed by her troupe during the 18th Mobarak Puppet Theater Festival, which will take place virtually in Tehran during March.

“This puppet show is similar to a prediction portraying the situation of the globe and people in the not too distant future,” Khanjari told the Persian service of MNA on Tuesday.

“In this puppet show, Mrs. Crumpled Film Poster and Mr. Crushed Junk Can as representatives of the rubbish embark on a journey to visit people to tell them to stop generating trash because the Earth has been buried under garbage and there is no place for garbage anymore. They cross the seas, forests and deserts to reach the city of men,” she said.

The play originally featured ten characters, however, Khanjari plans to stage it only with two characters due to the pandemic.  

“This has made our job really complicated, but our puppeteers have found creative solutions to these difficult conditions, and we have prepared a lengthy performance with a small troupe,” she noted.

“Funny scenes and dialogues conveying environmental messages make the performance pleasant for the teenage audience,” she added.
 
Khanjari pointed to the pandemic and said that “love for theater” convinced them to agree to stage the puppet show, though she had thought about withdrawing from the production several times due to the difficult conditions.

She expressed her hope that the organizers of the festival would compensate her troupe with higher pay. 

The puppet show will be performed by Masud Ghazanchai and Shabnam Fattahi-Aref, and the puppets have been crafted by Nasim Yaquti.

A lineup of traditional puppet shows is scheduled to be performed during the 18th Mobarak Puppet Theater Festival.

The puppet shows have been chosen from 14 submissions by a selecting board composed of Pupak Azimpur, Shahrzad Mobarhan and Davud Fat’hali Beigi.

Photo: A scene from the puppet show “No Place for Garbage”.

MMS/YAW