A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran by Nasser Rahmaninejad

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran by Nasser Rahmaninejad Suzi Elnaggar A MAN OF THE THEATER: SURVIVAL AS AN ARTIST IN IRAN. By Nasser Rahmaninejad. New York: New York University Press, 2020. 266 pp. Paperback, $21.95. Nasser Rahmaninejad is an Iranian artist who began working in theatre in 1959. During the Shah’s regime, he formed an independent theatre group called Mehr, which later became known as the Iran Theatre Association. His work in Iran spanned a period of cultural and political shifts, as well as strict censorship. After surviving both revolution and imprisonment, Rahmaninejad left Iran. He continues his work in theatre, now outside Iran, by writing and translating essays and articles, speaking and lecturing at academic institution and artistic spaces, and continuing to write plays, including My Heart, My Homeland (1995), One Page of Exile (1996), and Between the Grave and the Moon (2016). He now lives in the Bay Area in California. Rahmaninejad’s memoir, A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran, is the story of a man, a country, and the love for theatre that keeps bringing them into conflict. In his opening chapter, Water (Aab), he relates the relationship of water to Iranians of his generation, opening with, “We did not have tap water” (p. 1). This opening perfectly encapsulates the flowing fluidity of the narrative that Rahmaninejad weaves through his memoir. Some tales, like the childhood of traditional Iranian theatre with neighborhood friends, are gentle eddies while others, like his early childhood memory of the death of his sister, Manijeh, are deep pools of memory in which we can barely see past the surface. Theatre flows throughout, first a small trickle, then a rushing river that significantly alters the course of his life as a young artist in pre-Revolution Iran. Chapter One introduces the quality of the memoir, meditative and free flowing, focused on small details of life while building a narrative. In the next three chapters, Rahmaninejad recounts his childhood and years as a young man, before he became a well-known theatre practitioner in Iran. In Chapter Two, he recounts his very first [End Page 220] performance at two years old. However, the darker shades of memory creep in, as he reflects on the opium dens and the downtrodden women (saghi) that worked there. It was a family connection that started his love for theatre; his father’s second cousin, an actor and singer named Abdolvahab Shahidi provided free admission for his family to many plays, and this became a place of refuge for Rahmaninejad. In Chapters Three and Four, he recounts his efforts to establish himself as a professional theatre maker after high school but being unable to do so with any real stability—or without working for the Shah’s government. Here, Rahmaninejad begins to weave in his burgeoning political consciousness, and the events in both the country and his life that shaped his artistic journey. In Chapter Five, Interlude, Rahmaninejad recounts a harrowing and some comical tale of his first serious encounter with SAVAK, the Iranian Secret Police. After intending to cross the border into Pakistan with several friends, he was apprehended. Their juvenile attempts to get themselves out of a situation way beyond their depth end with Rahmaninejad attempting to get back to Tehran, ragged and hungry, without money for the fare home. This interlude is one of the longer complete narratives in the book, and perfectly encompasses the feeling that Rahmaninejad would do anything to practice theatre—even things that he recounts later as unwise or risky decisions. In Chapters Six through Eight, Rahmaninejad reminisces on the events that led him and other artistic friends to establish the Mehr Theatre Group and the Iranian Theatre Association. They began with adapting Miller’s Incident at Vichy, an endeavor for which they garnered American backing and support. As the group and Rahmaninejad grew more confident and established, they began to perform both original works and adaptations. As the theatre he put on grew bolder, SAVAK took an increased interest in Rahmaninejad and his compatriots. This interest eventually led to his arrest in 1971 and his detention...