TEHRAN – A Persian translation of Mark Jackson’s “The Death of Meyerhold” has recently appeared in Iranian bookstores.

Nimaj Publications released the Persian translation of the book by Alireza Hael-Moghaddam.

With humor, tragedy, and grotesque theatricality, “The Death of Meyerhold” is a play by Mark Jackson that depicts the contradictory life, art, and era of famed Russian theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold with humor, tragedy, and grotesque theatricality. Told through the filter of Meyerhold’s life between 1898 and 1940, the play examines the death of freethinking in politically ambiguous times.

Beginning at a rehearsal for “The Seagull” at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898, where Meyerhold finds himself at odds with his teacher and mentor, Stanislavski, the play moves on through the turmoil of 1905 to the 1917 Soviet Revolution. By the 1920s Meyerhold is a prominent and controversial figure of Russian theater and his artistic revolution has taken its stride alongside the Soviet Revolution. He falls in love with and marries the actress Zinaida Raikh, to whom he stubbornly gives the best roles over Maria Babanova, the talented young actress audiences adore. With mixed feelings, Babanova finally resolves to leave Meyerhold’s theater, and what’s left of Meyerhold’s luck seems to go with her.

ZM/