Shohreh Aghdashloo and Houshang Touzie backstage at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, getting ready to go onstage.
This is just a quick note to tell you what a wonderful time it was at the yek irani dar behesht play last night! Houshang Touzie and Shohreh Aghdashloo were absolutely mesmerizing on the stage of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. From the first few seconds of the play’s start, they had us all aboard of what became a most memorable night, full of reflection, thought, and most importantly, almost nonstop laughter! The brilliant script was really (really, seriously) funny! [Photo Essay]
The dynamic duo’s sparkling performance was so smooth and so natural, it was hard to imagine that Touzie’s excellent script was being followed by two seasoned actors on that stage.
I have to share a secret with you–though I love Iranian comedians, watching a few too many YouTube clips of some brand new Iranian comedians, I wondered not too long ago whether I would be willing to pay another $30 to watch another comedian bash and deprecate Iranians. The Touzie humor was just right in flavor and consistency for me, as his humor did make lots and lots of fun of us Iranians, our mannerisms, our outlook, our behavior, and our own brand of humor. But it was also a very loving examination of our sense of displacement, longing and belonging, family, family relationships, and most importantly, our male-female relationships.
When I interviewed Housang Touzie about his play, he said that he wished every Iranian would go to see his play. As the entire performance hall kept erupting with laughter last night, I kept thinking of all the people I wished were there to see it with me. That’s when I realized how easy it was to share Touzie’s wish.
This might be a good opportunity to thank Houshang Touzie and Shohreh Aghdashloo and their wonderful company members of Workshop ’79 for taking the trouble to bring their play to the Bay Area. I would also like to thank my fellow-Iranian.com volunteers, Kayvan, Majid, Hadi, Payam, Layla, Hamid, Aria, Payam, Foaad, and Mehran. I should also thank the Iranian businesses in the Bay Area who so kindly promoted our event. Last, but not least, I would like to thank all those people who bought the tickets and came to see the show. We live in a truly amazing community; a community that promotes and supports the arts and loves the artists who choose to show their talents here.
For a couple of hours last night, we were all a bunch of very lucky Iranians in heaven.
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