Babilla Chronicles, Part I

Don't know if Histriomastix has any Miami readers, but if so, let me recommend the following event in your neighborhood: a production of Three Angels Dancing on a Needle by exiled Iranian playwright-director-performer Assurbanipal Babilla. A triptych of surreal monologues, this seriocomic whimsy was first produced around 1989 in the basement of the Emerging Collector, a storefront art gallery on Second Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets (now a manicurist's shop). In 1998 Babilla would return to the dark underground grotto for a 3-month run of his lacerating solo monologue, Something Something Uber Alles, which I directed. This revival of Three Angels is being staged by the awesomely informed and witty Michael Yawney, who's taking Miami theater by storm. According to Michael, Three Angels might be about "looking for god in all the wrong places. Each character tries to achieve ecstacy: They refer to lovers in terms usually reserved for god. And I think they all die." Well put, sir. I've been meaning to post something about Bani (rhymes with "fanny"), since the man exerted such an influence over my post-college theatrical training and aesthetic development. Right now I'll say he radicalized my attitudes toward identity, religion, ritual and the notion of a theatrical sublime. Bani was inspired to create theater after seeing Grotowski's The Constant Prince in the 60s, and his experiences in Islamic-revolutionary Iran in the late 70s would profoundly shape his mystic-trickster attitude toward religion and politics. He's a flamoboyant, lively and mischevous fellow, Falstaffian and Puckish all at once. He went from being a celebrated, state-funded avant-gardist in pre-revolutionary Iran to, well, these days he serves cappucinos to Bill Clinton in Chappaqua. It's a long and winding road, and I hope to start a journey down it with him.