A captivating exploration of womanhood and freedom, Saria Callas is Sara Amini’s one-woman play, co-directed by Manuel Lavandera. We join Saria as she reminisces about her childhood in Iran while navigating the tensions in her relationship with her transgender child, now living in London.
Amini is enchanting in the role of Saria, who earned her nickname from her child Neema in tribute to the iconic opera singer. As she sways to nostalgic Iranian hits by the likes of Googoosh and Fataneh in her negligée, the audience truly feels as though they are dancing along with her in her bedroom. Elahe Esmaili’s video designs, projected onto the drapes at the back of the stage, immerse us even more in Saria’s world: the adolescent excitement of her first overnight school trip, an Iranian family wedding, the landscape she left behind. Her operatic vocals are impressive despite her humility, and the show strikes a careful balance between these more serious performances and its humour. “Habanera” from Carmen suddenly transitions into the Allahu Akbar prayer, and later Amini performs a playful rendition of “Like a Virgin.”
At its core, the show subverts stereotypes of Europe and Iran as fundamentally opposed in terms of women’s experiences. While Saria undoubtedly resents being forbidden to sing in her home country, Amini and Lavandera depict a youth in Iran marked not just by restriction but by joy as well: singing on the school bus, schoolyard rivalries, and explorations of queer sexuality. In the background, the war in Iran rages on, yet Saria experiences many of the cornerstones of childhood that most of us do. Later, in her early twenties in Paris, she is forced to strip practically to her underwear to be admitted to a discotheque, a jarring moment in a place presumed to be free. Amini succeeds in portraying the universality of women’s struggle for agency over their bodies.
Some moments in the show feel a little disjointed, and a few transitions are clumsy, yet Saria’s world and her perspective are ones we rarely see. The familiar trope of the strict immigrant mother is disrupted by her own experience of oppression, self-exploration, and the continued pressure from her family. These complicate her acceptance of her child, but at the same time make her deeply sympathetic to their struggles.
Saria Callas is running until 24 August at Belly Button at Underbelly, Cowgate.
Buy tickets here.
Image courtesy of Harry Elletson and design by Hamid Beiki, provided to The Student as press material.