A Beautiful Life

Michael Futcher, Helen Howard

• Editore: Currency Press
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781921428685
• Argomento: Littérature
• Categoria: Théâtre

An Iranian family living in Australia attempts to escape memories of torture endured back home. Their role in the 1992 raid on the Iranian Embassy in Canberra leads to persecution by the Australian government. Based on a true story.

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

The Iranian Embassy, Canberra. April, 1992.

JHILA rips away the shroud from one of the figures to reveal a coffin-like cage representing a filing cabinet, and smashes it to the ground.

JHILA: Down with demon Khomeini! Down with demon Khomeini!

An eruption of violence. A diplomat, AHMAD HUSSEINI, staggers backwards holding a fire extinguisher, threateningly at a small, angry mob. One actor carries a hand-held light, signifying a camera, shining it on each major action. The other two shrouded figures are violently stripped and sent crashing to the ground. HAMID sprays a large red ‘X’ on an image of Ayatollah Khomeini. The mob rampages over the scattered documents, setting fire to some.

ALL: Down with Khomeini! Black demon! Down with regime of Khomeini! Killers of Mojahedin! Enemy of freedom!

JHILA throws a bottle of red soft drink at the image of Ayatollah Khomeini. There is chaos. KAMRAN enters, lost and disassociated.

HAMID: [holding a heavy ring-binder, breathless] Look. Thirty-five thousand political prisoners held in Iran. All in here.

PROTESTER ONE: Show the camera!

HAMID shows the binder to the actor with the light.

HAMID: Thirty-five thousand political prisoners in Iranian jail, dying—these are faces of the dead. Viva human rights!

PROTESTER ONE: Camera, follow me!

The light follows him as AHMAD throws a wastepaper bin, narrowly missing HAMID.

Down with the regime of Khomeini!

The light remains on PROTESTER ONE as he searches for photographs, while away from the light AHMAD lunges at HAMID to grab the binder. HAMID raises a spanner over his head. There is a moment of recognition. AHMAD steps back. They stare. KAMRAN lunges at AHMAD with a screwdriver. The camera light swings onto HAMID as he moves forward towards AHMAD and KAMRAN, still with the spanner raised. The action freezes.

AMIR: I come home after two days away to an empty house, so I turn the television on for company. There are these men and women in white overalls surrounded by police, and they catch my eye because they look Iranian. The man on the news says they were arrested for raiding the Iranian Embassy in Canberra, that they’re terrorists. But they look more like lost astronauts. Like they’ve flown in from another planet. They show film of them doing it, and when it stops there’s this man holding a spanner in the air. [Pause.] It’s my dad!

PROTESTER ONE: [breaking the freeze] Camera here! Closer! Victims of torture. [Showing the camera a photograph of a torture victim] See!

HAMID breaks his freeze and grabs KAMRAN. AHMAD is bleeding. KAMRAN wields the screwdriver, trying to kill AHMAD. HAMID grabs his arm and stops him.

HAMID: [in Farsi] No!

KAMRAN: [to HAMID, in Farsi] Why?

HAMID: [to a PROTESTER, in Farsi] Get him out of here!

KAMRAN is dragged away. The PROTESTERS disperse. AHMAD and HAMID stare at one another.

JHILA: [in Farsi] Hamid! Let’s go. Hamid—come on! Hamid!

They exit.

AHMAD: [in Farsi] You’re finished! [He touches the blood on his head then falls to his knees. In English] Agh—God—bashed! I am bashed! [He reaches for his handkerchief, folds it into a pad and goes to apply it to his head, but stops and replaces it in his top pocket.] Hey you, cameraperson. Look, blood—terrorists! Mojahedin terrorists did this—come back—you film blood—come back!

He exits. The disrupted stage is empty as voices from offstage call out in Farsi.

PROTESTER ONE: [offstage] Kamran!

PROTESTER TWO: [offstage] Kamran—where are you? Come on!

PROTESTER ONE: [offstage] Kamran!

PROTESTER TWO: [offstage] Let’s get out of here.

KAMRAN enters. He stops in a garden, delighted with it, and wanders through some rose bushes, smelling their scent. He picks the rose from the pool. A WOMAN emerges from the house.

WOMAN: What are you doing...