Isfahan's International Festival for Children and Young Adults by Robert Morgan

The publicity of the 15th Isfahan International Theatre Festival for Children and Young People was so effective that it drew many more people than the organizers had hoped for – both a challenge and a triumph. People had come from nearby cities to see the works and the 600-seat-plus theatres would fill to overflowing. For many this was their first introduction to theatre, particularly foreign works and their engagement and response was generous – and at times with ‘Morgan’s Journey,’ lavish!

The Festival organizers asked us to present an excerpt of ‘Morgan’s Journey’ at the closing ceremony to be performed in a large theatre/auditorium for 2,500 people and the event was to be broadcast live on television throughout Iran. That fact that we were the only company presenting at the festival that was invited to perform was an indication of how well the play had been received and we were honored to oblige… however, as the evening unfolded, we became less than enthusiastic.

We were already tired and the night proved to be exhausting. There were no back-stage facilities other than one concrete basement room that was filled with hundreds of young Iranian children getting into costumes and makeup and squealing to each other about what they had either forgotten or needed to do next. We had to leave the room in order to hear the event coordinator’s instructions to us and Robert changed into his costume in the back seat of a car parked outside.

There was no technical set up before the presentation. The stage was cluttered with banners, sculptures, life-size dolls and puppets, un-tethered balloons wafted about everywhere and five or six robot-like lighting devices that moved about seemingly of their own freewill spread impressive whirling beams of light in all directions - including out into the audience. Sporadic bursts of gunshots, that startled the daylights out of us each time they sounded, catapulted sprays of bits of coloured paper onto the stage and this happened throughout the evening, seemingly at random.

There was one follow-spot set up at the back of the hall and we chose to use just that, fearful of what would happen if the robot-lights got involved. What I did not realize at the time was that my performance was upstaged by a simultaneous broadcast of the proceedings on a huge screen behind me.

The 10-minute excerpt/presentation of ‘Morgan’s Journey’ was a stark contrast to the other acts that appeared during the three-hour extravaganza. The MC for the night was a young and energetic version of what I recall of Game-Show Television hosts, with the addition of a Paul Anka/Wayne Newton approach to songs, which he reveled in, often. The other acts we saw were loud and raucous, relying heavily on huge speakers that pounded out lots of base… and the place was shakin’! I wonder now if perhaps it was a kind of condoned defiance to the traditional rejection of negative Western influences – and at that point I was considering much of the loud fanfare and super-amplified base a definitely negative aspect of Western culture.

Interestingly enough, in the face of all of this, Anahita reckons that it was one of the two best performances of our entire tour. She based this on her perception of the audience response, which she was able to gauge better than I, who, blinded by the spotlight and struggling in terribly twisted tights felt distracted and separated from the audience – which just goes to show that performers can be the least qualified to judge the effectiveness of any given performance. I leave it to Anahita to describe what she saw.

“In that 10-minute segment, Robert was able to connect with the audience of 2,500, make them feel proud of their hospitality, get to their hearts individually and respond communally with a joy they hadn’t experienced in the theatre before. They were beyond themselves. He left the Iranian theatre community in awe, asking “ How did one person do that?””