I am not afraid of failure^[1]

These days, at 19:00 in the main hall of Molavi, the play Tank written, designed and directed by Jalal Tehrani is performing. The show is about two brothers taking revenge on their brother, step-sister and father's wife. The play takes place in a gas station and in the talk of a father with his sons. Jalal Tehrani, who has been away from the stage for seven years, with this show once again emphasizes the proof of his influential presence in the theater of our country; Although he himself considers his theater to be amateur. We have talked with him about this performance and why it is and is not in the theater.

When was the Tank written? It seems that it has been performed once before, how come that performance was stopped?

This text was written in 1998 and was performed in Molavi Hall in 2002, then Nefertiti’s performance in City Theater started immediately. This pressure made the quality of both performances go down. Therefore, we had to cancel the performance of Tank in favor of Nefertiti, which was part of the contracts of the performing arts center. After that, we always wanted to complete the performance, but we couldn't. It remained until now that we wanted to work again, and we decided to do this work.

I think your last performance was in January 2003, which is almost seven years since then. Was your absence from work voluntary?

Some of it was self-inflicted, and some of it was influenced by the circumstances that made us stay away from the theater. A part of it was caused by our own depreciation that we decided not to do executive work for a short time and to organize ourselves. Then the situation became such that it did not happen. Two or three times we planned to implement something that was stopped in the early stages.

Did you want to run in 2005?

Yes! It didn't happen.

Hey big man, don’t cry! ,You don't think that kind of performance is too much for you after that date? In my opinion, that performance is one of the most important events in the 80s. As a phenomenon in execution. Because we have never seen such an implementation in our country. This performance had significant innovations in terms of mise-en-scène, space creation, lighting and stage design and in the game genre. That performance was a pure event for our theater. Wasn't that drama an obstacle for you now that you have reached a point where it is impossible to repeat it?

Do you mean that we were afraid of not being able to repeat it?

Didn't that performance make your work difficult?

That project was heavy. When we start projects, they are very light, and as we move towards implementation, they become heavier and more difficult. People have a good memory of Hey big man, don’t cry. Both the experts like you who are one of theater community and the people who are not in theater community. In that project, which had only 12 performances, the only performance that satisfied me a little was the 11th performance. The empirical view is twofold; One head is victory and one is failure. I have never been afraid of failure. Moreover, the Tank that we are running these days has a high operational risk.

Don't you want to reach the techniques of  Hey big man, don’t cry to the perfect?

Of course!

I think that one of the functions of experimental theater is to introduce and familiarize techniques and performance methods to conventional and professional theater? Therefore, Hey big man, don’t cry has small and large points that can be followed into the professional theater of our country.

Yes! What you say is a true statement, and I have nothing to add to it now. But I want to correct a part of my speech. Regarding experimental theater, I have not reached great insight during these years. I sometimes use this word incorrectly. I think the word amateur can be replaced. This work that I like and do is an amateur work.

It means going towards the unknown and towards discovering and being discovered?

Yes.

Don't like professional theater in its known sense?

Professional theater in its known sense is people coming together and sharing previously acquired skills in a new project. They offer work that they already know everything about. Of course, this is also relative because we cannot have a professional theater in principle, because the most professional directors and actors facing a new text requires experience.

What was your training process  in this second tank?I think there are some differences compared to the first performance. For example, the entry of women into this performance is a new event which they were not present at all. Of course, this is the most apparent difference compared to that performance.

Yes! We tried not to repeat the previous performance. When we change the question in the face of a text. The difference comes little by little during the process. Changing the question also changes the perspective. When the question is changed, then the text is seen from other aspects and the previously seen aspects are hidden. Little by little, these women have been found. We have found these little by little.

Now these three actors have stepped into this performance from that performance. I didn't see that performance, did repeating the cast makes difference in peromance?

The actors are more mature. 10 years have passed since then. They are more experienced and their life experience has increased. Their understanding and nobility towards the text is higher since then; Accordingly, their conservatism has increased and they have concerns about what they have successfully done in the past and they have come to an unknown world where they are not sure if they will be successful or not!

One of the main topics of The Tank is murder, considering that they have grown older, their views on committing murder have changed whether they like it or not. A person in his youth commits murder sooner and easier than a person who reaches age and for whom murder becomes more difficult and impossible.

Yes, it is and it is being seen in the performance. In the previous performance, the base of action created the show in an emotional way. In this performance, we are looking for stronger reasons for stage action. This is because we are all getting older.

This show you wrote dates back to 13, 14 years ago.

Yes, the original version is from that time.

The social context in this text is much more than your other texts and the roots of the text are concrete. then, like Hey big man don’t cry, it walks in a philosophical space and moves away from social roots, and human becomes more important to it, away from geography and ontology. But in the Tank of relationships and social and family relationships, people are important to you. Why did you care about these social roots before and then distanced yourself from them?

I think this incident has nothing to do with before and after. The rower was written before all of this it is a abstract play. This can have two causes; One is that I may have decided to experience the social drama and the Tank created, and the second is that I wrote it for the radio. Obviously, radio have rules to produce and broadcast.

How did you meet Alireza Meshaikhi? I have not heard that he has any activity in the field of theater. Does it seem like the first theatrical music he made?

He had no theater and cinema experience. I don't remember exactly when and how I met him. When I came across Alireza Meshaiekhi's Meta x theory, I realized that there are coincidences between his theory and the experiments we want to do. MetaX is a Meshaiekhi's doctrine and I decided to try it in the theater and see how it goes.

*Can you tell me briefly what MetaX is?

MetaX is multicultural music and its main idea is that different musical cultures live together. MetaX has one major difference from fusion music; Fusion music tries to create a harmonic link between the music of different cultures. But Metax says that each of these musics live their own lives and let's accept that they each live their own lives. In other words, let's not try to establish a harmonic connection between them. This is interesting. In this theory, there is an advanced social idea. In the 70s, Mr. Meshaiekhi presented this doctrine.

I think the stage design of this performance is different from the previous performance. According to the photos I have seen, these columns are not in that version. There it has a stool and here one of its legs has been removed. Tell us about the difference between the two implementations of the repository.

The previous tank was formed with the storage and workshop facilities of Molavi Hall at that time.

That is, with the least possible things?

Yes! A couch that we put in the corner of the stage. We found a table, painted it and put it in the middle. We brought a chair from the decor workshop that belonged to another performance. We put one of those stairs for the audience instead of the entrance stairs. We gave a circular light and a red circular light in the center; Whenever people wanted to be embarrassed or angry, they would approach the red light and their face would turn a little red.

Does light work a lot in this performance?

Yes, light makes these minimums become maximums. Farshid Mossadegh's design for this performance is genius. As always, he has improved the level of our performance. The reason why I work with the minimum is because the minimum can be noble. When a busy person makes himself busy, he loses his aristocracy over the environment. I work with as much as I can understand.

I think that in this show, the father is the center of gravity of everything.

Parents.

I mean what we see on stage. With the presence of the father in the scene and his relationship with the boys, it seems so.

Yes. The main tragedy in this show is the chain of father's mistakes.

I saw it on the first night and still haven't figured out what role these women play in this show. Did you see the first performance?

Yes. It was a bad performance.

That's why I would like to know the reason for bringing these women, who apparently were not present at all in the previous performance, in the current performance?

We have five women.

I mean two women, one of whom is later killed with a gun, and the second is a woman who wears a golden crown and is constantly going up and down the stairs. Of course, those three women who play the role of game maker could be played by men.

The woman who is killed is the stepmother. He arrives with a suitcase and boasts of leaving.

Does that mean he will be killed?

This is the end of the action. Instead of the old man going on a date, the boy goes on a date and beats the last person. But this woman walking on the stairs is probably her sister.

He who has a crown?

Yes! With the help of stools, we take him out of this world, we move him, and he never sets his foot on the ground. It is in the air throughout the performance. I wanted to make this woman appear more and more unreal so that she would have more contrast with the interior space. Then I thought we should give him a gold bracelet. Put on a special dress and weave a long wig with a rope for her.

It is as if this woman has come to soften the hidden violence in the scene.

Yes, it has a tenderness. One of the reasons is to soften the atmosphere. Maybe because I'm old, and I don't want to show naked violence on stage. I didn't want to pressure the audience. One of its structural reasons is that it is stitching together different scenes. As it spins for itself. Another point is that changing the scene in this performance means physical change. It means that the place changes shape around people. Its dimensions increase and decrease. It must be extreme for this to happen. These four women have adopted an unconventional appearance and behavior to fuel that magic. Besides, under the pretext of their presence and changing the scenes, we can get the essence of the performance and embellish the atmosphere. Personally, I insist not to put emotional and psychological pressure on the audience in this performance. The text and the actors have this ability. If these three actors don't control their sensual abilities, they can easily make the audience laugh and send them out of the hall. 10 years ago, with the same text, they did this. They are stronger now than then. But for years, I have no interest in turning the theater into a loud cry against the times. The audience likes to laugh, cry, get excited. I like to experience the atmosphere of the tank.

Reza Ashofteh

[1] Sharq newspaper, 2012