I didn't want the audience’s tears or laughter in the hall[1]

Interview with Jalal Tehrani, director of Kite Hunting Season play.

Hey big man, don't cry, The Tank, Cinderella ... and now Kite hunting season, these are titles that Jalal Tehrani's name comes after or maybe before them. The mysterious, non-scandalous man of theater these days. During years, Jalal Tehrani has been one of the successful figures and theater authors, and it has been a few years now, that he has shared his experiences and knowledge with those interested in establishing maktabe Tehran. Kite Hunting Season is the name of his last work. A bold work in which one of the characters is played by Behnoosh Tabatabaei and is staged in the main hall of the City theater. On the last week of the performance of this work, we went to see him, and we talked to him about Kite hunting Season and his opinion of the theater.

I want to bring signs together and make a conclusion. You tell me how true or close to the truth this conclusion is. Jalal Tehrani's works generally evolve around ethics. On the other hand, Jalal Tehrani himself is a person who encounters with the theater from a distance, from a place of intellectual isolation. He stays at home during years, he stays away from public spaces, and yet again, when he comes to the theater, he still faces his work from a distance.

 I would like to conclude from this morality seeking ethic, isolation and the way you perceive art works that your point of view on art seems to be an enlightened view. How close is this conclusion to reality?

If such complications exist within a writer in terms of genetics and culture, naturally, he himself can not be aware of it. But one of the things we always have to do is to overcome the set of obstacles that exist in our culture to perform a play or write a play. These obstacles are clearly cultural, and one of the indications of such culture is mystical and spiritual tendencies. Theater cannot be accompanied by spirituality. These are two different methods with two different origins, and one of the main efforts of our plays during the last hundred years has been to overcome such obstacles.

 But there are similarities between these two systems that may have created this impression. For example, revelation during creative work is an important issue for me. That is, I always find my inspiration for my work through discovery. I never start writing a text with a predetermined plan, and I never start directing with a predetermined plan either. From this point of view, you can see that there are similarities building up. But is the job of theater to discover things that already existed? Is the discovery of ethics in the theater; follow the same mechanism of ethic’s discovery? It means that the theater is also supposed to discover moral truths from the heart of the human nature or about humans and share them with people? I don't think so. Discovering theater is my strategy, but not to discover what has existed in the past or exists in nature, but to discover what is in the future. Discover something that did not exist before. If it is otherwise, it will contradict the concept of creative work. The theater cannot be stagnant, and discovery with mystical concepts makes the theater stagnant. It cannot take a step forward. Theater should be dynamic. Looking for something in its future and in its next step.

With this information, can we say that you use spirituality to start creating in your personal world, but you allow the work to start revealing itself with the audience at the time and moment of your performance.

For it to find itself by itself, introduce itself by itself, and I am very careful that nothing is imposed on the work by me. Even when I am writing the text. Many writers are told that what you have written is good in this part or I agree or disagree with what you wrote in this other part. Sometimes I tell them with complete honesty that I also disagree with this part, and I am not pretending. Because the work is taking form by itself and I just pay attention that it does not get away from the texts world.

This conversation reminds me of some of the spiritual believers and philosophers who believe that when a word is created, it creates its own universe and continues. Somehow, it seems that you treat the theater in the same way, what I want to say is that my interpretation of the concept of spirituality is from this point.

What is important to me is that no knowledge or ideology that is outside the universe of the text enters it as my opinion.

When we talk about criticizing, it can be accomplished in different ways. One is to say that it is not well-made, which means that it does not have a proper base, the second approach is to say that the form and context are not aligned with each other, and the third is to criticize the idea of ​​the work. Your works are not among the first two categories. Everything is in its place in your work. But when we talk about the idea, we cannot talk about good and bad.

How can we criticize your works? As the creator of the work, what kind of criticism makes you delighted or bothers you?

I have been directing for 15 years and have worked on 9 serious projects in 15 years. Only 3 or 4 reviews have been written during these 15 years, that have criticized a part of the form of one of my works. Apart from these, which were mostly just newspaper articles, no one has criticized my work yet.

What you’re saying is interesting because you seem to be saying that my work is hard to criticize. It might be so. But I get delighted with criticisms that say that for a reason that light should not have been shone there or that now that it has been shined there it is correct for another reason. If a 20-year-old writes a review and gets to certain conclusions, even if the result of that review is completely against my project, I will definitely debate with him, answer him and interact with him. But the set of words that are called criticism as phrases like "beautiful light setting", "well thought set-up", "brilliant direction" and so on (whether it is positive or negative) do not affect me and do not bring out any emotion’s in me.

So you were not criticized! At least not with a critic well based enough so that even if it is against your work, you could have a dialogue with it.

No. I haven’t. I worked as a critic for two or three years, and I knew that criticism means attending to the form and nothing else. Sometimes I would study for a week for each page of criticism I wrote. It was very important for me to not say nonsense. To not say something wrong and to mislead the reader. After that, I would wait before giving my article to a publication. I would keep it for two or three days, work on it, delete and remove things I wasn't sure about. It was so hard that I gave up! I started doing what I do now! Art criticism is a job with a lot of responsibilities! I don't think most people today feel responsible for what they say or write.

Mr. Tehrani, when the play starts, what we are confronted with is like a painting. Its geometry imposes itself on the audience. A game of lights and lines. Personally, I really like the form, color and the geometric lines.

 At first sight, I got really excited. In fact, I let the play open itself to me. Very structured, and I don't think you wanted anything more than that. Because the theme of the work starts from a stillness, from nothingness. Then the actor. I could hear his voice, and I was looking for him on the stage, and I found him in the corner of the stage. With a turquoise dress, bars at the bottom of the stage, the first thing that happens is that this painting like setting separates the audience from reality. Kites are not that big in the real world. So either we are in someone's dream or we are dreaming. Then the shadows come and the dreamlike turquoise light assures you that you should not look for reality. In fact, it's as if you're supposed to follow the lines and make something out of the metaphor presented, or just look and enjoy. But when the character of the show starts talking, she is talking about reality.

This is where, in my opinion, there is a conflict between the form and the context in your work. When the woman says her dialogues, the tone of her voice is flat, and she talks as if she is numb. Like a corpse. In this sense, your theme, which refers to the living world, real history, is supposed to show itself through a form that escapes reality. This is where your work is confronted with problems. 

The decor can be examined from two perspectives. First, I've often been looking for a decor that doesn't move, doesn't spin, doesn't have a ring of fire! But is dynamic and alive on stage. Well, it takes months to design my decors. The same amount that I practice, and sometimes I put the same amount of work on my decor design every night.

 To finally achieve a form that is alive on stage. If you had gotten a bit involved in this game, you would have noticed the liveness of this event and its terms, that means that this has also happened a little in this project. From here we enter the second phase. The second perspective is that I always try not to limit the audience's mind to my mental images. That is, not to show a kite with earrings and a tail. But to have an abstract form of the kite on the stage so that the audience can see it for themselves. This is very easy in writing. You may read in the text that this is the roof of a big house that also has a view of Tehran. You as a reader can visualize or imagine any type of roof. It means that I have not limited your mind with this explanation. That means we have roofs as many as the readers. But when directing begins, it becomes difficult. If on the stage I show you a waterproof roof with an air conditioner and a chimney and a view of the city, then I have blinded your mind, I have destroyed your creativity.

 Most importantly, I have eliminated the possibility of you engaging with the scene. That is, I have closed your mind to my image of the roof. I have always been looking for a type of confrontational theater that does not require the audience getting out of their seats. Going towards abstraction has become one of the most important techniques for me over the years, to help you see your own roof, see your own people, and not force it on you, using abstraction in everything. The behavior of that woman on the stage and the way she says the dialogue is an abstraction of a person on the stage. It is to not show you that woman. All of these are supposed to lead you to another world that you yourself are contributing in forming.

Why is that for?

Because your first impression of the roof, kite or anything, is always the strongest image and I want you to go to the end of the action with that strong image. Therefore, I don't change the set of indications for images like the turquoise pool, or the roof, or other elements during the action. Because I know you have seen this turquoise pool, and I am going to stay loyal to the pool that you have seen. While not making it easy for your mind, I will not disturb you. Respecting the intelligence of the audience is done in this way for me. This is what causes difficulties in the work.

During the performance, I was thinking that if Jalal Tehrani had been a bit more radical than this, because he is already radical, he would probably make his actor sit behind the audience and just talk from the beginning to the end of the show without any movement!

 Because that's the mental game here. It is completely obvious. This minimalism (I can't think of another word right now) even in the movement of the actor on the stage is in line with the fact that the audience should create and see the show themselves. I think this way of actor’s moving is out of necessity, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. Because the voice is the voice of someone who is not there, as if it is a dream that has been embodied. Everything is arranged in a way that it messes up all the mental presuppositions of the audience in one still moment. But what this voice says is true. Full of historical and geographical references, and this gives your work a theme. Your work is very social. Maybe in the form, it deals with this aspect like a metaphor, but in the context it deals with it directly.

The narrator cleverly fragments this reality to such an extent that it partially separates them from their context. But all this abstraction, form and the constant escape from meaning with a theme that is so social was not a problem for you?!

Not at all! Not in the sense of a contradiction or paradox that we would to try to solve. At the same time, this type of view of radicalism leads to nothing in its continuation. But I had an idea for the position of the actor which is close to your idea. In the middle of the set and the whole scene we have a focal point, the center of gravity, where we know the most energy is concentrated. I thought that if the actor stands there and does not move from there during the performance and performs the play, we would have a more powerful performance! But the actors were afraid! It is scary. This theater must keep its audience for its next projects. Because this theater is privatized and runs with the support of its fans. But I hope that we can do it one night, for example, the last performance. The actor stands and speaks. Just because I'm very curious to see what happens!

That is the joy of it. As long as there is not this amount of risk taking, that power will not take place in creation. Getting out of one’s comfort zone is where great things happen.

In terms of career, my point of view is that if I am not going to do something new and do something that has no risk and to which I am familiar, why should I work at all! We work in the theater to get to things that didn’t exist before. The word discovery that we used is also related to this. Not even discovering things that existed, and we did not know about, but the things that did not exist and have now been created.

It seems that you have taken a strange risk in Kite Hunting Season. In previous works, you were cautious about the female character, and in this latest work, you sent a female character alone on the stage. Or maybe it is just a difference.

This is an experience that is characterized by a woman. If in the previous works, women were not as bold as in this work, it is because in most of those works, gender and its implications were not among the important elements and pillars of the text. For example, Single Cells was performed in Germany, and one of its episodes was performed by female actors, and it did not lack anything. This happens with many of the projects.

But you avoided this!

Regarding the presence of a woman in this project or why isn’t there a "man" to say these dialogues, I must say that the choice was completely instinctive, that is, there was no thought or idea behind it. But now that we are performing. We see that women are more moderate representatives of the whole society than men.

 Or we can say that the presence of a man could have increased the violence of this work so much that all other angles of the text would get lost under this violence. The man could have pushed this project into something like The Tank, which was not what I wanted. I wanted a person to stand up and describe herself on stage. Try to describe herself. Some think this work is about an identity crisis. Some people think this woman is schizophrenic. It may have started with questions of identity, but the idea behind is not an identity crisis. For more on why she is a woman, I can’t think of anything. I just know that she does not represent women. She is not crazy, either. She is a person.

Your endless desire to take away meaning from everything has done the same to the woman of the show. The woman in your show has nobody. It is a female mind. As if you love signs and indications more than indicators, the things they refer to. Maybe the imagination and the pleasure is more interesting to you. But in the phrases you have used, one word is used a lot: "directly"! You repeat this word frequently, but your work is exactly the opposite. As if your work is the world that you like. A world in which people don't have to say directly all the time! A world where no one is forced to clarify the misunderstandings.

The word "directly" in my theatrical language is perhaps added because it implies the certainty of the action. I think that in the theater, nothing is a metaphor for something else, neither a sign nor image nor an irony; It does not mean that having semiotics is prohibited! They enter when I have finished my work. In the theater, everything is itself, and in the first place, each element only implies itself, and it is a direct confrontation with the subject. But in the second place, the audience becomes important.

If you say that indications are important, I think you mean that there are indications on my scenes that allow you to find your own indications. In fact, they are supposed to refer you to the symbols of your own mind, not the symbols of my mind. It means that the indications appear in your mind without my interference. From this point, you might think that there is no clarity on stage.

 By the way, for example, if you visually see the word clarity as concepts such as solidity, transparency and differentiation of all elements in relation to each other, you will find it. The signs are clear. I always try to ensure that everything on the stage is clear and distinct and does not blend into each other. The next point is that even though some people have accused me of being absurd and post-modern and so on; But impressionists aesthetic is related to the method I have followed. For example, I don't mix blue and red on stage so that you see purple. I shine them together with such clarity and distinction that purple forms in your mind, and that is clarity. Or certainty worthy of the action. Or a clear indication.

Perhaps what makes you think that you can’t grasp anything that is happening on the stage, and it does not allow you to reach a complete conclusion, is your usual ways of encountering the theater, or it comes back to the expectations you have of yourself as an audience which I don’t expect from you, if what you expect from yourself matches what I expect from you, we won’t have any problems.

It is not a problem! It is a kind of encounter that I wanted you to talk about.

Let’s not, say, a problem. It’s that some things will ultimately remain uncertain and in an aura of ambiguity. Because our measure should be the things we understand, not all the things that exist. No one can know everything.

I think you have a problem with "the being"! You want to go through it and reach an ontological encounter. In your work, "the being" is constantly postponed, and this connects us to a philosophical discussion that is the recognition of violence. Instead, you are talking about confrontation. The confrontation of two "existence" away from violence, two insistence on imposture of a certain meaning. This brings me back to the first conversation we had about spirituality.There is no such violence there either. It is not supposed to be... the moment when the image one has in mind is created... this elusive of the being that is in the form.

Why don't you see it in the text?!

It is also in the text, and you do this by messing with the time perception. As if it is just made of words. It doesn't even have a narrator. Only words Without any sensory field... it is also in the text, but because it is more visible in the form, I used it as an example. Did I understand correctly?

Yes! I think you brought up a difficult subject (laughs).

It's hard, but it's a revelation!

A process has formed in my projects that I think is based on my lived experiences, adding into that, the fact that I am aging apart from work experiences. It means that I became more calm and gradually distance myself from the subject. Let me tell you something interesting, almost everyone who saw The Tank performance year 2001 didn't like The Tank performance year 2010! Because I had made that interpretation of confrontation in The Tank of 2001 reach to the point where the audience would get involved, even though they were sitting in their seats. Along with the characters they would feel bad, they would feel good, they would get excited, they would get stressed and when they left the hall, it was as if they had come out of a horror tunnel or an amusement park. They were all drained. Just like the actor had run out of energy, the audience also had run out of energy. In The Tank performance of year 2010, after 9 years, I didn't want to establish such interactions with my audience at all. I wanted my audience to be able to wonder in the world of the text and discover its different angles with an open and calm mind. Obviously, when a person is under pressure his or her consciousness becomes diluted. An encounter in which people's minds become passive and is completely under the influence of the work is no longer an encounter with quality for me, and the range of audiences who claim that, during the last few projects, Jalal Tehrani has nothing to offer anymore, has gone dull, if we consider that their claim is not true, at least it means that they are still looking for the same kind of excitement. They want me to move them with emotions. I don't think it would be difficult for me to do so, but I don't want to.

How were these lived experiences that you were talking about? 

Lived experiences have taught me that I cannot produce plays with quality as an excited, angry person with a lot of ups and downs. At most, I can produce interesting and enjoyable plays, and at the same time, a person who is struggling constantly, can’t see clearly. This change must happen both for me, for the audience and for my actor so that we can comprehend with each other and understand what is happening. My works this far, as I see it; From excited, emotional and instinctive understandings, are going towards rational and perceptive understandings.

This deep look at art and theater is a very important discussion in art and philosophy of art. As an audience, I spend between one and three hours in the performance hall and come out. Knowing the particularities of the era we are living in, what are the effects of this event ? What effect will all this elusiveness has on the audience and the world they live in?

When we switch from emotions and instincts to analyzes, if we manage to send the audience out of the hall with a new perception, we have expanded his vocabulary.

But you have deleted the words!

Yes! I don't mean spoken vocabulary. The concepts that are formed in their minds, but there is no word for it, and this means that the theater has been able to develop people's minds a little and deepen the concepts in their minds, and one can hope that as life continues, when faced with things like this, he would have a concept in mind that would help to understand similar matters, something like a word that you can use to explain the subject and not get confused.

 In the same project also, this text, this scene, this actor and three musicians were able to deliver an impressive and tearful eulogy. They could have turned this performance into 75 minutes of crying and maybe even laughing. I have emphatically prevented this from happening, and I have said many times that if someone sheds tears inside the hall, you have performed a eulogy, but if outside the hall, when he is going to take the subway, his eyes shine or if he feels a lump in his throat, it means that you have performed a play.

 Now, that lump is not necessarily what I am looking for. But I think that if such a process can take form, people will leave the hall with things that will stay with them for a lifetime, and the result of these things is the development of their minds; To the extent that a play is capable to do so.

Payam Rezaei - Reza Sedigh

[1] Etemad newspaper, 2016