TEHRAN – Abolfazl Hajialikhani will stage a play about the life and murder of Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Kabir, the reformist prime minister of Qajar king Nasser ad-Din Shah for the first four years of his reign during the 17th International Festival of Ritual and Traditional Plays, which will open in Tehran next week.

The dark comedy “Fin as Narrated by Jinns” shows the efforts of several jinns who had witnessed the murder of Amir Kabir when he was put to death, Hajialikhani told the Persian service of Honaronline on Sunday.

“Several jinns plan to narrate the details of the murder and the untold events. And since they are invisible, they try to communicate with several men for help in retelling the story,” he explained.

“The play is a combination of several techniques of performances used in Persian plays such as Siah-bazi and Ru-hozi theater to relieve the boredom of a long play,” he added.

Siah-bazi is a type of folk play featuring a blackfaced harlequin who stirs the audience to laughter with amusing improvisations, and Ru-hozi is a mobile kind of traditional play performed in houses on top of the courtyard pool.

Actors Mir Nader Mazlumi, Fatemeh Sarlak, Mohsen Zarabadi, Majid Ahangaran, Mehdi Zaker and Morteza Alidadi are collaborating in this project.

The festival headed by actor Ali Nasirian will be running from August 26 to September 1.

The life story of Amir Kabir has repeatedly been the subject of many plays, films and series.

Ali Rafiei plans to stage “Nightmares and Memories of a Bath Attendant about the Life and Murder of Amir Kabir” at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall in November.

Amir Kabir was one of the most capable and innovative figures to appear during the entire Qajar period. His reforms of the educational, administrative and social systems became intolerable to a number of conservative figures close to Nasser ad-Din Shah and a plot against him was organized.

Consequently the shah dismissed him from the position of chief minister and all his other titles and functions and he was finally put to death by having his wrists slashed in the bathhouse at Fin Garden outside of Kashan on January 10, 1852.

RM/YAW
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