Banned Menagerie
Before Iran’s 1979 revolution, one of the country’s most celebrated plays was
Shahre Ghese (City of Tales), a parable about deception and groupthink whose characters are all animals. Singing and speaking their lines, the fox, monkey, parrot, and other creatures use cunning and trickery to survive. Upon taking power, Iran’s new leaders effectively banned Bijan Mofid’s play, fearing that Shahre Ghese could be interpreted as a biting commentary on their own morals and politics. A new version of
Shahre Ghese is being restaged (in Farsi) at Berkeley’s Live Oak Theatre, Oct. 2-4. It’s still a parable, not a political play, but in the animals’ deceiving and posturing, it’s hard not to see elements of real-life doings in Tehran and elsewhere in the world.
— Jonathan Curiel
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