In Transit

Combining personal experience with elements of Anna Seghers' novel Transit, Amir Reza Koohestani has invented for his new show (which premiered at the Comédie de Genève and will be performed at the Festival d'Avignon 2022) a fable that unfolds in two different places and times. In the present, Amir, an Iranian director, is detained by the border police over a visa issue as he transits through a European airport. In 1940, deserters, Jews, artists and German opponents, pursued by the Wehrmacht, wander through the port of Marseille in the hope of crossing the Mediterranean and escaping the Nazis. Everyone is in transit, somewhere in between past and present. Fragments of words and sparks of subjectivity pepper this intimate performance where what is essential only comes out in hushed tones.