Three Tall Persian Women By Awni Abdi-Bahri
World Premiere at Shakespeare & Company
By: Charles Giuliano - Sep 09, 2024
Three Tall Persian Women
By Awni Abdi-Bahri
Shakespeare & Company
Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre
August 30 to October 13
World Premiere
Director, Dalia Ashurina
Set design, Omid Akbari; Lighting, Erika Johnson; Costumes, Andrea Herrera; Sound, Bryan Scharenberg; Intimacy director, Atalanta Siegel
Cast: Goinar (Abdi-Bahri), Mamani (Lanna Joffrey), Shayan (Afsheen Misaghi), Nasrin (Niousha Noor).
It has been a year since the death of Nasrin’s (Niousha Noor) husband. An enlarged photo of him is displayed on an easel in a Laguna Hill, California home compactly and effectively designed by Obid Akbari. It is traditional that on the first anniversary family and friends gather to celebrate a life.
The playwright, Awni Abdi-Bahri, who plays the daughter Goinar, is asleep on a pullout sofa in front of a studio piano. She wakes in a cluttered space in her underwear interrupted by her mother Nasrin (Niousha Noor).
Goinar, who lives in New York, has just graduated from an MFA program. She has a notebook which contains a first novel. A life in the arts is hard in NY, in asides, there is the option that a visit in honor of her father might last longer. The mother jumps on the health and climate benefits of moving back home.
But not in this clutter, Goinar strikes back. There are boxes everywhere and no room for her. There is an argument about the need to hold on to what hovers between sentimental heirlooms and worthless trash. Goinar has a plan to sell cherry picked items on line.
To demonstrate, she posts a listing for a small Persian rug at a fraction of its actual value. After some back and forth and conversion of currencies it originally cost about $6,000. Within minutes there is a bid which freaks out Nasrin. The posting is quickly taken down. The sell off continues, however, with two TVs and some silver spoons. The money will possibly finance an apartment in LA.
The trope of this drama is the dichotomy of clinging to the past or moving on in the present. It is presented over three generations of Tall Persian women. Before she appears mother and daughter banter that Mamani (Lanna Joffrey) is a right wing Republican. That’s not unusual for first generation immigrants intent on being true Americans and patriots. Her political zeal becomes a caricature as she rhapsodizes about the good old days under the Shah.
This jingoism, played as over the top and comical, is performed with Joffrey’s impossible to decipher “Persian” accent. The early phases of the drama conveyed a delicately calibrated interaction and generational differences between mother and daughter. The balance is tipped, and not for the better, by the Persian tsunami that is Mamani. While meant to be ethnic, eccentric, and endearing she is instead quite overbearing.
Joffrey might have been pulled back into a more balanced role by director Dalia Ashurina. Letting her off the leash undermined a plausible, measured, and insightful view of three generations of women who happen to be tall and Persian. The generational conflicts that Abdi-Bahri presents are universal and would have been better presented as such.
There is a lot about men and sex. While Goinar is liberated and independent Nasrin knew only one man. They produced one child and Nasrin wonders whether either of them derived any pleasure in the process. She gave up a potential career as an architect to be a stay at home mom. The abandoned text books are in the boxes that she can’t bring herself to discard. In a glimpse of revenge we see Nasrin trash her daughter’s manuscript.
Resentment surfaces that Goinar can spread her legs for whomever she pleases including, but not limited to, women. The pronoun they is dangled provocatively.
As a queen for the Shah granny had five children. Even she has a take on sex. Singing “Happy Graduation” she presents a bag of gifts to her granddaughter and insists that they be opened. Evoking a burst of laughter one proves to be a bright red vibrator. Milked for laughs she prevails that it is a means of deriving pleasure while avoiding pregnancy.
There is a plot to get Goinar married off. Shayan, a super eligible bachelor is coming to the memorial. He and Goinar grew up together and he is now a successful executive for Google. Nasrin hopes that he will fix her laptop which has a virus.
There is immediate mutual friction and resentment at a setup when he arrives with flowers. That frosty reception later melts into a steamy hookup.
Mamani will serve tea. But she has run out and finds the small decorative box which Goinar has been looking for. Inadvertently, she serves magic mushroom tea. The playwright has exploited this improbable device to ratchet up a domestic comedy to warp speed mayhem. There is hilarity as the actors portray being utterly zonked. The doorbell rings, as guests arrive, that ends act one.
Up to now Shayan has been well mannered eye candy. Unbuttoning his shirt, in the manner of a rock star, he belts out, rather badly but hilariously, Queen’s anthem “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The topper is that in his delirium he has appropriated the vibrator as an ersatz mic.
The play winds down with pieces falling in place. No spoilers here so you will have to find out for yourself. Kudos to Shakespeare & Company, a traditional company, for providing opportunities to gifted, emerging playwrights.