Observations: Uncensored Iran

Independent.co.uk

Theatre directors love to talk about pushing boundaries but, in Iran, where the boundaries are more strictly drawn than in most places, the phrase takes on a whole new meaning. "Happily, the artists are often cleverer than the censors," says Graham Sheffield, the Barbican's artistic director, who, along with head of theatre Louise Jeffreys, has trawled Tehran's International Theatre Festival over the last five years for the pick of the country's artists. In November, they present Iran: New Voices, a season of theatre, film and talks, including a Farsi-language Daedalus and Icarus with a Beckettian twist, and a one-woman show, in which the writer and photographer Haleh Anvari shoots down clichés about her life as an Iranian woman.

This year the volatile authorities in Tehran clamped down on the festival, cancelling several shows at the last minute and forcing others to adapt. But the performers have become adept at skirting around censorship, either silently mouthing the words that they are forbidden to say out loud on stage or using surtitles for the offending lines.

As for other boundaries, it is only in the last 13 years that mixed sex dramas have been permitted in Iranian theatres. Actresses must still wear the hijab and modest clothing at all times on stage and are not allowed to make any physical contact with their male counterparts. In the stalls though, it's an entirely different matter.

In Tehran, a night at the theatre is the top choice for young couples on dates. "The theatre is one of the few public places where men and women can sit together without attracting the wrath of the mullahs," says Sheffield. "And obviously it's in the dark which makes it rather attractive to potential lovers."