TEHRAN – A stage reading of the comedy play “Death Knocks” by Woody Allen will take place on Saturday at the Mehr Hall of the Tehran Art Bureau.

Alireza Gilanpur will lead the reading performance with her troupe consisting of Farhad Besharati and Hamidreza Moradi. Gilanpur will also play a role in the comedy.

The play takes place in the bedroom of Nat Ackerman’s two-story house somewhere in Kew Gardens, in the Borough of Queens, New York.

The carpet is wall to wall. There is a large double bed and a large dressing table. The room is richly furnished and covered with curtains, and on the wall there are several paintings and a not particularly attractive barometer.

Soft theme music plays as the curtain rises. Nat Ackerman, a balding, paunchy 57-year-old clothes maker is lying on the bed finishing tomorrow’s Daily News.

He wears a bathrobe and slippers and reads by the light of a bed lamp hanging from the white headboard of the bed. It’s almost midnight. Suddenly, we hear a noise, and Nat sits up and looks out the window.

In “Death Knocks”, Woody Allen offers a new treatment of a classic theme: a man seeing himself on an ultimate mission manages to save time on the inevitability of death by challenging a personified death to a game which he wins, thus gaining temporary time. reprieve.

“Death Knocks” has already been performed by various troupes in Iran.

The latest was director Shaahin Ramezani’s group, who performed the play during the 2020 Fajr International Theater Festival in Tehran. Ramezani previously directed “Death Knocks” at Iran Tamasha Theater Hall in Tehran.

The reading performance of “Death Knocks” is part of the office’s “A Laugh on Stage” program, which features comedic plays by the world’s most famous playwrights.

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett and “The Swan Song” and “A Marriage Proposal” by Anton Chekhov have already been performed by different groups on the program.

Pictured: A poster for the stage reading of Woody Allen’s comedy play ‘Death Knocks’ at the Tehran Art Office.

MMS/YAW