The project of shrinking and putting pressure on the middle class, which in turn put pressure on the inferior classes, that began with Ahmadinejad’s administration and manifested itself in two major characteristics – “inflation, increase of prices, and general poverty” and “explosive growth of nouveau riche bourgoeisie” – accelerated in the middle of 2021. People’s purchasing power was decreased by one-third, and in some cases much more. In this context, the arrest of Mahsa Amini by police (2000-2022) and her death while under detention in September 2022 led to the closure of all performances, and the Iranian women movement with the motto “woman, life, freedom” once again led to protest performances and converted the streets into a stage. Meanwhile, a deficient cultural policy and a seemingly deliberate policy to marginalize artists in an administration that called itself revolutionary prompted theatre professionals to protest – a group that was gradually prohibited from expressing societal issues and problems from 2009 to 2022.
The shutdown of theatres is now a reaction to everything that has been taken away from theatre and the community of its audience. Censorship and arbitrary decisions made by inept and fearful cultural officials, as well as living in an unsustainable, limited, and fragile cultural environment in which the role of the artist and the image of Iranian society had been so humiliated that made worry and doubt about the rationale and necessity of theatre, were some of the factors that prompted such a reaction. Iranian women’s protests included something whose loss was more apparent following the ban on choreographers and modern dancers in February 2022: the body. The demand for freedom of the body in public protest performances by a generation of young and adolescent Iranian girls and boys has a clear message for the future of theatre in Iran: that is a demand for presenting a true image of Iranian men and women on theatre stages. This is a message from a generation in which just a few could find a way to express themselves through theatre and the majority were excluded; they are the generation born in the 1990s and 2000s.
As a result of the neglect of amateurism in Iranian theatre, there is no process through which these young people can begin their theatrical careers, while cultural officials and directors of cultural institutions, as well as theatre professionals, have no responsibilities or have never felt the need for it.
During the recent protests, the people, the police, and the organized lumpen – recalling the agents/performers organized by the tyrant, Mohammad Ali Shah – have once again taken center stage. With yells, figures, and slogans that are not allowed on theater stages, people have taken over the streets. They courageously take politics to the streets since that is the only arena in which they can be present. As a result, theater is now perplexed that it can no longer lure these people into theaters to witness the censored image of themselves. theatre’s worries and doubts would be directed to other sorts of aesthetics from now on, and noticed more on a new attitude toward theme, society, form and atmosphere of theatre and its connection to the gaze of audience.
The purpose of the brief introduction to this text about the state of Iranian theater from the time of the constitutional revolution until the present was to help readers understand how the theater responded to social and political events and how long periods of tyranny and brief bursts of freedom expanded or constrained the art form. It might be the time to pose these two parallel questions now. The first one is: Why are Iranian states so terrified of theater? This dread causes them to manage theatre as they would any other social phenomenon. for this control Some agents and mediators who know people better than artists and artists better than people are required to dictate their relationships, which is an impossible and disastrous scenario. One hundred years of tyranny and surveillance over theatre have not only resulted in a controlled and desirable theatre, but have also taken the theatrical stages into the streets, because people, artists, and even the state and government have been absent from theatre stages. Theatre is a forum for dialogue between three groups: artists, audiences, and the state, but the inherited tyrannic attitude from a hundred years ago technically created a situation in which artists and audience gaze were stood against the third party. Then the tyrannical attitude toward culture has only one option to survive: total elimination of culture, which entails elimination of people and the state. Turning toward the theater is turning toward the people, because the theater is never against the state, but always against tyranny.
The second question is; how can theater be tyrannical or decadent? the second question is: how theatre could be tyrannical or decadent? theatre become decadent y by censorship as well as by mere thematic attitude. today, that type of theatre that it is built on the principles of “theatre is a means of expression” and “theatre as a social critique’ can be labeled as decadent. Because, from both points of view, theatre is a secondary phenomenon with a primary task, and the goal of its production is to carry out the task. In this way, the censorship apparatus increased tendency toward “theatre as a tool” and “theatre that is thematically political and social” by establishing constraints and prohibitions as well as offering means to navigate it. While theatre as such, and not its theme, is a social event, the censorship machinery has driven Iranian theater to depict truth and life in allegorical or ironical Aesthetics.
According to the law, the government is only required to support theater, not produce it. therefore, imposing more and more pressure on theatre by various institutions emphasizing an ideological and theatrical above the law authority that pretends its enforcing the law. Another instance was the figurative term “guidance patrol,” which sought to put the police in the position of “guidance of woman” under the cover of the law. What premise recognizes the police as the society’s teacher? This reversal of metaphors and ideas represents the decay of ideas. With such a reversal of the premises, is it possible to remain human in this world?
As a result of what has occurred in street performances, theater has been driven into a new aesthetics in which it is seen as a gathering and social event. It is a maturity that doesn’t require supervision. As long as some people have the status of cultural guardians, the creators of culture are no longer in charge, because they have already been literary marginalized.Do, in the absence of supervision and guardians, the creators of culture and art would be taken responsible. The government is entirely responsible for a society’s continued underdevelopment if cultural producers are excluded. Iranian tyranny tradition prevents the governments from abdicating this responsibility and handing it on to those who should genuinely be in charge.
Iranian society today need a rediscovery of itself, as well as public trust, autonomy, and freedom in thought and novel Aesthetics, in order to exist again as a viable, informed, and responsible people in their nation. The dictatorial attitude toward woman, life, freedom, art, culture, religion, and law is discredited among Iranians now, since, unlike the situation that led into the constitutional revolution, Iranians today have a clear image of toward woman, life, freedom, art, culture, religion, and law. It might not be so inaccurate to argue that Iran’s constitutional revolution has now emerged victorious after 117 years of neglect. It is simultaneously a sign of an end and a marker of a new beginning. Disapproval of women’s and young people’s protests, as well as viewing freedom as chaos, is a knowingly or unknowingly return to the misunderstanding of 117 years ago. Iranian young people, this precious human capital who lately arrived to the stage, smashed all the outmoded forms and put a stop to that 117-year neglect through their spectacular street dance, explicit and out-bursting performances, tragic stand-up comedies, and post-dramatic presence.
There is a lot to say about the details of street performances. there is some good news concerning the response of theatre toward what has happened in Iranian streets recently; theatres are closing and some plays in nontheatrical locations keep running for a restricted number of people. There are whispers that say: must be novel; the relationship between theatre community members must be changed; the gathering and being together must be done in a more correct manner; new performative spaces must be considered; characters must be presented in their most real and necessary image and must be seen in relation to the form of their life; must consider the body, human body, political body, social body, space-aware body, natural body, civil body, moral body,thinking body, commodified body, poetic body, mechanized body, technological body, body of silence, body of speech and etc. All of them are novel ideas that would be considered by the theater. Despite the challenges, we must have faith in emerging young cultural capitals.