My heart is broken from all the prejudice that I’ve seen these past few days

Aalie Attaee’s note about the theater listen to the sound of earth[1]

The play Listen to the sound of earth wasn’t like any other piece of theater that I’ve seen to this day, not like any piece of poetry that I’ve read, not like any story that I’ve heard. It was a sound that I was hearing from the walls of Mulavi Hall, the sound that gave me goosebumps. I’m not talking about the ultimate mission of art because every goal is first answered for an individual and after that in a more generalized level and I could hear that individuality with every sound that was coming from earth. Some people had criticisms that the work wasn’t suitable for a stage. But what can you do with the taste of an audience that prefers spending time in a circus even if it's thoughtless and meaningless, rather than thinking for a moment? What can you do when you encounter someone who receives all kinds of government support and makes a custom-made piece of theater just for them and when they talk about an indie theater they say “wasn’t really clear what it wanted to say” it's completely obvious that for people like them who get dictated on what to say with the budget that they receive, hearing or seeing what the earth has to say wouldn’t be enjoyable…anyways! My heart is broken from all the prejudice that I’ve seen these past few days. It’s been a few years that I haven’t been able to watch theater because of my full-time job of being a mother but even with all the unfair judgments that I’ve heard I’m still glad that I started watching theater again with this play cause theater still greatly excites me. I thank Jalal Tehrani and his great team and good job to you all. And to all the officials of art and theater and all the all-knowing people at audit and censoring and in general to all the people whose work is to sabotage things in the world of art I say:

ما گذشتیم و گذشت آنچه تو با ما کردی(we are gone and what you’ve done with us is over)

تو بمان و دگران وای به حال دگران  (now it's you and the others, oh the miserable others)

Alie Ataee

[1] Maktabetehran, 2012