On the Boards in Iran: In Defiance of Ignorance

What I Didn't Blog About from Inside Iran...

Iran. I was there for 12 days. I saw over 20 plays and one mass demonstration against the regime. I heard of another. I will bring a play back with me by a talented young writer. I met many people, and became acquainted with a few of the many contradictions that exist side-by-side in Iranian life: one of the most hospitable peoples in the world, governed by one of the most rabid, repressive governments in the world; informants who like political theatre; censors who don't understand metaphor; welcoming modern galleries with hidden, unmarked doors; the list goes on.

I also learned fear. On Feb 14, 2011 - or Bahman 25 in the Persian calendar - I was witness to a portion of a massive demonstration - the largest in the country since the fraudulent election in 2009, in which Ahmadinejad tightened his grip. I didn't blog about this at the time, because of what happened to me that day.

A tile from the Golestan Palace in Tehran. A country devouring itself?

The City Theatre in Tehran is situated beside Englehab Street - or Revolution Street. This is the traditional route for demonstrations, which proceed past the City Theatre, and on many kilometres to squares further to the west.

The jury went to the theatre early that day, to ensure we could get through the traffic, and still arrive on time. We got to the City Theatre long before the play we were to see that afternoon, so we waited in a windowed office above the street. Between us and Englehab street, was a large open space. Today in that space, were parked a great many police vans. There were riot police everywhere. Militia everywhere. And the demonstration was unlike any I had ever seen before. There were no signs, no slogans. It was very difficult to tell if there even was a demonstration for the longest time. It's a busy street, and there was much foot traffic. After a while, though, I realized that the foot traffic was growing steadily more dense, and was all going in one direction - west. This went on for about an hour - and I saw what must have been thousands and thousands of people walking west - calmly, quietly - past the hundreds of riot police. Horns were blaring - but N. (our guide and translator) read this as solidarity. People were demonstrating in a way that was almost invisible, that needed interpretation to be understood.

I took my camera out. N. had warned us of photos. He didn't mind that we take photos, he just said that we must NOT get caught. Iran has banned all foreign journalists from the country, and goes to great lengths to prevent any images from leaking out. Something deep within me rebels against this, and so I snap away from our vantage point - hiding my camera from view.

It's then time to go downstairs to see a play. It seems odd. Andrea, the Italian juror, says he wishes he was out there with them.

Little does he know what's to follow...

This day, N. had suggested that the festival organize a security guard to accompany the jury in our van - in case of roadblocks, or trouble. What I didn't realize at the time, was that our route from one theatre to the next, after the first play of the day, was to lead us directly THROUGH the demonstration.

That's right. We were about to drive THROUGH an anti-government demonstration in IRAN to get to a PLAY!!!!

No one protests. We get in the van - the 5-member jury, Andrea's wife, Daniele, the security guard, and N. It takes us at least half an hour to go half a block to the intersection with Englehab street. I am sitting in the very back of the minivan, taking pictures, trying to hide my tiny camera from view. Suddenly, after what has been an extremely boring process, waiting in a traffic jam, we are in the middle of Englehab. There are men streaming around us, shouting. The van is lurching, stopping, lurching. It is sheer chaos. What I don't realize, is that a great number of the men around us are plainclothes Sepah - or private militiamen, aka the Revolutionary Guard. Stupidly, I keep trying to take pics, frustrated by the bumps, and knowing i'm not getting a good shot. This gives the young secret policemen a chance to see my camera.

And then, all hell breaks loose.

The van is swarmed. Night sticks are out. Men are screaming at me, inches from my face, on the other side of the window. They are pounding on the van for it to stop. The driver gets to the other side of Englehab, and stops. He opens the sliding door (which is automatic), and my position in the rear of the van now works in my favour.

A couple of men poke their heads in and reach for me, wanting both me and my camera. They can't reach. They are shouting. N., seated by the sliding door, calmly begins to talk to them, as does our security guard. From now on, I don't understand what's happening - other than the fact that N. is trying to save my ass. The Sepah men are very young - 20? 22? - and have that disconnected gaze of ignorant, violence-prone youth. They hear I am a foreigner, and say something like "even worse" - but they are no longer grabbing for me. They know what the Fadjr festival is - and see that we are an international jury with badges - guests of the government. The young men are replaced by older men. There is a crowd around the van, men consulting with one another, and, behind the van, the swarming demonstration. It is dusk, slipping into night. A surreal blur of electric light, riot police and masses of men. N. is still talking. In English, without looking back at me, he tells me to remove the memory card, and hide it. I do. The security guard suggests to the older Sepah or Revolutionary Guard or secret policeman (it's hard to tell what anyone actually is), that perhaps the young men were mistaken, and that I had a cellphone, not a camera. The conversation seems to no longer take into account that I am right there (I have now hidden my camera from view, as well).

Our two Persian jurors are sitting near the front of the van. Mashoud is a TV/Film star in Iran, and is recognized everywhere we go. Sayeed is a famous and distinguished academic, and a friend, I believe, of the regime - although during this whole process he has said nothing - just stared straight ahead. The officer recognizes them, and - for whatever reason - finally decides to let us go. We drive on. I have no real idea how long the whole process took. Five minutes? Fifteen? I apologize to the van. I have put them through a fairly tense few minutes.

And then the show we see - after all of this - is terrible. We risked our lives for this? I think. After the show, in the lobby, Mashoud came up to me and said, cryptically, "There are some things you don't need to be afraid of". He then walked away. N. spoke of the surgical mask the officer was wearing, and said - Did you notice his mask? Someone like him would not have been wearing a mask last year. Now he is afraid of being recognized. This is a sign that they know things might not go well for the regime.

The Iranians obviously have the ability to read events in a way that completely eludes me.

I go home that night, and email my photos to a journalist friend in Toronto. I let Kelly Nestruck, from the Globe and Mail, know about my blog. Then I change my mind, and ask him not to plug it in the Globe. I am paranoid - many of the photos I have already posted are illegal - taken in galleries where photography was prohibited. I really doubt this could get me into trouble - but fear teaches me caution, now.

Welcome to the police state.

Englehab Street, Bahman 25 / Feb 14, 2011 - Tehran

A Final Word, Written the Night of Bahman 25

Iran. This place gives one perspective. But also - it's strange - it warps one, I think. Being a foreigner in a place that is most definitely not free is strangely distancing, or strangely poisoning. I can't quite describe it. There's always some fear, and, for someone like me, always an anticipation of the relief of escape - of getting out and going home. And with that comes the awareness that such escape is not possible for the people here. I guess Iran makes a foreigner aware of the fact that their life is NOT here, NOT like the lives of the Iranians - and dealing with this can take several forms, can affect one in several ways - not all positive.

I am thinking about freedom in a very different way now. I long to get away, and that makes me feel a bit weak, a bit less. To have this longing means I don't care enough to sacrifice my own freedom for the sake of an unfree people. And yes - of course it's not my problem - but being IN the place where something is happening in front of one is a different experience than reading about it, or watching it on Al Jazeera. For humans, nothing is like BEING there. One is confronted with questions - how do I feel about this? What do I do now? Who am I? As a theatre artist, I think about the art form that is theatre, and how it can have a power similar to the event I just went through - but, at the same time, I know NOTHING can replicate the there-ness of extremity, of being in an extreme situation. Yet, again at the same time - I know that theatre is vital, and especially vital here. Useful. Intense. Art connects people to one another IN THE FACE of extremity. In defiance of ignorance.

Who am I? A good question. In the van, with secret police shouting at me, I was completely calm. Later, I felt a dread, a background worry, that was there to stay for the rest of my trip. I recognized that I was frightened. Not overwhelmingly, but just enough. Frightened of blogging about what happened. Frightened for myself, and frightened for others. This prompted me to leave out many names in this blog. To leave out the demonstration pictures I had taken. I began planning more carefully how I would handle the information that was coming to me.

Ahh, said N. You see? You're becoming like us.

I am now back in Toronto. I will put up my photos of the demonstration - nothing at all remarkable about them, really, except for the fact that so few photos exist of this day. Nothing at all remarkable about what happened to me - it happened, in different versions, to several of the foreign theatre artists here. Where I was, there was no violence, no tear gas, and no live rounds. Later, however, we heard that the young theatre student killed that night, was killed very close to where we were stopped.

So. Here are the last images - a collection of photos I took from the back of a minivan, the ones that got me in trouble - terrible photos! Just all terrible - except as somewhat expressionist, blurry representations of chaos, and a society heaving against itself, buckling along fault lines.

What will come next?