TEHRAN – Iranian director Kurosh Zarei restaged “The Sun Rises from Aleppo”, a play about Imam Hussein in the aftermath of the Ashura uprising, on Saturday evening in Aleppo, the second-largest city in Syria after the capital Damascus.

A cast of 60 Syrian actors are collaborating in the performance, which was held on Sunday and will be on stage until October 3.

Zarei directed the play earlier during October 2018 in Damascus in the holy shrine of Hazrat Zeinab (AS), the sister of Imam Hussein (AS).

The story of the play is set after Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram, the day upon which Imam Hussein (AS) and his companions are martyred in Karbala as a result of their valiant stand against the injustices of the oppressive Umayyad dynasty in 680 CE.

Now, the Umayyad army is taking the heads of the martyrs and the captive people to Damascus to receive a reward from the caliph. On their way to Damascus, they arrive at a hermitage in Aleppo, where Shimr, the killer of the Imam (AS), gives the heads of the martyrs to the hermit for safekeeping. But after he finds out that one of the heads belongs to Imam Hussein (AS), the hermit begins dressing down Shimr and his men.

The play is being performed in the place where the hermitage was located.    

Marwan Ghariwati, Samir Tawil, Yasin Adas, Muhammad Saqqa and Bassil Zain al-Din are among the members of the cast.

The theater program has been designed in collaboration with the Owj Arts and Media Organization, a major Iranian institution that produces revolutionary works in art and cinema.

Photo: A poster for the play “The Sun Rises from Aleppo”.

MMS/YAW