Life and Work

Sadegh Hatefi was born in Tehran in 1944 and was among the first graduates of the Performing Arts program at Tehran University's School of Fine Arts. He has been writing, directing and acting for more than sixty years, and in his own works he has taken all three roles at once.

Beginnings

His first professional work came in 1963, at the age of nineteen: The Last Novel, another translation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Abendstunde im Spätherbst, staged at the Talar-e Farhang amphitheatre, which he both directed and appeared in. He entered Tehran University in 1965.

In 1966 he founded the Pejvak Theater Group with Saeed Soltanpour, Saeed Poursamimi and Mohammad Goodarzi, the first group to perform on Iran's newly established national television. After Poursamimi and Goodarzi left, Hatefi and Soltanpour carried the work on.

In 1968 the Mehr Theater Group joined them, together with artists including Nasser Rahmaninejad, Mehdi Fathi, Iraj Emami, Saeed Amir Soleimani, Manouchehr Azari and Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, and the Iranian Theater Association was formed. Its first production was Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy, directed by Nasser Rahmaninejad at the Iran America Society hall, which the late Akbar Radi described as an incident in Tehran. The next production, An Enemy of the People directed by Saeed Soltanpour, coincided with Hatefi's graduation and compulsory military service, and his work with the group ended there.

Writing

Through the 1960s he wrote art criticism for Zan-e Rooz and Ferdowsi magazines and for the newspapers Sobh-e Emrooz and Kayhan. A short story of his, The Lost Animal, appeared in Ketab-e Cheragh. Two of his plays, Valad-e Koshteh and Tas Bazi, had already been published before that. The Tragedy of Siavosh was also published in Iran.

He is among the few Iranian writers to have brought the country's ancient texts and stories to the stage.

Stage and Television in Iran

Valad-e Koshteh was staged at Sangelaj Hall in 1979, with Jamshid Mashayekhi, Hossein Kasbian, Firooz Behjat Mohammadi, Mehri Mehrnia and Pourang Keshavarz.

Alongside his stage work he wrote and directed teleplays for Iranian National Television, among them The Elephant in the File and Towards the Bottom of Hell. Later came television series he wrote and directed: Prey Chasing the Predator (1995), a comedy series (1996), the Iranian Daily Show (1997 to 1998) and Ghodrat (2005). In 2000 he wrote and directed the feature film Yalda.

Between 2000 and 2003 he worked on Hadis-e Qand-e Parsi, a research project on Iranian history, literature and mythology, assisted in the research by Rokhand Gharavi. The work was never published.

In 2006 he made Eight Years Later, a film about that year's World Cup, shot in Europe.

Europe

Before emigrating he took his productions from Iran to Europe: The Tragedy of Siavosh and The Last Esfandiar in Paris, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt and London. Two of his plays were staged in the UNESCO hall in Paris, The Tragedy of Siavosh and The Foam Comes and Goes, the Sea Yet Stays, each for a single night. The Tragedy of Siavosh then ran for five nights at the Théâtre Dupari.

The United States

He emigrated to the United States in 2014. His first work after the move was as an actor in The Book of Arda Viraf, at the invitation of Bahram Beyzaie, staged at Stanford University in 2015, in the role of the Naskheh-Khan.

In 2015 he founded the Owrang Theater Group in Sacramento, which became the Owrang Institute of Arts and Culture in 2020. He has been its Art Director since: he writes and directs every stage production, chooses the poetry, oversees the music, and teaches the acting classes himself. The Owrang Institute has published his plays in print for the first time in the United States.

He is Editor-in-Chief of Bamdad magazine, and a new poem of his appears each week in Owrang Weekly. A collection of these poems is to be published as a book.

Theatre

Written, directed and performed by Sadegh Hatefi unless otherwise noted.

Owrang Institute, Sacramento, 2015 to the present

Produced by Rokhand Gharavi.

Arash the Archer. The ancient Persian myth of Arash, brought to the stage in Sacramento.

The Story of an Exhibition. A retrospective on Iranian music and the role of women singers, reconstructing on stage the historical and social world in which the songs were written. The translated script was projected throughout the performance.

Welcoming Boozineh Jan Aldoleh. A satirical work in the tradition of Iranian popular theatre.

Arash the Archer II. A second, entirely different staging of the same story.

Bambooli. A stage production for Owrang audiences.

The Lost. A musical comedy whose characters live with the memory of the past.

Sadeh, 2024. The ancient Persian festival of fire staged as performance: the triumph of light over darkness.

Wandering with the Wind. A journey across Iran through poetry, song, music and dance. Sacramento, Fresno and Orange County, in Persian with English translation, with more than twenty performers and recorded contributions from Baluchi, Luri and Bandari musicians.

Mortal Comedy. An irreverent retelling of Adam and Eve's first days after banishment, inspired by Sadegh Hedayat. Fresno.

The Tragedy of Siavosh. A stage adaptation of one of the best known stories in the Shahnameh.

Owrang productions have been staged in Sacramento, Davis, San Jose, Richmond, Orange County, Fresno and Seattle. Three of his plays have also been presented as staged readings at the Carmichael and Fair Oaks libraries.

Iran and Europe

1. The Boar's Tusk. Sangelaj Hall
2. Esfandiar. City Theatre, Tehran, 1992
3. Sheydaye Rah. Paris, Frankfurt, Hamburg
4. The Tragedy of Siavosh. France, Germany, London, UNESCO Paris, 1989
5. Lovingly Barefoot. Talar-e Honar, Tehran, and Paris
6. The Foam Comes and Goes, the Sea Yet Stays. UNESCO Hall, Paris
7. The Welcome. Azadi Museum, Tehran, 1982
8. The Magnificent Speech of Mr Eskandari. Khaneh-ye Namayesh
9. Puppet Show. City Theatre, Tehran, 1980
10. The Magnificent World Circus. City Theatre, Tehran
11. Valad-e Koshteh. Sangelaj Hall, Tehran, 1979
12. The Tale Under the Bush. By Sadegh Hedayat. University of Tehran
13. The Dark Room. University of Tehran
14. Pandora. University of Tehran
15. The Last Novel. Talar-e Farhang. Actor and director
16. Arash the Archer. Actor and director
17. Mehman Kosh. Azad University. Writer
18. Rakhsh. City Theatre, Tehran. Actor
19. Incident at Vichy. Iran America Society Amphitheatre. Actor
20. An Enemy of the People. University of Tehran. Actor
21. 63 street theatre productions. Streets, parks and villages across Iran

United States, before Owrang

The Book of Arda Viraf. Written by Bahram Beyzaie. Stanford University, 2015. Actor, in the role of the Naskheh-Khan.

Television and Film

Writer and Director

• Ghodrat. Series, Channel 2, 2005 to 2007
• Yalda. Television film, Channel 2, 2003
• Iranian Daily Show. Series, Channel 2, 1999
• Prey Chasing the Predator. Series, Channel 2, 1995 to 1996
• Dirty Hands. Teleplay, 1984
• The Confidential Report of Octavio Valdez
• The Elephant in the File. 1966
• Towards the Bottom of Hell
• Eight Years Later. 2006

Screenwriter

Simorgh (1987) · Avar (1985) · The Tale of Yalda Night, under the pen name Mohammadreza Sadeghi

Actor

1. Jaddeh-ye Ghadim
2. Muhammad: The Messenger of God
3. Rah-e Toolani
4. Formul-e Marg
5. Barandegan
6. Hamchon Sarv
7. Ghodrat
8. Yalda
9. Iranian Daily Show
10. Comedy series
11. Prey Chasing the Predator
12. Moamma-ye Yek Ghatl
13. Dirty Hands
14. The Confidential Report of Octavio Valdez
15. Soltan va Shaban
16. Sarzamin-e Man va Neghabdaran, 1995
17. Penalty
18. Dollar
19. So'ood
20. Simorgh
21. Mar
22. Akharin Lahzeh
23. Dabirestan
24. Goft Har Se Nafareshan
25. The Elephant in the File
26. Marg dar Barabar
27. Kuchak-e Jangali

Radio and Podcast

Written and directed by Sadegh Hatefi. Sound design and editing by Rokhand Gharavi. Produced by the Owrang Institute and published on The Owrang Echo.

Lovingly Barefoot, in three parts. A radio version of the stage work performed in Tehran and Paris in the 1990s.

Maxim · A Meaningless Ending · Eternal Refuge · Sara and the Giant · Waxy

Talks and Readings

Theatrical Aspects of the Shahnameh. A series of talks, three parts published.

Owrang and Contemporary Poetry. Four programmes of poetry reading, with work by Tahereh Qorratol'Ayn, Forough Farrokhzad and Simin Behbahani.

He has given many further talks on Iranian theatre, literature and mythology.

Published Plays

In Iran. Valad-e Koshteh · Tas Bazi · The Tragedy of Siavosh

In the United States, by the Owrang Institute. Each title is available in print, and free to read in the Owrang Library.

The Last Esfandiar Print edition | Read free

Mortal Comedy Print edition | Read free

The Boar's Tusk Print edition | Read free

The Tragedy of Siavosh (second edition) Print edition | Read free

He has written a great deal more, and this list is not complete.

Sources

• Sadegh Hatefi on IMDb
• Sadegh Hatefi in the Comprehensive Database of Iranian Cinema
• Jamal Omid, Farhang-e Cinema-ye Iran, Tehran: Negah, 1998
• Naser Bozorgmehr, "From Azadi to the Eiffel Tower," Namayesh magazine, no. 31, May 1990
• Farideh Rava, Kayhan London, no. 437, January 1993
• Sirous Amouzgar, Roozegar-e No monthly, Paris, March 1993
• Agence France-Presse, April 1990