Amir Reza Koohestani to restage “Waiting for Godot” for open-air performance

In a press release published on Wednesday, Kuhestani’s public relations team announced that his troupe is currently rehearsing the play.

 

Despite the male nature of the characters in “Waiting for Godot”, he plans to stage the play with a cast of five actresses.

 

Amir Reza Koohestani was born in 1978 in Shiraz, Iran. He was 16 when he began to publish short stories in local newspapers. Attracted to cinema, he took courses in directing and cinematography and created two unfinished films. After a brief experience as performer, he devoted his time to write his first plays for the Mehr Theatre Group: And the Day Never Came (1999) and The Murmuring Tales (2000).

 

With his third play, Dance on Glasses (2001), Amir Reza Koohestani gained international notoriety and found the support of several European theatrical artistic directors and festivals. Then followed the plays Recent Experiences (from the original text by Canadian writers Nadia Ross and Jacob Wren, 2003); Amid the Clouds (2005); Dry Blood & Fresh Vegetables (2007); Quartet: A Journey North (2008); Where Were You on January 8th? (2009); Ivanov (2011); The Fourth Wall (from the original play England by Tim Crouch, 2012)presented one hundred times in an art gallery in Tehran.

The play was originally published in 1952 in French as “En attendant Godot”. It was a true innovation in drama and the Theatre of the Absurd’s first theatrical success.

 

“Waiting for Godot” consists of conversations between Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for the arrival of the mysterious Godot, who continually sends word that he will appear but who never does.

 

They encounter Lucky and Pozzo, they discuss their miseries and their lots in life, they consider hanging themselves, and yet they wait.

 

Often perceived as being tramps, Vladimir and Estragon are a pair of human beings who do not know why they were put on earth; they make the tenuous assumption that there must be some point to their existence, and they look to Godot for enlightenment. Because they hold out hope for meaning and direction, they acquire a kind of nobility that enables them to rise above their futile existence.