TEHRAN –Iranian stage director Arvand Dashtaray plans to restage French writer and director Florian Zeller’s acclaimed psychological play “The Father” in Tehran's City Theater on October 9.

Actor Reza Kainian, who will star as Anthony, leads the cast that includes Saeid Changizian, Sogol Khaliq, Behzad Karimi, Parisa Shahvalian and Dutch actress Marene van Holk who is Dashtaray’s wife.

The play will remain on stage until November 17. 

Dashtaray, who has earlier worked on several international theater productions such as “Reconsider Your Image of Me” and “Zero”, staged the play in 2021 and 2022.

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.

Written in 2012, the play follows Anthony, an aging man who must deal with his worsening 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. The film won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, while Hopkins won the Academy Award for Best Actor. It is the second adaptation of the play after the 2015 film “Floride”.

Dashtaray’s latest production “Zero” was live streamed for Dutch theatergoers in March 2021. 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.

Zeller’s plays appeal to Iranian stage directors.

His “The Lie” was performed by a troupe directed by Masud Salehi at the Neauphle-le-Chateau Theater in Tehran in September 2021.

Ali Ahmadi directed his “The Mother” at Tehran’s Iranshahr Theater Complex in June 2019.

SAB/