Death of Grandmother and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo / American Director Talks About Coming to Iran

Hossein Eidizadeh:Drew Dir will come to Iran to perform “Ada/Ava” in Mobarak-Tehran festival. He will be here with his theatre company “Manual Cinema”. It has been many years since a theatre group visited Iran and it is interesting to know what Dir, the director of the play thinks about Iran.

When did you start working with shadow puppetry?

The five artistic directors of Manual Cinema began working together four years ago; we were a group of friends in theater, art, and music who were curious about staging a shadow puppet play using an old overhead projector. Instead of looking to traditional forms of shadow puppetry from Southeast Asia, we drew inspiration from our own cultural heritage: films and movies. We called ourselves "Manual Cinema" and set ourselves the challenge of recreating the visual language of cinema using handmade shadow puppet techniques.

How were you invited to Tehran-Mobarak?

The festival reached out to us a few months ago, they found us through a friend at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago where we are currently developing a new show for premiere in January 2015. The dates worked perfectly in our fall touring schedule and we couldn't say no to the opportunity to bring our work to Iran!

Would you tell us more about Ada/Ava?

Ada/Ava is the story of two elderly, identical twin sisters who live and operate a lighthouse together. When one of them, Ava, passes away, her sister Ada struggles to overcome her grief. She begins to fantasize that her reflection in the mirror is her dead sister; she goes to a carnival mirror maze, and brings her reflection home with her, to disastrous results. The story was inspired both by William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (a play about twins) as well as films like Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. At its heart, though, it's a universal story about mourning a loved one; how it can feel as if we've lost a part of our self, and how we learn to move forward.

The show itself is performed using four overhead projectors and a couple hundred puppets and color slides. We alternate between using shadow puppets and live actors to represent the characters; the actors themselves wear two-dimensional masks to turn themselves into human shadow puppets.

How much are you familiar with Iranian theatre?

Many of us have seen Iranian films but we knew little about the theatre community until we were invited to the festival. What we've discovered is that Tehran's theatre community is diverse and vibrant, and seems to be growing at a rapid rate. It reminds us of our city, Chicago, which has a mix of both large theaters and small theaters (called "storefronts," because they're built into old renovated shops) that feature both traditional and experimental work. What's important is that there's an audience hungry for theatre, and Tehran seems to have an enormous demand for it.

Did you know Shadow puppetry has a long history in Iran? (Bahram Beyzaei is one of the best directors of shadow puppetry in Iran)

We knew about Iran's long history of puppetry, and we knew of Bahram Beyzaei from his films, but we didn't learn until recently that he created theater and shadow puppet plays! In the United States, many audiences think of puppetry as a children's art form, and don't expect shadow puppetry to tell a mature story; we expect that Iran will be different.

You have also used shadow puppetry in filmmaking; can you tell me more about that?

We feel strongly that our live performances shouldn't be videotaped and shared, because they lose their quality of liveness on camera. However, we are very interested in creating puppetry intended specifically for film, which is what Jim Henson achieved so successfully. In the United States we are sometimes hired to create shadow puppet music videos, and we are working on a few short films of our own next year.

Would you tell me more about Manual Cinema?

There are ten of us who have traveled to Tehran for the festival, including puppeteers, musicians, and technical staff. All of us come from diverse backgrounds and education, including music, visual art, playwriting, acting, and acrobatics. Few of us expected to be working in puppetry when we began; most of us learned puppetry by teaching ourselves or learning from other American puppeteers. Oftentimes, people don't know how to classify us; we share qualities of puppetry, theater, film, and visual art, and as a result, we've been asked to perform at theater festivals, film festivals, and art museums. This interdisciplinary quality, I think, is what makes us exciting to audiences, especially younger audiences who don't care about labels.

Are you planning on working with Iranian talents in producing shadow puppetry works?

We sincerely hope that this festival can foster a future collaboration with Iranian artists! In the past, we have collaborated with puppeteers, actors, musicians, and even poets, and we expect to meet many more of them here in Tehran.

How do you think Iranian will receive your work, since you are the first American who is going to be in the festival after so many years?

We are curious to share the work with Iranians and ask them questions after the show! Not only is it our first time performing for Iranians, it is our first time performing outside the United States for an international audience. It is an exciting experiment for us, but we think Iranian audiences will empathize with the story and its themes.

Where did you get inspiration for your works?

Besides being inspired by film and other forms of puppet theatre, we draw inspiration from our own lives. This show, Ada/Ava, was inspired in part by the death of my grandmother, and by watching my grandfather's journey to overcome her loss.

I have since the teaser of Ada/Ava in your site, the music seems so enchanting. How do you decide about the music of your work?

Music and sound are an essential component of Manual Cinema. Our stories are performed entirely without dialogue or text, so music is a key component to the storytelling. The music for Ada/Ava was composed by our two artistic directors, Kyle Vegter and Ben Kauffman, for cello, guitar, piano, and electronics, and it's all performed live with the puppeteers.