Paddling palms and pinching fingers are at the heart of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale but none were on display on a Tehran stage last night as the bard became an ambassador for Britain in a land once synonymous with anti-western sentiment.
The mere suggestion of men and women touching on stage was enough to make a ground-breaking event out of Britain’s first cultural exchange with Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
But the performance by the Dundee Repertory Theatre Company is also part of an initiative by the British Council to open hearts and minds in the Muslim world.
The story of King Leontes’ jealousy was performed to a sold-out theatre packed with university students, academics and artists hungry for more cultural contact with the west.
”Opportunities like this come so rarely. We only see foreign theatre productions once a year and to get the chance to see Shakespeare performed by a British cast is just incredible,” said Mohamad Reza, a drama student.
The actresses wore head scarves or hejab and modest costumes, and some of the more bawdy lines were dropped from the play.
But the production was nevertheless stretching the limits of the permissible in a society that is debating how to balance Islamic customs and modern influences.
The Winter’s Tale tells how King Leontes is gripped by irrational jealousy about the relationship between his queen, Hermione, and his childhood friend Polixenes. He orders Polixenes’ death and sends his queen to prison where she gives birth to a daughter he refuses to acknowledge.
In one scene, Leontes rages about Hermione ”paddling palms and pinching fingers and making practised smiles” with his friend. This contact has had to be cut and is implied instead.
”Men and women are not allowed to touch on stage. As the whole play hinges on a touch of the hands between a man and a woman, this presents a challenge,” said Hamish Glen, the artistic director of the Dundee group.
In some cases the cast has relied on body language and simulated touches to get the play’s message across.
”You have to find other means to convey affection,” said Claire Dargo, who plays the king’s daughter, Perdita. ”So we tried to stand very close and lean in.” Normally, her character wears a revealing summer dress but for the Tehran production Dargo wore a long gown with long sleeves and a high neck.
Right up until the day before the opening night, the play’s director, Dominic Hill, was prepared to alter some scenes depending on what the festival organisers decided would be acceptable.
”When I asked ‘can I do this?’, the answer I got was ‘preferably not’, which was usefully ambiguous,” Hill said. ”Because of these conditions, the words become more important. It makes the actors think a lot more about what they’re saying. And there’s a kind of tension precisely because they are not touching.”
Following September 11, the British Council launched a programme to build bridges between young people in Britain and Muslim countries, and last night’s performance takes place in association with its Connecting Futures initiative.
Rosemary Hilhorst, director of Connecting Futures, said: ”We are not going to change the minds of terrorists but hopefully we can influence and work with those who want to work with us.
”It is not just the arts. What we’re trying to do is get young people together through common interests they share — sport, science or the arts.”
Last year the British Council commissioned a poll which revealed that the hatred felt by the September 11 hijackers was not shared by the majority of young people in Muslim countries. Muslim youth ranked the United States as their most admired country in the world and placed Britain fourth after Japan and Egypt.
Many more projects are planned in the coming months and the council has devoted a budget of £18m to working in the Muslim world over the next four years.
Other arts projects in the pipeline include a show of British sculpture, also in Iran, with work by Barbara Hepworth and Rachel Whiteread, and a weekly two-hour radio show of British pop and indie music for Indonesia.
Despite official denunciation of western consumerism, young Iranians are eager for more exposure to the west.
”From the bottom of our hearts we would really like to see more films and plays and art from the outside world,” Maryam, a 25-year-old Tehran drama student, told the Guardian.
”We want to meet and speak to artists from other countries. Tell the British people we love their theatre and invite them to come here.”
The last time British actors performed Shakespeare in Iran was in 1971, when Derek Jacobi played Hamlet. – Guardian Unlimited Â