HAMLET,

PRINCE OF GRIEF

CREDITS
Hamlet, Prince of Grief
Leev Theater Group
First Day Theater Company
Writer: Mohammad Charmshir
Director: Mohammad Aghebati
Actor: Afshin Hashemi (The guest of Parchin&Khaneh theatre group)
Producer: Mehrnoush Aliaghaei
Music: parts of Silence City by Keyhan Kalhor
Directing team: ElhamGol Jamal, Ehsan Safarzadeh
Graphic Designer: Saleh Tasbihi
Photographers: Reza Ghaziani and Ehsan Matoori
English Translator: Essan Noruzi
Film: Rad Image House

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBBFti_C3I0

Hamlet, Prince of Grief was first performed in June 2011 as part of the MonoLeev Festival
at the Entezami Hall- Iranian Artists Forum. Mono Leev Festival is conducted by the Leev
Theater Group as a workshop for artists and playwrights to present monologues and
monodramas. After its performance at the Mono Leev Festival, it transferred to the City
Theater in Tehran in July 2011, and was then presented at the international Fadjr festival
in February 2012. In January 2013, it had its US premier at the Under The Radar in New
York City Public Theater.

Leev Theater Group is an Iranian non-profit theater company. Leevstarted its
performance activities in 2001 and has staged more than 30 plays in different venues of
Iran.

At present, Leev Theater Group is known as one of the most active theater groups in Iran
and its activities are not only limited to performing. Leev Theater Group also seeks new
ways of exchanging knowledge and experience and expanding a more enriched
understanding of the art of theater in Iran through activities such as holding workshops,
conducting research projects such as "Introducing World's Contemporary Theater
Directors, translating theoretic texts into Farsi, and publishing special magazines about
Theater.

Mono Leev Festival is another research activity of Leev Theater Group, founded in 2008 in
the form of "Leev's research sittings on Monologue" and this year entering its fourth year of
activity. Mono Leev has created a ground for various artists and playwrights to work with
each other in the form of Monologue and Monodrama and exchange experience and
creative ideas.

In the past few years Leev Theater Group has been trying to expand the concept of the
Theater Group in Iran. Shadow Leev Theater Group is a young company of talented young
artists who are experiencing working as a group under the support and guidance of Leev
Theater Group.

BIOGRAPHIES:

Mohammad Aghebati was born in 1975 in Mashhad, Iran. He studied Theater Directing at
the Tehran Arts University, and founded Leev Theater Group with his classmates. He has
managed different research projects with Leev Theater Group, such as the Monologue
Project. In this project, Leev staged different plays based on Classical and Modern Dramatic
Literature.

In 2003, Aghebati received a medal from President Khatami as Irans successful Young
Theater Artist for his direction of the play, Kiss You and Tears based on Vatslav Havels life.
The international performances of this play are still continuing.

He worked with Leev Theater Group until he moved to the United States; where he is now a
student at Yale School of Drama as an SRF. He is currently in the process of establishing
First Day Theater, his New York-based company. Since his move to the States, He has
worked as a freelance artist with his colleagues at Yale and continues his work with
playwright Mohammad Charmshir to focus on new experiences of text and performance.

Aghebati directed only God has the Right to Wake Me Up for the opening of Freiburg Theater
Festival in Germany in 2005. He also directed a new interpretation of Oedipus Rex called
Jocasta; Gods dead words, an international collaboration with Japan Foundation and with
the help of Reza Soroor, a young Iranian dramaturge. His latest staged performance was
The Sky of Snowy Days, a new narration of Bonnie and Clyde, Skellig and Children of Fly. His
latest production Hamlet, Prince of Grief had its US premier at Under The Radar in January
2013, and has begun its international tour.

Mohammad Charmshir, playwright, dramaturge and university professor, has about 55
published plays. His works have been translated to English, German, and French and
performed in different countries like Iran, Germany, England, France, Italy, the U.S., India
and Bangladesh.

Among his plays are It's not Raining in Egypt, Ravaneh and the Yoke, I Kiss You and Tears, A
Sudden Dove, Beautiful Life of Kind Tal'at, Day of Resurrection, The Monastery, and Kaligula,
Poet of Violence.

AfshinHashemi is an actor, playwright, musician, and director. He holds a Masters in
Directing and Acting from the Tehran Arts University. He has been nominated for many
awards in Iran, including Best Actor in a Theatrical Role, Best Actor in a TV Drama, and Best
Supporting Actor.

Most recently, he wrote and directed The Prince of Spring and the Song of the Far Land, with
Iranian and Korean actors, and wrote The Anniversary Present, which was chosen as one of
the ten best published plays of 2011 by the 5th Drama Celebration.

Recent theatrical credits include But Now Human, Hamed Behdad; My Love, A-Seyed-Kazem,
and Here is Tehran. Recent film credits include Laboratory, Without Farewell, Migraine, And
Amorous of Tajrish.

PRESS:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/theater/reviews/hamlet-prince-of-grief-at-the-
public-theater.html?_r=0

http://www.nytheatre.com/Review/heather-lee-rogers-2013-1-12-hamlet-prince-of-grief

http://yaledailynews.com/crosscampus/2013/01/08/hamlet-prince-of-grief-comes-to-
yale/

http://www.shakespeareances.com/willpower/onstage/Hamlet_Prince_Grief-01-
PUB13.html

http://culturebytes.org/2013/01/17/hamlet-prince-of-grief-at-under-the-radar/

http://blog.ringlingartsfestival.org/sarasota-arts/2013/08/29/to-thine-own-toys-be-true-
the-leev-theatre-groups-hamlet-prince-of-grief-comes-to-riaf-2013/

http://newyorktheatrereview.blogspot.com/2013/01/julia-hochner-on-hamlet-prince-of-
grief.html

http://the-fifth-wall.blogspot.com/2013/01/shakespeare-notebook-iranian-hamlet.html

IRAN PERFORMANCE REVIEWS:

From the sixth session of theatre review at Tehran Theatre Club, dedicated to Prince of
Grief, with the presence of Mohammad Aghebati (director), Afshin Hashemi (actor), Ruzbeh
Hosseini and Behzad Seddighi (critics).

Behzad Seddighi: The play that is based on a free adaptation of Shakespeare's
Hamlet, like the rest of Charmshir's works, reorganizes the regulations of the text
and provides a modern and contemporary view into the classic work. The
playwright has a peculiar approach to the issue of adaptation, and breaks the
extensive text into a core situation in which the relations differ.

Afshin Hashemi: It does not really matter to draw a definite line between a free
adaptation and a strict loyal adaptation. What matters is the relation of the text and
performance with the spectators.

Aghebati: Our approach to the original text is more modern to be analyzed

regarding loyalty to every single element. The adaptation is narrated through a
childlike character, and the whole text has been reorganized due to this single
change.


From A prince In the Labyrinth of a Story by Amin Azimi

In this visual rereading of human condition, Hamlet is as old as the human-being itself. It is
an archetype that proposes questions about justice, truth, meaning of love, life and death.
In Aghebati's performance, Hamlet is a cynical, fragile and exhausted figure who fails even
before reaching adulthood and beginning of his fight. He is destined to die young. Hamlet's
sad story that leads to his death is in fact similar to a storyteller's whose fate is what he
tells as his story. Hamlet was struggling in a net that people around him was weaving. The
difference between him and his counterparts in ancient tragedies is that he does not and
can't commit any action.

Hamlet cannot escape his fate of storytelling. As Scheherazade who tell story after stories
to survive, Hamlet is a narrator who becomes a victim of his own story in which he does not
want to rip his enemies with his sword. In Mohammad Charmshir's version of the story,
Hamlet does not even have the opportunity to take the revenge.



From A Childish Game with Death by Reza Ashofteh

Aghebati has made Hamlet into a monologue whose protagonist is a university student who
is traveling with some of his friends in semester interval to prepare himself for the next
semester.
Aghebati has tried to present everything through some childish games and toys. His Hamlet
is sitting face to face with the audience, using his toys and monologue to express his inner
self.
The distinguished performance of Afshin Hashemi whose acting in Bahram Beyzai's The
day passes and Ali Rafiee's Fox Hunting was admired by the critics is continued in
Hamlet under Aghebati's excellent supervision. Hashemi performs Hamlet's role with a
kind of constant gloom, but the variety of his acting skills prevent any boredom in
audience.