Naseh Kamgari

An Iranian Playwright, Theater Director and Stage-Lighting Designer

Naseh Kamgari is one of the most important contemporary Iranian playwrights who has written and published more than 20 plays and has concurrently appeared as a theater director and stage-lighting designer not only of his own works but also the plays of other Iranian contemporary playwrights since 1990s. He finished his BA in stage design at the College of Dramatic Arts in Tehran, Iran in 1988. In the same year, he attended and completed a professional course in France under the supervision of Joseph Svoboda in Maison de la Marionnette. Naseh received his master's degree in Dramatic Literature from the College of Dramatic Arts in Tehran in 1991. Nine years later, he completed a multimedia course in Portugal. Naseh attended a documentary filmmaking course at the Whistling Woods International Institute of Media, Design and Filmmaking in 1992. Concurrently, Naseh has been active as a professional theater artist. He has written several plays including Snakes and Ladders (1995) which was directed by Asghar Farhadi, an internationally recognized filmmaker who received two Oscars, Longing for Farhad  (1999), The Last Day of a Leap Year (2002), The Palm and the Shark (2003), A Roaring Lion (2004), Head for Bayonet (2005), The Poem of A Queenless Ant (2007), The Iceman and the Spring (2011), A Song at the end of the Dark Alley, etc. 

The Poem of A Queenless Ant 
directed by Naseh Kamgari (2007)

Naseh Kamgari is a storyteller, a fabulous adept raconteur, and focuses upon the dramatic storyline, for instance, in Longing for Farhad he builds up the characters, introduction, rises, climaxes, and return to the tragic denouement all through narrating the story of two old lovers meeting each other when one of them has decided to get married to someone else and move abroad. In The Poem of A Queenless Ant the playwright follow an episodic type of narration and different forms of narratives can be detected in each episode. The Queenless Ant is a three-episode romance beyond the borders of reality and the realistic frameworks of real life. In the first episode, the father goes to her ex-wife's flat to give her daughter a visit, but he stays behind the door for a long time and does not succeed to see her. We do not see his daughter as well until the second episode when she appears on the stage and we get to know her and their relationship under more logical circumstances. In the third episode, the storyline takes us to an entirely surrealistic poetic world. In fact, The Queenless Ant appears to be a poetic narration drawing the spectators' attention from a real environment to an abstract imaginary milieu through linguistic playfulness. 

The Iceman and the Spring directed by
Naseh Kamgari (2011) in Iran's National Theater

The Iceman and the Spring concentrated more on storytelling however the narration was more or less amorphous and asymmetric. In fact the past, present and future were mixed and restructured in the minds of the audience in a way that they could follow the deformed pattern of the actions and reactions in different time zones. The Iceman and the Spring which focuses upon the interpersonal conflicts when humans strive to forge genuine relationships, cultivates a wide range of generations through various inextricably intertwined stories in a modern structure. Apart from the play, Kamgari's set design in his recent performance of the play was largely in harmony with the main purposes of the dramatic situations and characters he has created. The stage design mirrored their unique traits to a great extent while playing a pivotal role in letting them present their stories and sharing their wishes with the audiences.  

Hoda Valee in The Eastern Night directed by
Naseh Kamgari (2017, Iran's National Theater)

In one of his recent plays called The Eastern Night he limits the time of his narration to the present and refused to use flashbacks. He simply referred to the past events to show their effects on the present lives of the characters. The Iranian playwright depicts a love triangle between an Iranian girl and two men, a German doctor (Thomas) and an Iranian folklore musician (Hooman) in The Eastern Night. The girl has married the German doctor to have the possibility of having her father cured while the musician who has fallen in love head over heels tends to act and start a love affair with her. He, disguised as an old taxi driver, gives the girl and her German husband a ride and take them home from the airport at the night they come to Iran. He makes his best attempts to take the girl, who used to be his student for four years, away from the German doctor but faces various impediment. This is a modern play about a short but intensive romantic confrontation of two men in love, one from Iran and the other one from the Europe and demonstrates how violent both could be. 

Hooman & Thomas in The Eastern Night

Naseh Kamgari believes that Iranian and European men could resort to violence in different ways. Hooman's acerbic violence or better to say anarchism is naked and visible according to his upbringing and cultural background whereas Thomas's is hidden behind some sort of civilized mannerism and a cultural mask. The playwright endeavors to show that violence is a universal phenomenon and the western civilization cannot conceal its role in it with accusing the Middle East as the center of violence. In his opinion, the violence in his play is the symbol of terrorism which has been growing in the Middle East and its grave repercussions affects the Europe. Despite the realistic form of the dramatic text, the set design goes beyond the realistic visual signs and creates a somehow expressionist space. In fact, Kamgari's unrealistic set design breaks the realistic standards of his play. He mixes the internal space of the flat with the external environment as well as uses the broken and frozen ceiling windows to remind the audience of a cold winter threatening the apartment. In the meantime, there is a sound effect at the beginning as well as the end referring us to a world moving towards some sort of collapse, "a world which is getting drowned" as the playwright said once.