Sohrabkoshi — The Slaying of Sohrab

The title itself is an accusation. Not Rostam and Sohrab, but Sohrabkoshi — the killing of Sohrab. A name for an act, and for the one who committed it.

*Sohrabkoshi*, published in 2010 and written by Bahram Beyzai — one of the most influential figures in Iranian theatre and cinema — returns to the most harrowing episode of the *Shahnameh* and reopens it once more, like a case that was never properly resolved. Beyzai’s Rostam knows from the outset that he has a son. What follows is less a duel than a behind-the-scenes account: messages that arrive too late or not at all; courtly interests which the death of a young man tacitly serves; and the many hands that contribute to a killing without ever touching a weapon.

A staged reading reduces theatre to its two indispensable elements: the text and the voice. No set, no costumes, no spectacle — three performers and one of the most rhythmically sophisticated forms of Persian theatrical language of the last half-century.

Beyzai’s language is dense, formal and deeply musical; spoken aloud, it fulfils most of the functions otherwise performed by a stage set.

IN PERSIAN