TEHRAN-The play “The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey” by Polish playwright Slawomir Mrozek will go on stage at the City Theater in Tehran from February 9.

Fares Bagheri has directed the 90-minute play, which has Morteza Hoseinzadeh, Farzaneh Meydani, Mohammad Ashkanfar, Amir Shams, Mehdi Abuhamzeh, and Aynaz Jalili in the cast.

In the play, a family's home life turns upside down when a tiger suddenly appears in their bathroom. As more and more absurd characters invade their home (a scientist, a government official, a circus manager, and more), the family must decide whether or not to give in and join the circus.

The play shows how the hero of its title deals with the appearance of a bloodthirsty tiger in his bathroom. Peter is a decidedly unpolitical and oblivious person, more interested in his daily newspaper than his wife or children. He’s so oblivious that it takes a buffoonish official to inform him that there’s a wild animal in his own home. The tiger attracts a pageant of characters that seek to exploit the tiger on behalf of their respective institutions. Representatives of science, economics, art, and government make themselves at home, while Peter is too ineffectual to stop them.

Slawomir Mrozek (1930-2013) turned from journalism to creating absurdist satires, the peculiarities of which helped him evade censorship. “The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey” was written in 1959 by Mrozek, a journalist and cartoonist by trained during Poland’s Stalinist era.

One of Poland’s most celebrated playwrights, Mrozek wrote this absurdist piece as a subtle critique of the political system of the time.

Mrozek began writing plays in the late 1950s. His theatrical works belong to the genre of absurdist fiction, intended to shock the audience with non-realistic elements, political and historical references, distortion, and parody.

SS/