Narges Hashempour Tentative Title: Brasch
From motifs of Marion Brasch’s autobiographical story, the staging by Narges Hashempour, which premiered in Tehran in June 2022, extracts the drama of a society that has contaminated its own future promise deep into the private sphere. From the wounded relationships, a young woman’s will for freedom is carefully, yet decisively, formed. Entirely focused on the existential message of the theatre: To say what can hardly be said otherwise, dramatist Keyvan Sarreshteh and the director Hashempour, both of them Tehran born and internationally based, tell the emblematic East German family story as a universally human one.
A co-production of HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts and the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
Director: Narges Hashempour
Stage: Manoucher Shoja
Lighting: Ruzhdi Aliji
Video: Ali Kazemi
Music and Sound design: Kaveh Abedin
Performance: Asghar Piran, Farbod Farhang, Sina Balahang
Narges Hashempour, born in Tehran in 1967, is an internationally renowned actress, director, author, curator and dramaturg, as well as holding a doctorate in theatre studies, who has realized countless theatre projects and participated in various festivals since 1991. She was a guest director in Germany at the Iran Festival 2004 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt and worked as an actress at the Theater an der Ruhr, was a fellow of the special research project Interweaving Performing Cultures at the Freie Universität Berlin and a fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude. She was awarded multiple times, amongst others as an actress and as a director at the International Festival Fajir as well as with the Gordana Kosanovic Acting Award.
Keyvan Sarreshteh, born in Tehran in 1987, is an Iranian performer, playwright and director whose works deal mainly with memories, personal histories and power relations. His latest play, Timescape, premiered at the 2023 Vienna Festival.
Zahra Mohseni, born in Tehran in 1998, is an Iranian playwright and theatre-maker. Her collaborations and solo pieces have received wide acclaim in both student and professional contexts. She is currently working on staging her internationally published play Cooks.