Review · BBC Persian
A reading close to performance
Abdi follows the London reading of Shaw in Golestan’s translation, appreciating its voices while noticing their different registers.
- Credited to
- Mohammad Abdi
- Publication
- BBC Persian
- Source date
- 15 September 2015
- Published language
- Persian
- This page
- English source guide
Works discussed
Original English editorial guide to the attributed Persian-language source. The critic’s interpretations remain theirs; the full source stays with its publisher.
A translated text returned to the room
Abdi introduces Don Juan in Hell through Shaw’s conversation among Don Juan, the woman, her father and the Devil. He finds Ebrahim Golestan’s older Persian translation still fluent and vigorous, making a new reading an attractive way to bring the work before an audience. Source 1
The London reading is directed by Rabihavi, who also performs the Devil. Abdi notices the changes of tone and voice through which he gives that figure a particular presence. The account includes author and translator remarks, which remain separate from the critic’s observations. Source 1
Bodies, scripts and speech
Abdi names Sadraddin Zahed, Sara Amini and Farshid Aryan in the other roles. He observes that sustained bodily movement brings the reading closer to an enacted performance, while also noting a mismatch between Zahed’s formal literary delivery and the others’ more conversational register. Source 1
The piece documents a response to the 2015 London reading. Shaw remains the playwright, Golestan the translator and Rabihavi the director and performer; it is not an authored Rabihavi play. The production folio retains those relationships and the date of the presentation separately from the review. Source 1
Sources & credits
- Mohammad Abdi · Don Juan in Hell
BBC Persian, 15 September 2015. Critical account of the London reading of Shaw in Ebrahim Golestan’s translation, including separately identified remarks by Rabihavi and Golestan.