What exile lets the stage say

An audience beyond the room

The interview introduces Shirin before its advertised London festival performances. Rabihavi argues that theatre in exile need not concern only the experience of emigrants. It can address subjects that cannot be staged at home, and a conversation about the work can reach readers beyond the immediate theatre audience. Source 1

The limits become internal

He treats self-censorship as a narrowing of what an artist can think of making, not merely a strategy for securing a licence. Shirin leads Tangestani to ask about gender and sexual taboo. Rabihavi’s answers place those questions beside political censorship, as pressures on the imagination and on public discussion. Source 1

Rabihavi describes making a woman the central figure because he wanted to challenge the treatment of women as objects. Through her relationships with four men, he asks who defines morality in private life and why those lives are judged. These are the playwright’s stated intentions for Shirin, distinct from the later critical response to its staging. Source 1

Making a small theatre work

The conversation turns to money, audiences and performers. Rabihavi describes training actors himself and working with limited resources. His account of freedom is therefore practical as well as expressive: a wider range of subjects can be spoken, but a production must still find people, time and funds. Source 1

Choosing the possibility of expression

Rabihavi rejects the suggestion that censorship makes a writer more creative. He says he would not have conceived Shirin in the same way had he remained in Iran. The freedom to approach a subject matters to him even when the eventual audience is small. Source 1

The practical cost of theatre in exile is part of that choice. He describes spending his own money, training performers and working with an amateur collective while lacking the audience and income that a larger theatrical life might provide. He values Susan Farrokhnia’s efforts to sustain the festival. The production grows through people’s time, work and commitment. Source 1

Asked whether he would leave again, he chooses the ability to express his concerns, despite those difficulties. His answer joins artistic freedom to an everyday decision about how to live and work; it does not present exile as an uncomplicated professional success. Source 1

Sources & credits

1. IranWire · Shirin, theatre and censorship

   Mohammad Tangestani’s Persian interview, 9 September 2016. The opening announces Shirin for 14–15 September; the conversation concerns theatre in exile.