Theatre in Review: Blind Runner (Under the Radar/St. Ann's Warehouse)The fashion these days is for stripped-down productions, but few are as purposeful in this regard as Blind Runner. Written and staged by the Iranian theatre artist Amir Reza Koohestani, it is elegantly spare, elliptical, and taut as a telephone wire. Working only with two actors, geometrically precise lighting, and the meaningful use of video (including English surtitles explaining the Farsi dialogue), Koohestani produces a mordant snapshot of the contemporary world as a deadly maze: Freedom is in short supply. Symbols of achievement are hollow signifiers. Escape means taking one's life in one's hands. It's a sobering, yet gripping, way to kick off 2025. The action begins with the two performers writing on stage walls, noting that what we are about to see is a true story, with the word "true" subsequently replaced by "actual," "factual," and "historic," among others. The word "fiction" sneaks in there, too, but, in any case, the production echoes a dozen dismaying news stories from recent months. Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh plays a man whose wife (Ainaz Azarhoush) has been imprisoned. The charges against her aren't specified but one can easily imagine she has participated in protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, killed in police custody for alleged immodesty. In Iran, the arrangement of one's hijab can mean life or death. The strangeness of their separation, marked by regular visits, is made unsettlingly clear: "If it didn't say 'visiting room," you'd think we were in a bank," she says, eyeing the space. "As soon as the visit ends, they lower the blinds and cut us off," he adds. As the weeks go by, her imprisonment corrodes their relationship. He wants to offer comfort, even hope, but, under the circumstances, how is that possible? "Unfortunately, we got another four years, six months, and 12 days," she notes. Despite his attentions, she continues to drift away emotionally. When she misses a planned phone call, he asks, "Why don't you just give me a ring to say that you're fine?" "Why should I lie?" she responds. Their exchanges grow testier as she grows more evasive and contentious, her strategic silences hinting at conditions too appalling to discuss. Frustrated, he suggests they spend the rest of their visit simply looking at each other. "It would be a better use of our time," he notes. "You don't seem to live in this world," she replies. "I envy you." Their fraught dialogues hint at many possibilities: Is he less politically committed than she? Is she angry at him for escaping arrest? Has she shut herself down as a way of coping with her extended incarceration? Their stalemate is fundamentally altered when Koohestani introduces a third character, Parissa, a young blind woman who competes as a runner (also played by Azarhoush). Parissa enlists the husband to be her guide at a sports event in Paris that, one assumes, is the Paralympics. "I hope this time you'll come back with a medal," the wife says. "Parissa says that all that she wants is that we don't fall down," he replies. As it happens, Parissa, who was shot in the eyes during a demonstration, has bigger plans, which involve escaping to England via the Chunnel. But she cannot do it alone, and, suddenly, the husband is caught in a web of conflicting loyalties; adding to his agony, his wife is scheduled to come home for a week's leave from prison. Their destinies are worked out in clipped conversations focusing on agonizing choices: Should he return home and leave Parissa without assistance? But what is he returning to? What are his and Parissa's chances of surviving their perilous trip? And, given the current European disaffection for immigrants, what will their reception be? Theocratic regimes, the semiotics of international sport, and the walls erected by wealthy nations to keep out the needy: Blind Runner packs an enormous amount into its one-hour running time. "I'm curious to see, in case a 'model migrant' like me reaches the UK by crossing the Channel," Parissa says, a proposition that remains an open question. (One hopes Nigel Farage isn't waiting to greet her.) The action climaxes in a stunning coup, courtesy of Yasi Moradi and Benjamin Krieger's video design, which lends a gut-level reality to the terror so many immigrants face. In a way, Blind Runner extends the questions raised by The Jungle, another drama about refugees staged at this theatre in 2018; it also makes a fine companion piece to the film The Seeds of the Sacred Fig, currently in release, which depicts the Iranian power structure as a crumbling patriarchy. Koohestani's direction relies on the actors' incisive performances to convey the rising tension between the husband and wife and the uncertainty raised by Parissa, who gambles that her brief moment of sports celebrity can be leveraged into a bid for freedom. Eric Soyer's black void of a set features many shifting borders marked out by his stark lighting. The video uses real-time closeups of the actors to haunting effect. This is a production of the Mehr Theatre Group, an Iran-based troupe; on the evidence here, these artists are extraordinarily brave. St. Ann's Warehouse is presenting Blind Runner in concert with the theatre company Waterwell and the not-for-profit Nimruz; it kicks off this year's Under the Radar Festival on an outstanding note. --David Barbour 
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