I promised a review of the Iranians ages ago, sorry, so here's a mini one...

I'm the kind of feminist peace activist who used to say - in my WILPF days - that men just didn't get it. They didn't understand our anger at injustice. Or our grief. We made children, and they sent them to war. But of course I was wrong.

In these three rough, raw plays I saw the devastations of war and exile expressed perfectly by the all-male cast. In each tragedy children are sacrificed - one the first night, and two each on the second and third nights. In a scene that had my heart pounding we see the children line up and begin fluttering their hands, straight along their sides. When they are lifted from the ground and their throats slit their hands flutter slower and slower still over their hearts until they are dead. How their fathers - and we in the audience - mourned.

Not every moment was excruciatingly sad. The horses were speedy, the sheep plump, and they sang along with the soloists. We all laughed, to the dismay of a few audience members hoping for a more serious response to an "authentic theater experience". And the camels .... well, geriatric is the kindest thing I can say about them.

I found the program notes shallow and craved a more detailed translation of the songs, but happily entertained myself with the performer biographies. Only one of the actors was a professional; and he, along with the rest, performs the Ta'ziyehs as an act of religious devotion. Our horse-riding, throat-slitting bad guy is a dentist in real-life, and among the others a merchant, factory worker, and the owner of a fleet of taxis.

I wish I'd understood more but I was glad I went. After all, when am I likely to be in Iran next and quite honestly, what will be left when Dubya is done in the region.