Aurash
Aurash
Review by James Wilkinson
Critic’s note: Aurash was an independently produced play that ran for three performances at Boston Playwrights’ Theater March 5-7, 2020. I caught the last performance and had planned to write about it when a close family member passed away and the fallout threw a wrench into my writing plans. It looked like Aurash was going to get lost in the shuffle of everything else I had planned to see/review when Covid-19 ground the local arts scene to a halt. Now, with nothing but time on my hands, I decided to go back and revisit Aurash. Since I’m describing a play that I saw almost a month ago, I wasn’t quite able to go as deep into the work as I normally try to, (my apologies to the wonderful team who produced the work), but I think I still managed to capture something relevant about the viewing experience. Stay safe everyone and remember to wash your hands!
Aurash is written by Bahram Beyzaie. Translated by Shaoul Rick Chason & Nikta Sabouri. Directed by Nikta Sabouri. Movement Director/Choreographer: Jani Monet Rodrigues. Music Director: Farzin Dehghani. Costume Designer: Andrew Child. Light Designer: Sam Tompkins Martin.
Aurash uses its opening moments to deliver a brisk slap across your face. Pay attention, class is in session. The hit might leave you a bit disoriented, so much so that it takes a while to find your feet. But the play isn’t interested in letting you warm up to its strange ways. It’d rather kick you into the fire and let you catch up as it breezes along, spraying out its linguistic bullets. The experience of watching the play is unlike anything I’ve recently had in Boston, (at least, it’s unlike the offerings at the major theaters. My apologies if there’s a fringe company I may have missed.). The only real comparison I can draw is that this is what it must have been like in ancient Greece, listening to Homer perform The Odyssey and The Iliad. This is theater at its most ritualistic. Theatre as ceremony at the point at which culture is created. When the lights come up on the scene you feel as though a new world is opening up before you.
There’s perhaps a reason for that, (several, actually, but let’s take it one at a time). Aurash is by the Iranian playwright, Bahram Beyzaie, and performed in a new translation by Nikta Sabouri (who also directs) and Shaoul Rick Chason (who also performs). On the page, the play is presented more like a short story. There are characters and bits of assigned dialogue, but Beyzaie mostly achieves his storytelling through extended blocks of prose poetry. It’s a style of dramatic writing that we don’t often see in the west, where storytelling is done through dialogue. We’ve gotten tastes of it in the work of Sarah Kane and the latter half of Caryl Churchill’s career, (although to be clear, I’m only drawing a comparison of structure. Content-wise we’re in a totally different ball game. And it’s worth pointing out that Beyzaie is writing well before the others.). Beyzaie is chasing after the mythic, an intention wonderfully upheld in the translation. There’s an awareness built into the language. It knows that it’s being performed and seems to have found a way to harness the breath of its performers. It gives the piece an extra punch. There are times when you feel like you’re being pummeled by the language. Lines are delivered in staccato sentences that seem to have been crafted for maximum physical impact.
Our hero is the titular, Aurash. I say “hero” but he’s not like the mythic heroes we’re familiar with, (again, I mean in the Western canon. My knowledge of Middle Eastern myth/folklore is lacking). Aurash isn’t Odysseus or Achilles, he’s not a soldier or a king, gallantly riding into his destiny. Rather, he’s forced into his narrative, plucked out of a crowd and shoved to the front of the line. In fact, when the play begins, he is quite literally on the sidelines, watching the story happen. The Iranians and Turanians have been at war, but a peace deal has been struck. The Iranians will have an archer release an arrow into the air and where it lands will be the boundary of Iran. When the Iranian Commander’s first choice for archer refuses the role, a series of events thrusts Aurash into the role and the weight of a nation falls to his shoulders. We follow him up the mountain where he will release the arrow and with every step his journey begins to take on more magical elements as he begins to cross paths with different figures from his personal history and his culture. It’s this journey aspect to the tale that feels the most familiar, (it actually has a slight tinge of Dante’s Divine Comedy about it). There’s a perfect arc to the story that fits the subject matter as the arc of the tale seems to match the arc of the arrow Aurash will be firing out into the unknown.
Director Sabouri keeps her focus on the storytelling aspect of the play. The script notes that the piece can be performed by one actor, (what a coup that would be), but Sabouri splits the telling between four performers, (Jani Monet Rodrigues, Shaoul Rick Chason, Rachel Leigh Richter and Eric McGowan). The move helps untether us from the theater so that our minds are always working. Put another way, it’s not about the performer, but where the performer is taking us. The movements are heavily stylized, often to the point where the performance begins to feel like a dance piece. It’s gripping because you can feel the epic reach of the piece. The narrative focus might be on one man, but you can feel the entire culture around that one man, thrumming with energy.
Aurash ends in a suspended moment, the theatrical equivalent of a freeze frame. It should feel like a cop out, but instead it pulls you up, spiritually. Like Aurash’s arrow, you’re flinging into an unknown and uncertain future. The lights go down, the voices fade but the arrow stays in the air and as you leave the theater, you wonder what will happen when it lands.
Aurash was presented by Distant Realms at Boston Playwrights’ Theater, March 5-7, 2020.
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