Arash Abbasi: Youthism is harmful to our theater today

He believed that as a sports coach, you may be proud of youthfulness in your team, but there is no place to be proud of youthfulness in theater. This is a big problem that has unfortunately happened over the years.

                                

Arash Abbasi, the playwright and stage director said that the theater is no longer good for him, and he explained the reasons for his lack of interest to work in theater.

Arash Abbasi thought that as a person gets older, he works more thoughtfully, he said: "I prefer not to be active like before and if I am going to do something, I work with more concentration. In the past years, I tried not to stay away from the theater, but now I have no passion for work for a thousand and one reasons, and even though I miss the theater a lot, I have no desire to work."

This artist said about the reasons for his lack of interest in the theater: "The most important reason is the conditions of our theater today, which is not at all similar to the past. We are far from the golden era of theater. The period when the theater was as much the concern of the artist as it was the concern of the audience.”

Abbasi stated: "If you look at the list of artists who haven't worked in theater for years or haven't worked in the last two or three years; We will soon realize how we have seen the theater getting weaker and weaker every day."

The artist added: "Art must bring something and create a transformation in the producer and then the audience. Now the influence of theater in the society has decreased. When this art does not affect the lives of the people who are engaged in it, and if there is an effect, it is negative, how can we expect progress in the theater and encourage the same old artists to work."

Abbasi declared: "Currently, almost 90% of shows do not have income for the group and the audience, and maybe 5-10% have income because they hired stars. In other shows, they always face losses for various reasons such as production costs, halls, etc. While the price of the theater is still low compared to other costs, the audience finds it expensive. On the other hand, stage artists  either can't or don't want to put themselves in the place of the audience and ask themselves do we enjoy it and communicate with it or not.”

 

The artist said about the content of the plays that every kind of topic has been addressed in Iranian theater and the only gap that exists is a proper management that can identify what things and who our theater needs. If we achieve this, we can hope for the future of the theater, otherwise we will not go anywhere."