There's a weirdness in watching a play about Iranian women during wartime at the moment in time where we're at war with Iran (or we're not at war. Or we are and its not a war. Or its a ceasefire but we're still shooting missiles at each other. Or, wait, it is a war after all, depending on what day you're reading this).
But its a play about war as a backdrop - actually its a play about friendships, and women and how time claims all those forced to live in it. Five close female friends are together on one of their number's wedding day, making final preparations, fretting about beauty, and being intimately raunchy about their vaginas. There's the religious one, the nerdy one, the dumb one, the stylish one, and the exotic (Jewish in a mostly-Muslim state) one. And they preen, hug, insult, and argue their way through the wedding prep. They have a moment. They hug. And then the news comes in that Shah has booked out, and a little later that Iraq has invaded.
And the world changes around them, and little by little their world collapses on them. The Jewish one disappears and may/may not have fled with her family. The nerdy one goes to school in Indiana and does not return. The religious one dies in a horrifically ironic manner. And with each loss the survivors cling to each other, break up, have more weddings and funerals, argue, drift together, drift apart and bemoan the lack of the others as connective tissue. The revise their feelings and histories in real-time as they pick their way through a now-uncertain world.
And as a play, it is really, really good. Sanaz Toossi wrote English from a couple seasons back, which was also performed in in this space in conjuration with the Seda Iranian Theatre Company, and with the same director. The dialogue was natural and honest, though with the cross-talk you're often catching up on what they're really talking about. The five actresses (plus a sixth, who is the new one) are excellent in defining their personalities, differences, and unities. Yeah, I can see these five women coming together as force, with their future ahead of them, and what happens next. Think of the Big Chill with a more authoritarian state.
I liked this so much I didn't lead with talking about where we ate before the show. This time, we returned to Phoenecia, an excellent Lebanese place a block over the the theater. It was a warm Friday here, and so we sat on the small patio and had too many small plates, great entrees (The Lovely Bride brought her seafood back in the doggie bag) and too many drinks (The LB experimented with mocktails, while I had to abandon my last of my second Moscow Mule in order to make the show on time). It was a good start to the evening and very good show.
More later,
