The company is preparing for an Iranian Conference

The rehearsals of a new production have begun at the Tamási Áron Theatre, which will be premiered in at the beginning of next season. Ivan Vyrypaev’s play Iranian Conference, written in 2017, was translated into Hungarian by András Kozma this year, and the production – which features the majority of the company, sixteen actors – will be directed by László Bocsárdi.
Ivan Vyrypaev is a Russian-born playwright, screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor and is considered a leading figure in the Russian New Drama movement. An active and popular artist in Russia for many years, he left his homeland nine years ago and settled in Warsaw, where he acquired Polish citizenship. In an interview in 2022, he told the independent Russian newspaper Meduza: “I knew that I had lost Russia and that I was not going back when in 2021 there were demonstrations in support of Alexei Navalny (a Russian opposition politician). I was disappointed that my colleagues remained silent, I decided to stop working with state theatres, at least the bigger ones. Then, when the war started, I broke up with some other important people close to me. My father, for example. My father supports the war.” (Translation by Albert Gazda – 444.hu)
According to director László Bocsárdi, with the Hungarian premiere of the play Iranian Conference, the theatre is attempting to explore the current state of our culture. “The text invites us into a typical 21st century situation, into the experience of the present, in which we are confronted with a series of acute problems that reveal the current spiritual state of humanity, wrapped in the metaphor of ‘Iranian-ness’. Where does the possibility of free choice begin and end in one’s life? What comes first: life, culture, love or God? What is more blessed for humanity: Eastern spirituality without tolerance or Western democracy without spirituality?” – the director outlined the main questions raised by the play, adding that he sees the artistic stakes of presenting a conference that provides an opportunity for collective reflection and exchange of ideas primarily in finding the poetic. József Bartha set designer, Zsuzsanna Szőke costume designer, András Rancz video designer, Tamás Bányai lighting designer and Magor Bocsárdi composer will be the director’s direct collaborators in the production.