TEHRAN – Director Reza Bahrami is preparing a play on Shahrokh Zargham, a lowlife who was transformed almost overnight under the influence of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was martyred during the Iran-Iraq war.

The play titled “Buckle” has been written by Kahbod Taraj, and Bahrami’s troupe is currently rehearsing to perform it during the Resistance Theater Festival in Tehran.

Zargham, as a professional wrestler, was famous for his gang activities in Tehran, Bahrami said.

Few months before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he learned about Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and his struggles against Mohammadreza Pahlavi, Iran’s last monarch.    

Consequently, he became an ardent follower of Imam Khomeini and joined the revolutionaries.

After the Iran-Iraq broke out, he created a group of his friends to fight against the Iraqi forces in the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan.

However, in a battle with an Iraqi armored company, he was shot dead by heavy machinegun fire. He was beheaded by Iraqi forces and Iraqi television announced the news of his killing by showing his beheaded body.

No information was published by Iraq about the fate of Zargham’s remains, as he was called in his homeland “Hurr of the Revolution” that compares Zargham with Hurr ibn Riahi, one of Yazid’s commanders who joined the troops of Imam Hussein (AS) on the eve of Ashura.

“Paying attention to people like Martyr Shahrokh Zargham who was transformed by an event in his life and sacrificed his life for his motherland and the revolution is really amazing,” Bahrami said.

“It also gives an opportunity to the audience to become familiar with the key roles such people played during the war,” he added.

He asked the cultural centers to help troupes put their spotlight on unique, new topics that rid the resistance theater of the boring issues facing the genre.

Parisa Moqtadi, Tinu Salehi, Mohammadreza Imanian, Labkhand Badiei, Mahtab Shokrian and Amir Adlparvar are among the members of the cast for the play, which is also scheduled to go on stage at Sarve Theater in Tehran after the end of the Resistance Theater Festival.   

In 2019, a book named “Shahrokh, Hurr of the Islamic Revolution” containing articles by a number of writers about Zargham was published.

Photo: Martyr Shahrokh Zargham (C) and his comrades in an undated photo.  

MMS/YAW