Esmaeel Khalaj on theater and performance

Esmaeel Khalaj is an Iranian playwright and film and television writer, director and actor. He was born in Astara, but went to Tehran and studied acting under the Iranian acting teacher and director, Abdolhossein Nooshin. He started to write plays in the 1970s.

                                                              

He is a jury members of the playwriting section at the second cultural heritage festival, which is being held from November 30 through December 1 at city of Qazvin.

The combination of the language and literature of street and bazaar people in Khalaj's writings made his works famous as "Ghahveh khane/coffee house" plays; Literature that has imspired from the popular language of the people.

Khalaj said about the beginning of his theatrical activity: "I was in the fourth grade of primary school and I was 11 years old when one of my friends and I used to go to Noor Cinema and Dariush Cinema on Amirieh St. We were sitting and telling the story to the children. This was perhaps the first spark of acting in me."

The artist added: "Actually, I have been writing and performing theater since I was a teenager until I entered the theater workshop in 1968 and formed a group with my friends and theater became more serious for us. Before that time, we followed the show seriously in Kakh -e- Javanan. But participating in the drama workshop gave us another form of being in the theater field."

Khalaj has started writing Iranian plays since 1968: "Since then, I have written nearly 50 plays and directed 40 theaters."

Khalaj explained about his plays: "My plays are not all written in coffeehouse Language , but the language of most of them is the language of the southern city and includes different spaces of home, market, street, etc. From the early days of the formation of our drama group, sometimes I sent the members of the group to the street and asked them to write two pages of the dialogue of people in the street and the market for me, exactly what they heard, and bring them to the rehearsal. I remember, one day I tore up all the notes that I got and reminded my colleagues that I only wanted to teach you, how the atmosphere, the way people talk and express themselves with each other, and what kind of acting and directing I think about on stage. "

The artist said: "With this perspective and paying attention to the environment around you, watching every event in society, it is as if you are watching a show. This is a preparation for you to master directing, acting and writing well; This is the way I used to write plays and direct my plays. "