Germany's Ruhr Festival has cancelled all performances of an Iranian refugee drama that were scheduled to serve as the festival’s opening production because the artists cannot travel to Germany due to the Iran war.
The festival’s management announced on Monday that the cast of the award-winning Shieveh Theater Company from Tehran has been cut off from the outside world by current events and is unable to travel to Germany as planned.
The production The Child was scheduled to open this year’s festival theatre programme in early May.
There will be no replacement for the production, the Ruhr Festival management announced.
"Their absence should remain visible. The resulting gap will deliberately not be filled," it said.
However, the invitation remains in place, Ruhr Festival artistic director Olaf Kröck said. "We will invite this production again next year, as a sign of solidarity and as a binding promise that their voices will be heard on our stage."
The purchase price of the numerous tickets already sold for the performances will be refunded.
The play The Child by Iranian author Naghmeh Samini tells the story of three women who are stopped at a European border with a child. During questioning by a border official, all three deny being the child’s mother so as not to jeopardise the child’s chances of entry.
"In these days of darkness and war, a part of our lives has become like the story of The Child - left behind, stranded beyond the borders," the Iranian company said in a statement.
"Warm greetings to you from a restless, weary, and wounded Iran," the statement continued.
"As we place these words beside one another, we do not even know whether - after 1,368 hours of living in darkness and without internet - this message will reach you at all."
The Ruhr Festival or Ruhrfestspiele in Recklinghausen is a theatre, dance and music festival in the Ruhr region in western Germany co-sponsored by the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB).
It traditionally begins with a cultural folk festival on Germany's Labour Day, May 1, and runs through June 13. This year’s theme is "Fear and Wonder." - dpa
