TEHRAN-The play “Mad Girl’s Love Song” co-directed by Arvand Dashtaray and Marene Van Holk and written by written by Tala Motazedi is on stage at the main hall of City Theater Complex in Tehran.

It is based on the novel “Bluebeard” written by the Belgian author Amélie Nothomb. Motazadi has adopted the story for theater, Honaronline reported.

The short novel by Nothomb’s is a surreal, contemporary retelling of the namesake French folktale. It tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors. 

Nothomb’s version is a fine and dazzlingly exciting contribution to the legend. This fast-paced novel casts the protagonists in a contemporary Parisian setting. 

In the story, Saturnine, the heroine, is looking for a roommate when she comes across a most tempting offer: a large room in a great neighborhood where a man named Don Elemirio Nibal y Milcar lives and for the most modest rent. Strangely, the man’s eight previous roommates have disappeared. The man is strange, speaks like a book, never goes out and like Bluebeard gives her access to everything except a single room to which she will never have to go. Will Saturnine reproduce the pattern of the eight other women? Will she disappear in turn? And what happened to these last ones? From the beginning of the novel, the suspense is at its peak. Nothomb is adept at splicing the real world with the fairytale so that the reader has no difficulty suspending disbelief.

Baroness Fabienne Claire Nothomb, better known by her pen name Amélie Nothomb, is a Belgian Francophone novelist. A prolific author, since the publication of her first novel “Hygiene and the Assassin” in 1992, at the age of 26, she has published approximately one book per year. Her novels are among the top literary sales and have been translated into several languages.

Her complex work of art intertwines cultural analysis, social subjects, and subtle style of writing that mixes together the sophistication of the Far East Asia with the rational sobriety of the Western civilization. A brilliant marketing strategist, an enigmatic figure and a very disciplined aesthete, Notomb has refocused the public attention towards the beauty of the French-language literature.

The cast of “Mad Girl’s Love Song” includes Elnaz Shakerdoost, Navid Pourfaraj, Khosrow Pesyani, and Marene Van Holk.

Having been performed since October 29, the play will remain on stage until November 17.

SS/