'Mysterious Gifts' performance from Iran bridges cultural, political divide

When the curtain rises on the play "Mysterious Gifts: Theatre of Iran," the young audience members at Seattle Children's Theatre will see a lithe, athletic performer regale them with stomping, saber-wielding, acrobatic folk dances of his native land, followed by ethereal, dreamlike playlets with puppet figures and billowing smoke effects.

They will know that Yaser Khaseb, the award-winning Iranian stage artist who created the show, has come a long way to perform for them.

But they may not be aware of just how far he has traveled — not only in actual miles, but in the political and cultural distance separating two nations.

Khaseb and several Iranian theater colleagues (including his production-assistant wife Shimah Khaseb) are here at the invitation of Seattle Children's Theatre artistic director Linda Hartzell.

And given the U.S. economic sanctions against Iran, Iran's continuing nuclear work and the geopolitical tensions inflamed by the country's disputed 2009 presidential election, cultural exchanges like this one are extremely rare — and very hard to pull off.

That did not deter Hartzell, who instituted the Connecting Stories program at her theater to pursue such international collaborations.

"I want our kids to know what's out there in the world, to experience how we're all different and how we're the same," Hartzell said in a recent interview.

Added Khaseb (in Farsi, through a translator), "I'm very happy to finally come here. I'm eager to learn more about your theater and to introduce people to Iranian culture. We want to start a friendship, through theater and art."

Realizing that simple wish took months of patient, painstaking efforts.

The process began last year, while Hartzell was in Amsterdam meeting with Dutch theater colleagues involved in the Connecting Stories project. They urged her to check out the work of the 27-year old writer-director-actor Khaseb, who had toured to acclaim in Canada, Europe and Asia and was also visiting the Netherlands.

Hartzell recalled first seeing Khaseb perform "in grainy little videos, one shot with a friend's cellphone."

She was intrigued by the Tehran artist's imaginative amalgam of mime and dance, traditional Iranian stage idioms and modern motifs — a style praised by one critic as "controlled, sometimes funny and also tender."

In one of his fanciful shows, white birds entirely cover his upper body from head to waist. In another, Khaseb and a co-performer entwine their bodies into a single organism, bringing to mind the shape-shifting antics of the American dance group Pilobolus.

Hartzell invited Khaseb to make his U.S. debut in Seattle, and the two agreed to sort out details in Tehran, during Hartzell's planned trip to the Fadjr International Theatre Festival there in January 2009.

Then things got complicated. The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Iran, so Hartzell applied directly to the Iranian government for a travel visa. To use it, she would go to the Netherlands and fly on a Dutch airline from Amsterdam to Tehran.

But the day she was to leave Seattle, her visa had not yet arrived. Hartzell began the trip anyway, determined to procure her visa at Iran's embassy in The Hague.

Three days of bureaucratic red tape and personal diplomacy later, she succeeded. What did the trick?

"The Iranian official I was dealing with was a big fan of the movie 'Sleepless in Seattle,' " Hartzell said with a laugh. "We bonded over that. He also whispered to me, 'I'm an artist, too, a poet,' and recited his poems to me."

Once in Tehran, the Iranians she met were welcoming — and amazed. "Their jaws were dropping. They just don't see many Americans, though they'd like to. They kept asking, 'How did you get [the government] to let you in?' "

Hartzell spent her visit conferring with Khaseb about "Mysterious Gifts" and seeing shows at the Fadjr festival, a prominent annual event in the Mideast.

The 10-day fest was "enormous, with performers from all over Iran, Europe and the Middle East participating," Hartzell said. "The Iranian actors were brilliant, very well-trained. The direction was minimalist scenically — they don't have much money to work with — but very strong. And the music was great: modern, beautiful, haunting."

Theater has a long, proud history in Iran and remains popular, though it is subjected to government censorship. In his book "The History of Theater in Iran," Willem Floor notes that dance and comic mime shows were enjoyed by commoners and royalty alike in ancient Persia some 2,500 years go.

Epic religious narratives, poetic storytelling, puppetry and performing styles specific to Iran's various ethnic groups are influences in the current Iran theater scene, which is supported by government and private funds.

Born near the Caspian Sea into a Kurdish family, the university-educated Khaseb said he was trained mostly in Western theater. But there are strong Iranian cultural and spiritual aspects to his work, including a sense of "sorrow, sadness, things people can relate to on a universal level."

"Mysterious Gifts" is composed of three short pieces, which draw on folkloric dance and music but also on experimental stage trends. The show is recommended for patrons ages 10 and up, and requires no translation. Primarily nonverbal, it conjures striking visual effects enhanced by Seattle stage designers.

According to Seattle Children's Theatre staffer Linda-Jo Greenberg, it was clear Khaseb and his colleagues were eligible for a temporary visa to the U.S. (The theater is paying their travel and living expenses.) But the application process was lengthy and demanding.

"You have to fill out multiple forms and supply a lot of materials — biographies, reviews — to the Department of Homeland Security," Greenberg said. "Then you have to do it again for the State Department. There are many procedures, including fingerprinting."

Hartzell said the Iranians she met in Tehran were wary of discussing politics, or directly addressing it in their shows — even before accusations of voter fraud in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election triggered mass street protests and arrests.

The Iranian theater artists visiting Seattle also declined to comment on such matters.

But when asked if it's difficult getting his work approved by Iran's government censors, Khaseb responded knowingly and bluntly. "I've spent a long time living in Iran," he said, "and I know exactly what to do and what not to do."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com