“Voices from Iran, heard many years later”
The Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble performed their first play, The Forgotten History of Mastaneh, Friday night to a sold-out audience. Unsurprising, as Iranian playwright and director, Naghmeh Samini, hosts a number of impressive writing credits to her name and her work has been staged internationally. The stars of the evening were lead actor Mozdeh Rahmanzaei whose powerful performance was honest, genuine, and charismatic, and fellow actor Newsha Farahani, who gave us an intimate portrayal of female friendship.
The name of the ensemble, Seda, is the Persian word for “voice,” a theme that continually appeared throughout the story. The play opens in the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War (1987) to the 16-year-old characters, Mastaneh and her best friend Sara, dancing to a cassette tape in a classroom. This interaction introduces the audience to the nostalgia and whimsy that is so prevalent in coming-of-age works. However, the girls’ teacher, Ms. Rahimi, walks in on their dancing, and the tone immediately shifts. Her character, seemingly representative of authoritarianism and theocratic oppression, stops the girls and instills fear in them for the contraband that they possess.
While Sara is dismissed, Ms. Rahimi insists that Mastaneh stay behind and be subject to interrogation. Emptying the contents of her backpack, Ms. Rahimi discovers Mastaneh’s diary, and begins to read the contents out loud, some of which involve details on Mastaneh’s (illegal) secret romance with boyfriend Nima. From this interaction, we also learn that Mastaneh is the child of a single father who is traveling in Germany, and that the source of her anxiety is his discovery of the contents in her diary.
We cut to the girls driving to see Nima and his father in Lavasan, a small town outside of the capital of Tehran. The next scene is spent watching teenagers being teenagers- distracting Mastaneh from her anxieties through jokes and alcohol. Eventually, this leads to their masterminding a plan to blackmail Ms. Rahimi into not telling Mastaneh’s father about the contents of her diary. In this scene, we are also introduced to Nima’s father, Nader, a former professor and political prisoner from both before and after the Revolution of 1979.
It’s through Nader that Samini unpacks her themes of imperfect memory, of the influence of power on history’s depictions, and of voice. We’re continually reminded of this through both the looming presence of Mastaneh’s diary, and through the manuscript that Nader is devoting his time to, “The Forgotten History.”
The rest of the play unfolds into a classical tragedy. The War that initially served as a backdrop becomes the villain. The original villain Ms. Rahimi attracts both our ire and our empathy. And the enormous loss that ensues haunts Mastaneh for 34 years. The play closes with an incredibly moving and powerful monologue. This moment touches on the parts of war and of Iran that force the children’s transition into adulthood too soon as we watch them cope with grief, loss, and violence.
While the story itself is masterfully crafted, it is made more poignant with the simple set design of the stage. Its walls and floor are entirely constructed of chalkboard, and the set pieces are simple, drawing our focus to the chalk. The chalk itself is a reminder of the temporality of what’s written—that is, the history. More importantly, the writing on it, that history, is being reclaimed by those who do not have the power that Nader references in his speech about history and power. Sara and Mastaneh both write and draw their histories on it, while the audience is keenly aware of its missing permanence.
The play itself is performed in Persian, however, English speaking audience members will still have access to subtitles.
مستانه- تاريخ فراموشان: –The Forgotten History of Mastaneh | Macha Theatre Works, Taproot Theatre Company’s Isaac Studio Theatre, 212 N 85th St, Seattle, WA 98103 | February 10 – February 12, Seattle.
Parking is limited to street parking. More info here: https://www.machatheatreworks.com/tickets