IAF to stage Eugne Ionescos Jack or The Submission

IAF to stage Eugène Ionesco’s “Jack, or The Submission”

TEHRAN-The absurdist play “Jack, or The Submission” by Eugène Ionesco will be staged at the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran from January 21.

Translated and directed by Bahman Motamedian, the play has Ali Farzan, Mahshid Kazemi, Sahand Rahimbakhsh, Amirreza Hasanpur, Aref Mousavi, and Mahrokh Rezaei in the cast among others, IRNA reported.

The play is the first of two about Jack and his family (the second being The Future is in Eggs), all of whom are named after Jack (Father Jack, Mother Jack, etc.).

Probing some of life's familiar absurdities, it deals with a sulky young man who disappoints his family by refusing to marry the girl of their choice. It provides ample opportunity for imaginative staging.

The thrust of the narrative involves Jack's arranged marriage to Roberta and, when the first Roberta is not satisfactory, Roberta II. The play contains nonsensical exchanges and strings of clichés, similar to “The Bald Soprano,” and the sort of surreal conceits (Roberta's multiple noses, for example) common in many of Ionesco's later plays.

Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theater in the 20th century. Ionesco instigated a revolution in ideas and techniques of drama, beginning with his “anti-play,” “The Bald Soprano” which contributed to the beginnings of what is known as the Theater of the Absurd, which includes a number of plays that, following the ideas of the philosopher Albert Camus, explore concepts of absurdism and surrealism. He was made a member of the Académie française in 1970 and was awarded the 1970 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and the 1973 Jerusalem Prize.

“Jack, or The Submission” will be performed through February 14 every night at the IAF, located at Artists Park on North Mousavi Street, Taleqani Street.

SS/SAB
 

source: tehrantimes.com