TEHRAN – The play “People, Places, and Things” written by the British playwright Duncan Macmillan is on stage at Homa Theater in Tehran.

Rana Moghaddam has directed the play and also performs in it along with Armin Behzadinia, Saman Tohidi, Amin Kanan, Ali Hatami, Rojin Shams, Amirvala Vahidi, Asal Shariat, Hasti Ahmadimanesh, Kiana Samadian, and Baran Rouzdar.

The play is a harrowing look at drug and alcohol addiction and recovery. Its writing was prompted by Macmillan's desire to write a leading part for an actress: he has said he “wrote this play believing very strongly that there were a lot of brilliant actresses who just weren't getting parts that would push them and that they could excel in”.

In the play, Emma is an actress with addictions to drugs and alcohol, who checks herself into a rehabilitation center. She is resistant at first and does not want to enter into the honesty and trust needed to recover. As she gradually submits to the program, we experience her complete unwinding, as she detoxes and faces reality.

The inaugural production of “People, Places, and Things” was directed by Jeremy Herrin and staged in the Dorfman Theater at the National Theater in London in 2015. The play was widely praised by critics for its depiction of addiction, and Denise Gough, in the central role, won the Critics' Circle Theater Award for Best Actress. The production transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in 2016. Denise Gough won the Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role. The production toured the UK with Lisa Dwyer Hogg as Emma from September 2017 and transferred with Gough to St. Ann's Warehouse in New York City in October 2017.

Macmillan first rose to prominence through the Bruntwood Playwriting Competition at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theater, winning two awards in its inaugural year for his play Monster, which was also nominated for a TMA Best New Play Award and a Manchester Evening News Best New Play Award. Many of Macmillan's major plays take as their central theme a contemporary socio-political issue.

“People, Places, and Things” will remain on stage until November 30 at Homa Hall, located at Ziba Dead-End, Nofel Loshato St., Hafez St.

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