O’NEILL IN IRAN

When I arrived in Tehran in the fall of ‘56 as a Smith-Mundt lecturer on American drama at the University, I was asked to present lectures on the leading U.S. playwrights, as well as organize a dramatic club. For the latter I suggested a production of Sidney Howard’s Yellow Jack since American doctors were at the time involved In fighting certain contagious diseases. However, Dr. Siassi, the distinguished head of the School of Letters, doubted that a Persian audience could accept a play dealing with disease as dramatic; so we substituted Billy Budd, recently a success in the U.S., on which Louis Coxe, my colleague in the Bowdoin English Department, had collaborated and which had the advantage of requiring an entirely male cast. (Actresses in Iran at that time were suspect!)

The play was shown with some success early in ‘57, but the University authorities were embarrassed when the press hailed it as an attack on authority. I was considered politically subversive! For a second production Dr. Siassi accepted Behrman’s Second Man, a high comedy requiring a cast of two men and two women. I was fortunate in having four skilled actors who fitted the parts and took it to Isphahan for a tryout during the No Ruz (New Year) vacation, starting the 21st of March. It was enthusiastically received, and the local theatre director congratulated me on having introduced kissing on his stage. When we returned to Tehran, I was asked to redirect the play to cover the kisses and to remove the ingenue from an actor’s lap to the arm of his chair. Not wishing to be considered sexually subversive, I did so, despite the public objection of the company.

Meanwhile, my lectures had proceeded from Uncle Tom’s Cabin through contemporary plays, among which those of O’Neill were most popular. I was asked, following the tryout of Second Man in Isphahan, to lecture on O’Neill at Abadan. Two young Iranians approached me after the lecture for permission to use it as an introduction to their translation of the S.S. Glencairn one-acts into Farsi.

When I returned to Tehran as a Fulbright lecturer in ‘62, I was delighted to see a performance at the Armenian theatre of O’Neill’s Ile, with excellent design by Arbe Ovanessian. I’d been reading the Arthur and Barbara Gelb biography of O’Neill and proposed directing three of his autobiographical plays: Ah, Wilderness! with a cast of University students, supplemented by older actors from my earlier visit, at the University’s Fine Arts Theatre; Long Day’s Journey into Night with a cast of American and English actors in English, alternating with a cast of my former students in Farsi, at the newly completed Iran-America Theatre; followed by The Straw with a cast of young professionals from Dr. Vala’s theatre school, also at the Iran-America building at Jalallabad, halfway up the hill to Shimran.

Ah, Wilderness! is of course the boyhood Eugene wished he’d had, but it is laid at his boyhood home, as is Long Day’s Journey. My former interpreter Bijan Mofid translated the play into Farsi and played the father, and one of my less inhibited former actresses the prostitute. For scenery, we used screens which could be reversed for the barroom scene, and we actually located a player piano. I switched from lobsters to chickens after finding what it would cost to fly the former from Istanbul, and an overturned rowboat in a blue spot did nicely for the beach scene.

On the day of the scheduled opening, to which many notables had been invited, I dropped in on my friend and strong supporter, Dean Ali Kani, to make sure that all was ready. While talking with him, I saw a battalion of rod-carrying men, dressed as peasants, invading the campus. The University students had recently demonstrated against the Shah, and this group hunted down every student in sight. Our opening had to be postponed but eventually was well received for several performances.

For Long Day’s Journey, which we hoped to troupe outside of Tehran, Arbe Ovanessian designed a splendid setting which could be folded for touring. The translation into Farsi was done, by a young poet, after a competition judged by three previous translators of O’Neill. The English-speaking cast were all amateurs. Many of the audience--especially Iranians wishing to test their English--came to the alternating English performances during the week’s run. With identically cut texts, the English version ran three hours--the Farsi four hours! Iranian actors love to milk a script for all that’s in it.