Nightmares and Memories of a Bath Attendant: The Life and Murder of Amir Kabir

First staged in 1977 at Tehran City Theatre, this play portrays the life of Mirza Taghi Khan Farahani, a reformist politician who was ultimately exiled and murdered in a bathhouse.

The 2015 revival by Ali Rafiei introduced a renewed approach through innovative stage techniques, including the construction of a fully realized bathhouse on stage, immersing the audience in the mental and emotional experience of the bathhouse attendant, who serves as the narrator of the story.

Through the expressive use of light and color, the performance renders key moments of the Qajar era’s obscured history as impressionistic tableaux, inviting the audience to encounter historical truth through erased and marginalized narratives rather than official records.

Working as assistant director with an experienced director offered me profound lessons in set design and the expressive potential of gesture. Each scene in this production was crafted as a living tableau, where actors’ gestures carried the weight of meaning and emotion, often even more than the dialogue itself.

This approach deeply shaped my own directing practice, particularly in The History Boys, where the interplay between gesture and stage design amplifies the narrative and draws the audience into a more intimate, embodied experience of the performance.

• Vahdat Hall – November and December 2015
• Fadjr International Theatre Festival (FITF), Tehran, Iran – Featured in the 34th International Category – January 2016

• Siamak Safari
• Mehdi Soltani
• Maryam Saadat
• Mostafa Sasani
• Nasrin Derakhshanzadeh
• Sara Rasoulzadeh
• Forough Ghajabagli
• Zoheir Yari
• Abbas Jamali

Duration
140 Minutes

• Performances: 35
• Audience: ~25,000

• Project Executive: Majid Giyahchi
• Producer: Ali Rafiei