Performing “The Good Soldier Švejk” by a Student Band in Tehran

Iran Theatre- “The Good Soldier Švejk” directed by Pantea Armanfar and Mohammad Hossein Ma’aref is and student work which has participated in Experimental Theatre Festival and now in performing in Aav Theatre Hall in Tehran.

Mohammad Hossein Ma’aref who wrote the play based on a novel by Jaroslav Hašek talked about choosing the text and said: “When I was reading the novel I thought that they were very dramatic. There are many adaptations from his works which the most famous one is Bresht but I liked to do something different.”

Pantea Armanfar who is the theatre student of Fine Arts Faculty of Tehran University talked about the dramatic situation of “The Good Soldier Švejk” and added: “The situation of the play is not based on the novel. Our situation is meeting of Švejk” with a girl named Emmy who is a side character in the novel that change to a main one on our play. In this meeting Švejk who is a run-away-soldier realizes that something happened out while he was in jail. “

Ma’aref believes that all the ideas of their text came from the original text and continued: “There was a special break in the text that we brought in the performing. The play has the line story which is narrated fragmental. We tried to transmit our feeling related to the text to our audience even with costume designing and some other performing elements.”

Mona Ahmadi, and Navid Fayyaz are actors of the play who both of them won the prize as the best actors in last Experimental Theatre Festival.

“The Good Soldier Švejk” is performing in Aav Theatre Hall (Which was an old bath) until November 30th.