in the labyrinth of forestial sunspots i will always vanquish the dreaded beasts
2022
Amir Parsa
A play (Photo documentation)
The play must be performed in the forest.
The dialogue/polylogue takes place with just one actor.
The performer carries with them a curtain on their shoulder/back as
they move from one sunspot to another. Carry the curtain like a
burden. Carry the curtain like a backpack.
They place the curtain on a tree branch, or a support of some kind,
hold it up, and pull it back as they begin the monologue at each
sunspot.
Who is this person? The wrongly accused. The jailed dissident. The mad
poet prophet. Or just a lost soul withering away (in prison?)
imagining the play in the forest? The fantasy as the only way out…
The person becoming actor. Their monologue becoming theater. Their
life, becoming play. The denuding of the process of making
theatre–creating performance–to exorcize demons.
The audience follows the actor/performer as the latter moves from one
sunspot to another. At times, audience participation, interjections,
questions, are encouraged, prompted, allowed. The public follows–and
becomes audience–as the curtain is dropped/pulled.
The ambiguous unfolding invites the public to reimagine their own
situations, their own roleplaying, their own masks and selves. With
all the elements of theatre ever-present: the sunspot as the
spotlight, the curtain as the only key artifact.
An unfolding that forces the public to wonder if, after all, in this
labyrinth, the performance is about nothing other than the attempt at
creating a play that allows each and everyone to escape. And to
wonder: how did I get here–and how do I find my way back.
in the labyrinth of forestial sunspots i will always vanquish the
dreaded beasts
