Aurash
by Bahram Beyza'i
Translated and adapted by
Soheil Parsa
and Brian Quirt
First co-produced with Theatre Passe
Muraille
April 4th to April 30th, 1998
"...wrings contemporary resonance
from a story that's old as time itself."
The Toronto Star
Aurash is a Persian myth dating back over one thousand years. In the 1970s the fable was adapted into a short-story by Bahram Beyza’i, a prominent Iranian playwright and film director. Beyza'i's adaptation updated the myth with strong
humanist and pacifist themes. In Beyza'i's story, Aurash, a naïve and human stablehand, becomes an unwilling player in his country’s post-war border
treaty. He must determine his people’s fate by firing an arrow from the top of a mountain. In 1998, Soheil Parsa
and dramaturge Brian Quirt worked this short-story into its present form, a mixture of story-telling and physical theatre with stirring soundscape and lights.
Find out more...
Awards and
Nominations
Four Dora Mavor Moore
nominations: Best Lighting (Philip Cygan), Best Sound Design (Richard Feren),
Best Direction (Soheil Parsa), and Best New Play (Translation and Adaptation)
(Soheil Parsa and Brian Quirt).
Creative Team
Direction & Choreography: Soheil Parsa
With:
Ron Kennell, Joan Heney, Earl Pastko,
Todd Hammond
Composer: Richard Feren
Lighting Design: Philip Cygan
Set Design: Soheil Parsa & Karen Krupa
Costume Design: Soheil Parsa & Karen Krupa
Dramaturge: Brian Quirt
Stage Manager: Kathryn Davis
Subsequent Productions
Presented at the 20th Fadjr International Theatre Festival, Tehran
January 25 to February 4, 2002
Creative Team at 20th Fadjr International Theatre
Festival, Tehran
Direction and Choreography: Soheil Parsa
With: Peter Farbridge, Ron Kennell, Anna-Mackay
Smith and Andrew Scorer
Lighting Designer: Stephan Droege
Sound Designer: Richard Feren
Costumes: Andjelija Djuric
Stage
Manager: Hilary Unger
Produced at the Centro Cultural Bertolt Brecht in Havana, Cuba.
November 1999
Creative Team at Centro Cultural Bertolt Brecht in
Havana.
Direction & Choreography: Soheil Parsa
With: Zoa Fernadez, Omar Ali, Rafael Laheray and Jorge Treto
Producer: Yana Elsa Brugal and the Centro Cultural Bertolt Brecht
Assistant Director and interpreter: Simon Casanova
Dramaturge: Yana Elsa Brugal.
Photo of Anna Mackay-Smith, Peter Farbridge and Andrew Scorer by Hassan Taheri