This stunning visual and wordless performance caught the critics' eye during a brief preview tour in April and was immediately marked out as a hot ticket for the Edinburgh Fringe.

Director Attila Pessyani, strongly influenced by East European theatre guru Tadeusz Kantor and celebrated British stage legend Peter Brook, performs with his wife, his daughter - and a duck - in a chilling drama of teaching, torture and revenge.

With international tensions continuing to run high, it will be the first time Iranian theatre has been seen at the festival since the Islamic Revolution more than 23 years ago.

Said Jane Frere: "It is vital that we look beyond the headlines to try to understand the cultures of countries that most people really know very little about. Theatre can help to do this, opening the door to understanding.

"There is a great history and an ancient civilisation behind present-day Iran. The title - The Mute Who Was Dreamed - is taken from the writing of one of Iran's great classical poets, Rumi, who was actually from Afghanistan."

The show runs from August 13 - 26 at Theatre Workshop, as part of the cafédirect aurora nova programme. Last year aurora nova was the hit venue which scooped The ITI Award for Excellence in International Theatre, The Herald Archangel for Excellence in International Theatre and The Scotsman's first Jack Tinker Spirit of The Fringe Award.
 
 

"NOT so much a review as a note for your diary; for if Theatre Bazi of Teheran return to this year's Edinburgh Fringe, as promised, they could rapidly become one of the hottest tickets on the programme.

Led by top Iranian actor and director Attila Pessyani, the group made a brief visit to the CCA in Glasgow last week, revealing a theatrical style that combines powerful threads of Iranian thought, music and imagery with a deep experience of post-Sixties European theatre from Brook to Kantor, and with an unsettling mid-Asian magic realism.

Set behind a barrier of wire mesh, against flickering film images of women and their children playing in snow or dazzling light, The Mute Who Was Dreamed tells the deeply symbolic story of a deaf-mute child and her relationship with her carer, which is sometimes kindly, sometimes abusive, always complex and co-dependent.

After a dazzling 50-minute series of images and sounds, there comes a moment of great rage and ultimate liberation; and if dialogue between the west and the world of Islam is what the world needs now, then this show seems as good a place as any to start."

- Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman Wed 17 Apr 2002 ****
 
 

"Director Attila Pessyani is a veteran of Peter Brook and Tadeusz Kantor and it shows."

- Neil Cooper, The Herald

"The Mute who Was Dreamed is extraordinary. Almost wordless, it speaks so eloquently of isolation and how difficult it is to understand or break through without destroying something precious and rare. Quality of form, intent and performance this strong is rare, so rare - it's well worth going out of your way to see."

- Thelma Good, Edinburgh Guide

"A study in suppression, this piece has an uncanny atmosphere of threat and latent force, unusually, because it gets along completely without words, relying only on its images."

- Renate Klett , Die Zeit
 
 

Background notes

Shiraz Festival

The roots of Attila Pessyani's artistic inspiration can be traced to the Sixties and early Seventies when Shiraz - the ancient city of Persepolis - became a cultural Mecca attracting the avant garde of world theatre. Over more than a decade, the Shiraz Festival became an important international venue which ended with the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Pessyani spent his formative years in Shiraz witness to some of the most significant contemporary theatre innovators - from Poland's Tadeusz Kantor and Jerzy Grotowski, to Britain's Peter Brook and a then young American director, Robert Wilson. Their encounters with the traditional performance genres of Ta'zieh, Iran's form of passion play, and Rouhouzi, the Iranian style of Commedia dell'arte, influenced many of these directors, and this tradition continues to play its part in Pessyani's work.

Theatre and the Ayatollahs

The Islamic revolution affected all cultural activities in the country. In a strictly regulated society, women were unable to play key roles, to dance, sing or play instruments on stage. In recent years there has been a gradual relaxation of the strict dress codes and conduct. Women are again performing leading roles and are permitted to dance and sing.

The rule forbidding physical contact between men and women remains, and women must cover their heads at all times. In this climate, a new generation of writers, performers and directors are beginning to address topical issues of the day such as the use of narcotics and alcohol, questions of morality and religion, and family relationships.

International Fadjh Theatre Festival

In recent years, slow changes have begun to filter through the social and cultural life of Iran. The Fadjh (Sunrise) Festival - a showcase of traditional and contemporary drama and dance - has seen a new approach towards international theatre. In the past two years small groups representing British theatre have been invited to the festival opening a new dialogue. While several Iranian companies have performed in Germany, only Theatre Bazi has succeeded in performing in both the UK and USA.

Attila Pessyani and Bazi Theatre

A screen celebrity in Iran, Attila Pessyani - son of one of Iran's leading actresses Jamileh Shaikhi - was 12 when he first went to the Shiraz Festival. He trained with Yoshi Oida and the legendary Grotowski actor Ryszard Cieslak and as youthful actor himself had roles in Peter Brook's Orghast, Tadeusz Kantor's Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes.

Pessyani, now 44, has written 15 plays for stage, performed more than 40 stage roles, appeared in 30 films for cinema, 26 television serials, designed his own sets while also teaching students of theatre and cinema at university and workshops. He works with co-writer, Mohammad Charmshir, who teaches at Tehran University and has written more than 100 plays for stage.

Theatre Bazi was founded in 1989 as a professional company based around Pessyani's own family but collaborating with other Iranian actors. In "The Mute Who Was Dreamed" he performs with his wife, Fateme Naghavi and daughter Setare Pessyani.

For additional background on Iran see:

Persian Mirrors - The Elusive Face of Iran, Elaine Sciolino (Touchstone)

The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre Volume 5 Asia/Pacific (Routledge)

TIME magazine analysis of Iran's slow reform movement:

http://www.time.com/time/europe/webonly/mideast/2000/07/khoeiniha_intvu.html

Jane Frere is an independent producer of international theatre. Working primarily with East and Central European theatre since 1994, companies she has collaborated with include Teatr Biuro Podrozy, Teatr Provisorium/ Kompania, Teatr Modrzejewskiej and Teatr Gardzienice in Poland, Drak Theatre in the Czech Republic, Menofortas in Lithuania, and Omma and Leschi Theatres from Greece.

She toured Teatr Biuro Podrozy's critically acclaimed anti-war production, Carmen Funebre, which travelled to 32 countries world-wide and will be staged at the Philadelphia Festival in USA to commemorate September 11.

In January 2002, she was invited by the Dramatic Arts Centre, Tehran, and Visiting Arts UK to attend the International Fadjr Festival to join an official British theatre delegation.

From Drumnadrochit in Inverness-shire, she is also well known as a stage designer both in the UK and Greece. She graduated from the Slade School of Art in London and was awarded the Lesley Hurry Prize for theatre design in 1993.

Email: janefrere@aol.com