TEHRAN – Iranian stage director Arvand Dashtaray plans to stage French writer and director Florian Zeller’s acclaimed psychological drama “The Father” in Tehran.

Dashtaray, who has earlier worked on several international theater productions such as “Reconsider Your Image of Me” and “Zero”, has started rehearsals with a cast leading by renowned Iranian actor Reza Kainian, who will star as Anthony.

Kianian has previously worked “The Improvisation”, a play that Dashtaray staged at Tehran’s Nazerzadeh Kermani Hall in October 2019. Dutch writer Marene van Holk also collaborated in this production as an artistic advisor.

“The Father” will be performed after the government eases the curbs on regular activities in the new wave of COVID-19, Dashtaray announced in a press release published on Saturday.     

Written in 2012, the play follows Anthony, an aging man who must deal with his progressing dementia. 

In 2020, Zeller directed a screen adaptation of the play, starring Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, and Olivia Williams.

It is the second adaptation of the play after the 2015 film “Floride”.

Dashtaray’s latest production “Zero” was live streamed for Dutch theatergoers on March 5. The play written by Shahab Mehraban was staged at the Koninklijke Schouwburg, a theater in the city center of The Hague.

The play was a co-production between the Virgule Film & Performing Arts Company in Tehran and STET, the English Theatre in The Hague.

Robin Steegman was the actor of the monologue, which tells how human identity has been reduced to numbers.

The play is a monologue trilogy that criticizes the double standard of the world, and Europe in particular, toward emigrants.  

“In the first episode, the play revolves around a Turkish actor who lives in the Netherlands, the second episode is about a Dutch actor in Iran, and the third part centers on a Dutchman who has chosen to live in Iran,” Dashtaray earlier stated.

“This play is a protest against the double standard toward emigrants, and I thought that it might be deemed offensive by Dutch theatergoers, but this was not the case, and the play was really helpful,” he added.

He also directed “Reconsider Your Image of Me”, a co-production between the English Theatre STET from The Hague, Netherlands and the Virgule Performance Arts Company from Iran, at Tehran’s City Theater Complex in September 2016.

The play questions the images that we have of others and challenges the current state and impact of theater and art in our global society.

Photo: Iranian directed Arvand Dashtaray in an undated photo.

MMS