“Blind Runner”: running for exile

In the middle of an empty scene, two lonely souls face to face. She, activist and prisoner of the Iranian regime. Him, free as the air, but locked behind his own bars, those of fear and paranoia. Here they are in the visiting room, the only space for communication - under observation - where the possibility of freedom - illusory? – through a crazy bet: going, for him, to run a marathon in France alongside a young blind woman, the victim of buckshot during a demonstration. But the young one-eyed Iranian (played by Ainaz Azarhoush, who plays the two female roles in the play) will want to push her journey even further, to England, in order to ask for asylum by crossing the 27 kilometers of the tunnel under the sleeve…

Woven around three destinies, the play Blind Runner, presented as part of the Autumn Festival, is a moving apnea dive behind the scenes of the young Iranian protest, between resistance, repression and exile. We cannot help but see in it a burning echo of the demonstrations of the Women, Life, Freedom movement which set Iran ablaze after the death, a year ago, of a young woman of Kurdish origin, Mahsa Amini , killed by the moral police for a poorly worn scarf. We also think of the tireless Narges Mohammadi, imprisoned human rights activist, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose missives exfiltrated from Evin prison say it all with these words which defy the imposed silence. No reference, obviously to all these events.

But the strength of this play, where the actor Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh plays the male role, lies in his ability to suggest without naming anything, to make us slip into the flesh and hearts of the protagonists, tracksuits and sneakers on their feet, on this stage refined where their image projected on the walls, but in a well-defined framework, amplifies the impression of confinement and claustrophobia. The dialogues are raw and poetic. They oscillate between humor, love, anguish and mistrust. What is the meaning of monitored speech? Who is lying? Who is telling the truth, when you also have to hide your own dross, so as not to worry your loved one?

So here they are, on this stage without decoration, embarked on a hellish marathon where only the race, and the breath it causes, tries to keep them alive. We clearly recognize the incisive and transgressive look of Amir Reza Koohestani on his country, his society. The Iranian playwright from Shiraz, the city of poets, accustomed us to these minimalist frescoes – we remember the moving Dance on Glasses , produced in Tehran in the early 2000s, then performed in Europe – or its free adaptation of Anna Seghers' novel, Transit. This time, in sixty perfectly calibrated minutes, he engages in an even more dizzying exercise in staging and mise en abyme with the acuity of a sociologist and the precision of a miniaturist.

“Blind Runner”, at the Théâtre de la Bastille (Paris 12th), until October 20. www.theatre-bastille.com