Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi

 

A Contemporary Iranian Playwright (1938-)

by Reza Shirmarz

Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi is a fictionist, playwright, and essayist, however, this article will take a short look only at his dramatic works and playwriting style. I hope to have the opportunity in the future to get back to him and shed some light on his fiction writing as well.

Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi under the pseudonym Gohar-Morad (meaning the optimal and favorable essence), was born in 1935 in Tabriz. He finished his studies in his hometown and got involved in political activities when he was 16 years old (in 1951). He published several newspapers such as So'ood (Rise), Faryad (Outcry), and The Youth in Azerbaijan and published his first literary works in these newspapers as well. He was imprisoned for a couple of months serving in September 1953. He was admitted to the Medical School of Tabriz University in 1955 and published his first long story titled The Houses of Ray City in 1957. He was the leader of the student movement and strikes at the University of Tabriz in 1958. He graduated from the Medical School in 1961 and went to do his compulsory military service in Tehran and decided to reside there for the rest of his life. He and his brother began their medical career in a 24-hour clinic in Tehran while he kicked off his literary career and got acquainted with several well-known Iranian writers and artists in 1963. 

He went to a famous hospital in Tehran called Roozbeh and did a specialization course in Psychoneurology in the same period. He wrote and published many plays, books, articles, and short stories in this decade. Sa'edi founded and ran a seasonal magazine titled Alephba (Alphabet) in 1973 which was stopped in its 6th issue because he was arrested again, sent to serve in Qezel-Qaleh and Evin prisons, and spent more than a year in solitary confinement. He was invited by Pen America to give some speeches in the US in 1978. He was interviewed several times there and signed several contacts with Random House publications for his works to be translated and published in English across the world. He had a short trip to the UK as well. At the beginning of the 1980s, he was threatened by the newly-established regime of Ayatollahs for writing a story called Retribution and left the country through Pakistan and took shelter in France. He continued his literary activities in Paris and published 6 more issues of Alephba from 1982 to 1984.

Most of Sa'edi's plays were published under the pseudonym Gohar-Morad and, overall, he has been one of the best and most prolific Iranian fiction writers, playwrights, and essayists. He focused mostly on psychological problems in his first writings and presented the impoverished characters who end up in insanity or death due to their monotonous lifestyle, absurd full-time work, and social insecurity. He gradually turned to sociopolitical issues and gave his audiences a profound psychological analysis of what was happening in Iran at that time. Human failure or surrender on personal and social levels is an inseparable part of his writings even when he talks about society and how it is constrained by the circle of power under totalitarian regimes. Although the ideal woman plays the main role in a few of his works, most of his female characters are old or they are involved in prostitution. The young Iranian women do not have a significant part in his stories or are mostly clumsy, light-minded, rackety, or voluptuous and therefore, fully disappointed. Generally speaking, in Sa'edi's writings most human relations are illustrated as unhealthy, aggressive, and ill-mannered and there is little room for kindness, sympathy, and affection. His works are also not limited to the elite, high culture, or the residents of the capital city. He has managed to create a handful of stories about the people living in different parts of Iran from the southern to the northern provinces. He has written well-made stories and plays about the rural culture due to his deep familiarity with the Iranian villagers and their characteristics. In summary, Sa'edi has managed to give us a precise and well-structured image of Iranian culture and civilization especially when it comes to creating suspense or describing the historical events (especially the history of the Persian Constitutional Revolution), revealing the roots of poverty, disease, failure, absurdity, madness and death in human daily life.

The Plays by Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi

Workaholics in Trenches

(1960)

Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi with Ahmad Shamlou

A play in three acts. Location: Khuzestan. Date: 1950s. In the first act, Batul, the maiden of a couple called Maryam and Jalal (an engineer), has a bitter quarrel with Maryam and leaves her job attracted to a truck chauffeur. Maryam is deeply shocked by her maiden's rudeness while her husband, Jalal, over-busy with his work, does not pay enough attention to her. Jalal is about to start a cooperative company of sulfur mines in Khuzestan while they have recently lost their only child. Maryam feels exhausted and totally devastated. At the second half of the first act, we see George, a worker recently fired from the sulfur mine,  who comes looking for Jalal to warn him about his assistant secretly plotting against him with the local wealthy residents. In the second act, two local workers join Jalal to complain about the administration of the mining company. Other residents of the city also complain about the ovens of Jalal's company which has harmed their palm trees and lowered their only source of income, but Jalal does not listen to them or care about the complaints and threats. In the third act of the play, the inauguration ceremony is held in the presence of the governor and other authorities when the police rush in and arrest Jalal and the people around him because of the secret frame-up of the well-off inhabitants of the city.

The Flower Hamlet

(1961)

The Flower Hamlet in Farsi,
published in Negah Publication,
3rd Edition (2019)

A play in three acts. Location: Kalateh Gol. Date: 1931. In the first act, Mahdi Qorram and his wife, Pari, decide to go to their mansion in Kalateh Gol immediately after they get married. Her brother who is a doctor goes with them as well. They all want to relax a bit and stay there if Pari agrees with them. In spite of her anxiety, she falls in love with the pleasant freshness of the countryside life and the villagers' kindness and promises to her husband not to leave no matter what. Speaking about the village, Mahdi mentions that even the king has stopped by the area on his way and has stayed a while due to its astonishing nature and perfect weather. He receives a letter from the government to hand over the ownership of the village to the central real estate office and become, in return, the owner of three lands in Khuzestan. In the second act, Mahdi sends the office a letter and lets them know about his negative answer to their request. Pari's brother is against his impulsive reaction and endeavors to come up with a reasonable decision. Finally, the agent of the governmental office with several soldiers comes to their mansion and sets a 24-hour deadline for them to hand over the village and leave as soon as possible. Mahdi gives in after a long resistance against the state's decision when his assistant is beaten badly by the soldiers. In the third act of the play, Mahdi calls the magistrates of Kalateh Gol to a meeting and shares the decision of the government with them. The magistrates who love Mahdi and Pari as their decent righteous landlords, come up with a revengeful decision and decide to burn everything to the ground before they leave the village.

Club Wielders of Varazil

(1965)

A Stage performance of Club Wielders
of Varazil (1977), directed by Jafar Vali
in Sangelaj Theater in Tehran

A one-act play. The inhabitants of a village called Varazil get together to find a solution for the boars that have already destroyed the farming land of Moharram, one of the villagers. They decide to scare the boars away with the sound of beating drums.  Before they can lay their hands on the drums and implement their plan, Moharram who feels betrayed due to their temporary solution to his devastated land steals the drums. The next day, we get to know that Asadollah's land is destroyed by the boars and he suggests they reach out to the neighboring village and ask for their advice and assistance. Asadollah, another farmer, steps forward and goes to negotiate with the neighboring farmers. He informs the villagers when he comes back home that there are two hunters on their way to come and stay in their village for a while until they find the boars and eliminate them. The hunters are sent by an absent character called Monsieur. Asadollah tells them that they need to accommodate them until they can kill the beasts and bring the farmers back to normal life. The residents of Varazil now feel jubilant and have arranged suitable accommodation. After a while, we see that there is no boar left in the village. They are all dead or scared away and the village is safe again, but the villagers have nothing to eat because the hunters have wolfed down every bit of their crops. Even they are not going to leave. Their teeth have grown like boars and they have become the new grave issue threatening the lives of the villagers. Asadollah says at some point that "They screwed us all. They gabbled down whatever we had. They're fucking insatiable. We're a bunch of beggars now. No more accommodation... enough is enough!" The villagers go back to Monsieur and ask for help to get rid of the gluttonous and aggressive hunters. Monsieur sends them another couple of hunters to eliminate the previous ones. In the final scene, when the new hunters face the old hunters, they point their weapons towards each other. After a short time, the hunters unite, turn, and point their guns towards the destitute villagers. 

Text analysis. Old and new colonialism is the main idea of Club Wielders of Varazil. It is an anti-colonial dramatic work that demonstrates how the poorer countries are exploited and plundered by the rich developed ones. In the meantime, the playwright is profoundly pessimistic about the modernization process of Iran imposed by external forces. He believes that the developed countries that claim to bring the third world a gift of democracy and progression, in fact, seek any opportunity to benefit from their resources and take their wealth away at any price, even war and destruction. Sa'edi depicts that we live in a world ruled by vicious boars and the weaker countries never have the chance to open up and experience the welfare and freedom monopolized by the well-off countries. Abuse of power in the form of endless wars and violence are other insurmountable issues presented in this play. The playwright tries to dramatize the fact that the advanced countries invade the less well-off ones in various ways to provide them with peace and prosperity while their real intention is to lay their hands on their resources and benefit from their wealth or sell weapons in large quantities. Moharram is the only character who defies the status quo, criticizes the rotten traditions, and warns the villagers about the eminent catastrophe they are going to face, but nobody believes him at all. Another social issue proposed by Sa'edi is the ignorance of the third world about the abusive and exploitive intentions of the so-called first world towards their cultural background as well as their wealth of resources.

The World's Best Dad

(1965)

The World's Best Dad (1965), Sa'edi is sitting
between Hadi and Hoda. Other actors are 
Ali-Akbar Sa'edi (on the right), Jamshid
Mashayekhi, Jafar Vali, Ezzatollah Entezami,
Reza Seyyed Hosseini, Siroos Tahbaz, &
Ali Nasirian.

A play in four acts. Telling them fascinating stories and giving them a fictitious heroic image of their father, Baba-Ali has made Hadi and Hoda feel good about their imprisoned dad. He has spent time serving as a thief after the death of his wife. After a while, he comes back to see his children and they cannot believe that such a weak, poor, and ugly man is their heroic and handsome dad as described by Baba-Ali, the uncle of the children. Feeling deeply disappointed, the father puts the blame on Baba-Ali's shoulder and sees his fictitious stories about himself as the main cause of such a dangerous conflict. Baba-Ali suggests he play a different role for now and pretend not to be their father. On the other hand, based upon a dream he has seen, Hadi convinces Hoda and Fattah, a young abnormal man, that the person who introduced himself as their father is, in fact, a criminal and is planning to murder their dad shortly when he comes to take them away. Hadi has almost convinced Fattah to kill their fake dad when Ali-Baba interferes and tries to trick the kids by introducing the man as a wretched, destitute, and pitiable father who does not have children anymore. He invites Hadi and Hoda to go and revisit the desperate dad who is ready to play the role of Hoppi (an animal killed already by Fattah) and make them happy. Baba-Ali endeavors to connect them to each other and create a sense of friendship between the kids and their delinquent father. 

Long A, Short A

(1965)

Long A, Short A (1967), directed by Jafar Vali.
Ezzatollah Entezami (standing on the balcony),
Parviz Fannizadeh, Ali Nasirian, Manuchehr
Farid and Mahin Shahabi

A play in two parts. Location: contemporary Tehran. In the first part called Short A, an old man is standing in the alley with his daughter. He has seen an odd creature entering into an abandoned house. He tries to warn the neighbors but both of them are scared and do not dare to step forward and inform the people. Eventually, the neighbors informed by one of the residents come out of their houses and listen to the old man describing the horrible creature. They think that he is under a delusion and therefore, hallucinating. One of the neighbors is a doctor and ensures everybody that there is no such thing and it is better for everyone to relax and get back home. The people discuss the matter in a panicked way while nobody dares to step into the dilapidated building and reveal the reality. Amid the chaos, an old woman steps out of the abandoned house with a huge doll in his hands carrying a lot of knick-knacks with her. In the play's second part, Long A, a group of criminals enter the abandoned house. Two men have seen them breaking into the house but nobody believes them at all and instead, the neighbors make fun of or swear at them. In the end, the neighbors take sleeping pills and go to bed to avoid the panic they are warned about. Now the criminals get out of the house and prepare for a large-scale plunder.

Sa'edi's other plays: 

Five Play on the Constitutional Revolution (1966), Khaneh Roshani (1966), Dictation & Angle (1969), The Flattened Lot (1969), Woe to the Vanquished (1970), The Successor (1970), An Eye for an Eye (1972), An End to Endless Writing (1975), Honeymoon (1987), Otello in the Wonderland (1996), A Snake in the Temple (1993), Zahhak (1998), The Birds in the Stable (1999) & The Uproar Creators & The Rain (2001).