“Yazdgerd” Got It Right

I went to see Death of Yazdgerd at the Yale School of Drama in the same way I’ve gone to see all other artistic productions by Iranian expats in the last thirty years – for support, not inspiration. For us, exiles, going to such events is a form of community service. More than anything else, we go to allay the pangs of nostalgia, not to experience art.

So imagine my surprise when, after nearly two hours, I walked out of the theatre positively energized and perfectly inspired. Rather than engage in some form of charitable act, I had seen a genuine work of beauty.

Director Shadi Ghaheri has managed to successfully adapt an original work of Persian literature to the American stage, and then some. She has also made a very distant past, pre-Islamic Iran of some 2000 years ago, feel near and accessible.(The play was performed last week.)

At times, the hapless miller accused of the murder of the king, protesting his abject conditions, railing against the monarchy, seemed to be channeling Bernie Sanders. In turn, the vulgar, out-of-touch royal, cooped up in his palace amid a legion of ​“wives,” still eying the miller’s wife and daughter brought to mind … well, take your pick in today’s American universe of elites!

So many translations of Persian works into English had disappointed me in the past. Not this! The text, a highly sophisticated one in its original Persian, had seamlessly crossed over, and the actors proved it. They spoke the lines naturally as if they had been written for them.

Speaking of actors, they, too, took on what must have seemed very daunting parts, but performed them with grace and fluidity. Like all good executives and artistic over-seers, Shadi Ghaheri has assembled a gifted team of collaborators. The illustrator of the set, Iman Raad, is a leading visual artist whose most beloved muses have long been Persian legends and folklore. His intricate backdrop, which appeared superfluously detailed in the beginning, came to life as illuminated portions of it rendered faraway scenes of the play. The sound effects and music of the play were designed and composed by Mohsen Namjoo, also a notable singer and composer on today’s Persian musical landscape.

At times, the play could have used less added sound and music, rather than more. But perhaps the challenge facing any young director, especially a female, in involving older (especially male), and more experienced talent is, indeed, to know how and when to bring them in, but also how and when to leave them out.

The greatest and only problem of the play had nothing to do with what was there, rather with what was not. Death of Yazdgerd is written by Bahram Beyzai, arguably Iran’s most important 20th century playwright. In addition to being a literary giant, Beyzai is also a Baha’i. The Baha’i are to today’s Iran what Jews were to the pre-World War II Germany — the most persecuted minority in modern Iran. To talk of pre-Islamic Iran and even the Iran of circa 1978 in setting the backdrop of the play, without mentioning the playwright’s Baha’i identity is like trying to make sense of Hannah Arendt without mentioning her Jewish origin. The necessity of this is not simply because it is the politically correct thing to do given that the crimes against the Bahai are still a taboo subject in Iran and continue to be treated with silence. Rather, Beyzai’s Baha’i identity reveals a great deal about the reasons why he could so capably bring to life the experience of a grave injustice committed against a powerless and voiceless man as the miller at the heart of this play.

The greatest accomplishment of any artist at any time in any medium is to bring light to the spaces occupied by shadows. Every shadow needs to be chased in its own way. In Death of Yazdgerd, acknowledging the contributions of a Baha’i playwright such as the brilliant and peerless Bahram Beyzai, is just such an act.

Roya Hakakian is a writer. Visit her at www.RoyaHakakian.com. Follow her @royathewriter.