Hey Big Guy, Don’t Cry

Hey Big Guy, Don’t Cry

2003–2004

• Premiere: Entezami Hall, Iranian Artists Forum (2003)
• Presented at: 22nd Fajr International Theatre Festival, Molavi Theatre (2003)
• Public Run: Main Hall, Theatre City, Tehran (2004)

After more than fourteen months of rehearsal, and with an exceptionally large and costly stage design, the production remained on stage for only twelve performances.

The play is set in a remote corner of a war-ravaged country, where only a few hundred civilians remain. At eight o’clock in the evening, the area is struck by a chemical bombardment. Everyone is killed—except for a single child, who serves as the narrator of the story. Yet until daybreak, the dead remain unaware of their own deaths. Suspended between life and death, the characters continue to speak, remember, quarrel, love, and search for meaning, unaware that they have already crossed the threshold that separates the living from the dead. Despite its remarkably brief run, Hey Big Guy, Don’t Cry became the most highly attended production ever staged in the Main Hall of Theatre City relative to its number of performances, a record that stood among productions presented there since the theatre’s inauguration in the 1970s.