Mona Farjad on A room in the Hotel

Mona Farjad directs  A room in the hotel which is adopted from one of Neil Simon’s plays and it’s performing in Iranshahr Theater Complex.

This is Farjad's first experience as an actress and director. She  appeared  as an actress in shows such as "Two Shy People", "Flight to Darkness", "When the Rooster Sings Wrong", "The Lions of Khan Baba Sultana", "Hamlet" and... .

During the pandemic, you release  monologue shows on social media,   So we expected to perform a monologue show on the stage, Why  you chose to direct the show " A room in the Hotel "? Do you have a plan to perform a monologue show?

 

- Two books named "California Suite" and " London Suite " written by Neil Simon have been published with two different translations by Shahram Zargar and Majid Mostafavi. This show had different episodes and a narrative of stories that take place in a hotel. There was an episode in " California suite" with the characters of Diana and Soren, who were the continuation of the same characters in " London suite" with a time gap of 10 years. Shahram Zargar offered me it , so I chose this play.

Of course, if there is an attractive and dramatic monologue play that I like, I will definitely perform it on stage. I haven't found the right text yet, and maybe I haven't had enough time to search.

How did you handle the challenges of directing and acting at the same time?

- One of my biggest challenges was the short amount of time I had to produce the show. This performance is the result of 8 to 10 days of rehearsal; Because several of my plays were not approved and considering that I could not miss the performance time and hall; I am determined to provide a standard and  decent work in a short period of time. In order to achieve all aspects of the preparation and production of the show, I struggled with many difficulties as much as the production of five plays, and I got sick in the middle of the performance. As an actress, I always do the duties of a player, I considered memorizing the lines, having ideas for the role and Coordination with the director's ideas, but it was a difficult task to be an actress and director in this short period of time; Maybe if I had more time, everything would have done more easily.

Why didn't you do a more minimal stage and decor design like many theater groups to save money?

- Yes, the cost of making the decor is very high, and I think that the stage design of our show was done to minimize and reduce the costs. Otherwise, we could have witnessed a change in the décor for showing the changes of time,, but we gave up due to economic issues and  we mentioned the passing of years with only one dialogue. In my opinion, it was not possible to make the stage and decor design more minimal.