Reviewed by:

• A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran by Nasser Rahmaninejad
• Suzi Elnaggar

Nasser Rahmaninejad is an Iranian artist who began working in theatre in 1959. During the Shah’s regime, he formed an independent theatre group called Mehr, which later became known as the Iran Theatre Association. His work in Iran spanned a period of cultural and political shifts, as well as strict censorship. After surviving both revolution and imprisonment, Rahmaninejad left Iran. He continues his work in theatre, now outside Iran, by writing and translating essays and articles, speaking and lecturing at academic institution and artistic spaces, and continuing to write plays, including My Heart, My Homeland (1995), One Page of Exile (1996), and Between the Grave and the Moon (2016). He now lives in the Bay Area in California.

Rahmaninejad’s memoir, A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran, is the story of a man, a country, and the love for theatre that keeps bringing them into conflict. In his opening chapter, Water (Aab), he relates the relationship of water to Iranians of his generation, opening with, “We did not have tap water” (p. 1). This opening perfectly encapsulates the flowing fluidity of the narrative that Rahmaninejad weaves through his memoir. Some tales, like the childhood of traditional Iranian theatre with neighborhood friends, are gentle eddies while others, like his early childhood memory of the death of his sister, Manijeh, are deep pools of memory in which we can barely see past the surface. Theatre flows throughout, first a small trickle, then a rushing river that significantly alters the course of his life as a young artist in pre-Revolution Iran.

Chapter One introduces the quality of the memoir, meditative and free flowing, focused on small details of life while building a narrative. In the next three chapters, Rahmaninejad recounts his childhood and years as a young man, before he became a well-known theatre practitioner in Iran. In Chapter Two, he recounts his very first [End Page 220] performance at two years old. However, the darker shades of memory creep in, as he reflects on the opium dens and the downtrodden women (saghi) that worked there. It was a family connection that started his love for theatre; his father’s second cousin, an actor and singer named Abdolvahab Shahidi provided free admission for his family to many plays, and this became a place of refuge for Rahmaninejad. In Chapters Three and Four, he recounts his efforts to establish himself as a professional theatre maker after high school but being unable to do so with any real stability—or without working for the Shah’s government. Here, Rahmaninejad begins to weave in his burgeoning political consciousness, and the events in both the country and his life that shaped his artistic journey.

In Chapter Five, Interlude, Rahmaninejad recounts a harrowing and some comical tale of his first serious encounter with SAVAK, the Iranian Secret Police. After intending to cross the border into Pakistan with several friends, he was apprehended. Their juvenile attempts to get themselves out of a situation way beyond their depth end with Rahmaninejad attempting to get back to Tehran, ragged and hungry, without money for the fare home. This interlude is one of the longer complete narratives in the book, and perfectly encompasses the feeling that Rahmaninejad would do anything to practice theatre—even things that he recounts later as unwise or risky decisions.

In Chapters Six through Eight, Rahmaninejad reminisces on the events that led him and other artistic friends to establish the Mehr Theatre Group and the Iranian Theatre Association. They began with adapting Miller’s Incident at Vichy, an endeavor for which they garnered American backing and support. As the group and Rahmaninejad grew more confident and established, they began to perform both original works and adaptations. As the theatre he put on grew bolder, SAVAK took an increased interest in Rahmaninejad and his compatriots. This interest eventually led to his arrest in 1971 and his detention...

审核人：

• 戏剧人物：纳赛尔·拉赫曼内贾德 ( Nasser Rahmaninejad)作为艺术家在伊朗的生存
• 苏兹埃尔纳格

纳赛尔·拉赫玛内贾德是一位伊朗艺术家，1959 年开始从事戏剧工作。在沙阿统治期间，他组建了一个名为 Mehr 的独立戏剧团体，后来被称为伊朗戏剧协会。他在伊朗的工作经历了一段文化和政治转变时期，以及严格的审查制度。在经历了革命和监禁之后，拉赫马内贾德离开了伊朗。他现在在伊朗境外继续他的戏剧工作，撰写和翻译散文和文章，在学术机构和艺术场所演讲和演讲，并继续创作戏剧，包括《我的心，我的祖国》(1995)、《流放的一页》 ( 1996 年）和坟墓与月球之间（2016 年）。他现在住在加利福尼亚湾区。

拉赫马内贾德的回忆录《剧院之人：作为艺术家在伊朗的生存》讲述了一个人、一个国家以及对戏剧的热爱使他们不断陷入冲突的故事。在他的开篇，水（Aab)，他将水与他那一代伊朗人的关系联系起来，开场白是“我们没有自来水”（第 1 页）。这个开场完美地概括了拉赫马内贾德在他的回忆录中编织的叙事的流动性。有些故事，比如与邻居朋友一起在传统伊朗戏剧中度过的童年，是温柔的旋涡，而另一些故事，比如他童年时对他妹妹玛尼耶 (Manijeh) 去世的记忆，是我们几乎无法透过表面看到的深渊记忆。剧院贯穿始终，先是细流，然后是湍急的河流，这极大地改变了他作为革命前伊朗年轻艺术家的生活轨迹。

第一章介绍了回忆录的质量，沉思和流畅，在构建叙事的同时关注生活的小细节。在接下来的三章中，拉赫马内贾德讲述了他在成为伊朗著名戏剧从业者之前的童年和青年岁月。在第二章中，他讲述了他两岁时的第一次[End Page 220]表演。然而，随着他对鸦片窝点和受压迫的妇女的反思，记忆中的黑暗阴影悄然出现（saghi) 在那里工作。正是家庭关系开始了他对戏剧的热爱。他父亲的第二个堂兄，演员兼歌手阿卜杜勒瓦哈布沙希迪为他的家人免费提供许多戏剧表演的机会，这成为拉赫马内贾德的避难所。在第三章和第四章中，他讲述了他在高中毕业后努力成为一名专业的戏剧制作人，但无法真正稳定地做到这一点——或者没有为沙阿政府工作。在这里，拉赫玛内贾德开始融入他蓬勃发展的政治意识，以及在这个国家和他的生活中塑造他的艺术之旅的事件。

在第五章插曲中，拉赫马内贾德讲述了他与伊朗秘密警察萨瓦克 (SAVAK) 的第一次严肃相遇的悲惨而滑稽的故事。在打算与几个朋友越过边境进入巴基斯坦后，他被捕了。拉赫马内贾德试图回到德黑兰，衣衫褴褛，饥肠辘辘，没有钱回家，他们的少年企图让自己摆脱困境。这个插曲是书中较长的完整叙述之一，完美地包含了拉赫马内贾德愿意为练习戏剧做任何事情的感觉——甚至是他后来叙述为不明智或冒险的决定的事情。

在第六章到第八章中，拉赫马内贾德回忆了促使他和其他艺术界朋友建立梅尔戏剧集团和伊朗戏剧协会的事件。他们从改编米勒在维希的事件开始，为此他们获得了美国的支持和支持。随着乐队和拉赫玛内贾德变得更加自信和稳固，他们开始表演原创作品和改编作品。随着他上演的戏剧越来越大胆，萨瓦克对拉赫马内贾德和他的同胞们产生了越来越大的兴趣。这种兴趣最终导致他于 1971 年被捕并被拘留……