The play Nostalgia, written by Jalal Tehrani (composed in summer 2000 and rewritten 2002-2003), is a comic , futuristic work set in space. It unfolds in two parallel, symbolic situations: a compartment on a train (or space train) heading toward an unknown destination, and a flea market on the “Parrot Shuttle,” where human concepts and values have been turned into commodities.
- The train compartment and the wandering passengers: The story begins with a conversation among four passengers in a train compartment. They are the Girl (young and depressed, married by proxy to a man she has never seen and on her way to meet him), Sheila (an old woman who keeps repeating memories of her husband, the colonel), Doctor Joon (a pretentious cosmetic surgeon who keeps talking about his surgical expertise and his military service record), and the Confectioner (an old man who speaks wistfully of the past and the decline of “decorum”).
The spaceship, the terminal, and the parrot-seller’s bazaar: In the other part, a family (a man, a woman, and their little daughter) passes through the chaos of the space terminal “Gagarihan” and boards the Parrot Shuttle to buy a parrot for their child. They enter the strange parrot shop of Usta (the master) and his apprentice Seler. In this bazaar, parrots with self-proclaimed titles are offered at prices in the billions.
The work critiques the contrast between an authentic past and the world of today, and shows how nostalgia has been reduced to superficial behavior, such as buying old newspapers without reading them.