TEHRAN – A troupe comprising artists from Iran, Armenia, Russia and Ukraine has produced a theatrical performance in Yerevan promoting peace.
The play “The Border’s Secret” was co-directed by Shiva Sarmast from Iran and Harutyun Hovhannisyan from Armenia at Babylon Theater on March 24 and 25.
Sarmast and Hovhannisyan also played roles in the play, which was performed by a cast composed of Shideh Ghaffarian and Pedram Zamani from Iran, Aram Sardaryan from Armenia, Corrina Odd from Russia and Anastasia Rykunova from Ukraine.
“The idea to stage the play entered my mind during a meeting with my Armenian friends, including Harutyun Hovhannisyan,” Sarmast told the Persian service of MNA on Friday.
“We agreed to speak in our native languages, asking something from each other,” she said and added that the result was amazing, because they perceived each other demands despite their unfamiliarity with each other’s languages.
She said that play is about the perception of freedom in different countries and the endless struggle to achieve it and added, “Harutyun perceived the idea as the Tower of Babel myth and suggested taking it to the stage as a theatrical performance.”
Cast members first rehearsed separately and then they joined together in rehearsals that ran for a week.
Sarmast said that due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many Ukrainian artists left their homes to live in Armenia.
“The husband of our Ukrainian cast member, Anastasia, is from Russia; they met each other at the university and one day before the beginning of our rehearsals they married amid the flames of war flickering between their countries,” she explained.
Sarmast referred to wars as mutual human sufferings and noted, “We just want to live in peace and happiness.”
She said that their desire for freedom shaped the idea for the performance and added, “Accordingly, the characters each had their own stories; they united in their performance and achieved freedom.”
“In fact, languages and borders do not matter; the secret behind the borders between the countries is not the lines drawn on maps, but the measure of the communication between the peoples living on the two sides of the lines is of great importance,” she asserted.
Sarmast said that “The Border’s Secret” won public acclaim in Yerevan and noted that their troupe is seeking to perform the play in several other countries.
Photo: A scene from “The Border’s Secret” co-directed by Shiva Sarmast and Harutyun Hovhannisyan.
MMS/YAW