Teleplays viable alternatives to stage performances during pandemic: Hadi Marzban
TEHRAN –(Iranart)- Director Hadi Marzban has said that teleplays are viable alternatives to stage performances during the coronavirus pandemic.
“In a meeting with Qader Ashena, the director of Iran’s Dramatic Arts Center, I told him television has forgotten teleplays but if it decides to show more interest in teleplays, we can negotiate with the managers for several teleplays every week,” Marzban said.
“I know this will not be the theater we like and expect, and the attendance of the theatergoers is very important for us. However, we need to understand the situation; now that the coronavirus is fighting with us we need to fight back this way,” he said.
He added that if television cooperates and dedicates a budget in collaboration with the dramatic center, more teleplays will be produced every week so that people will not forget theaters.
Marzban said that he has many unread books to read and unfinished works to do, but he is not in a good mood to carry them out.
“Of course, I have not been idle these days and have begun to write my biography, about my personal and artistic life, and I ask everyone to pray that the coronavirus leaves sooner so that we can return to our normal conditions of the past,” he said.
Marzban planned to return to the stage with a political romance named “Dr. N. Likes His Wife More Than Mossadeq” in Vahdat Hall in February, however, the project was halted due to the outbreak of coronavirus in the country.
The play was an adaptation of a novel by Iranian writer Shahram Rahimian. It is about Dr. Esfandiar N., an ardent supporter of Mohammad Mosaddeq, Iran’s former prime minister, who made great efforts to nationalize the oil industry in 1951 that were nullified by the CIA coup d’état against the national icon in August 1953.
Moreover, puppeteer Adel Bozdudeh, who planned to restage his puppet show “An Accident in the City of Puppets” nearly fifty years after its premiere in Tehran, said on Monday that he will postpone his project.
“Because I don’t want to take a risk and put the health of an adult or a child in danger,” he said.
Bozdudeh was due to stage his play for children at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA) in May, but the play was postponed to a later time in October.
“Amid the coronavirus pandemic, it is not a good idea to gather families and children in one closed place to watch a play,” he said.
“The IIDYCA has resumed its activities but only with solo performances, and one cannot say how long they can be on stage due to the low number of attendees these days,” he added.
“These days, I cannot take the risk of performing the play because I think a child or an adult might take this virus back home and get infected,” he noted.
“I still believe the health of people especially children is much more important than any theater performance,” he added.
source: Tehran Times