Jewish Book Fair
Ka p
October 13-
November 14, 2004
From Dream
To Nightmare
Directed by:
Christopher Bremer
Starring:
Arthur Beer & Council Cargle
Laugh out loud as the dynamic
Roya Hakakian writes moving memoir of life inside
revolutionary Iran.
duo of Nat and Midge take on
society and its perception of
octogenarians. The feisty heroes
of this Tony Award winning play
battle yuppies, street thugs, drug
dealers, and the ultimate foe -
time - in their quest for dignity
and self-worth. The result is a
celebration of unconquerable
...perfectly timed comic
routines, reminiscent of old
vaudeville."-Judith Cook
Rubins The Oakland Press
SAN D EE B RAWARS KY
Special to the Jewish. News
R
"
For tickets stop by the box
office or call, 248.788.2900.
www.jettheatre.org
Coming to Detre hy Popular Deified/ kuie director/ fume stars/ fame Markus Ay/
MITCH MOWS
The new hit comedy by MitchWhom
Directedhy au, Swale
Direct from its sold-out run at
The Purple Rose Theater/
v ' t' .What happens when two Alabama
duck hunters think that they
shot down an angel?
When a burned-out tabloid
reporter gets assigned to
"cover" their story?
When it might be:..
true?
Photos by Donna Segresi, courtesy
The Purple Rose Theatre Company
1 1 / 12
2004
56
The City Theatre • Nov 1 7-Jan. 2 • Formerly Second City in the Hockeytown Cafe bldg.
next to the Fox Theatre • Tickets at The City Theatre & Fisher Theatre box offices & all ticketmaster outlets Sponsored by:
(23
inc. Marshall Field's, charge-by-phone 248-645-6666, & ticketmaster.com • Info 313-872-1000
NederlanderDetroit.com • Groups (12 or more) weekdays 313-871-1132
907770
oya Hakakian grew up in a
stately home on Tehran's
Alley of the Distinguished.
Her family's tiled courtyard was fra-
grant with honeysuckle, pansies, impe-
rial roses and gooseberry trees, and
their juniper trees towered over the
neighborhood. Her memoir, Journey
from the Land of No: A Girlhood
Caught in Revolutionary Iran (Morrow:
$23), begins in this idyllic garden in
1975, but life soon changes drastically
for her extended Jewish family.
This is not one of those self-reflec-
tive coming-of-age memoirs in which
nothing much happens. Hakakian,
who left Iran in 1984, is quite candid
about her inner life, but she's also
observing firsthand a national revolu-
tion, providing a view of events that's
somewhat different from that present-
ed on evening news reports.
"It wasn't only the mullahs who
took to the streets," she says in a
recent interview. The clergy weren't
the only people who thought that Iran
could be a different place. There were
also vast numbers of secular, educated,
urban people who wanted the revolu-
tion, who wanted Iran to be a democ-
racy."
Including the teenage Jewish girls of
Raah-e-Danesh Hebrew Day School.
Although Hakakian and her friends
weren't among the crowds shouting
"Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great") from
the rooftops after the fall of the Shah,
they "wanted to claim their share of
revolutionary excitement" — and they
were feverishly hopeful about the
prospects of change.
But their hopes would diminish.
Hakakian, a poet, documentary
filmmaker and former 60 Minutes pro-
ducer, was inspired in part to write the
memoir by the events of Sept. 11.
Walking on the streets of New York on
Sept. 12 brought to mind the streets
of Tehran she had left behind. She
thought that she had left the traces of
grief and devastation behind her, that
the forces of evil couldn't reach het
here, but indeed they had.
Hakakian — whose first name
means "dream" — was born in 1966, a
beloved daughter after three sons. Her
father was an admired poet and educa-
tor, and their home was open to Jews
and non-Jews. The family's "annual
pose of piety" was their ritual of
preparation for Passover; the scenes
sound straight out of Borough Park or
Mea Shearim.
But for all their comfort, she
describes a.tiny shift in her family's
attitude when around Muslims.
"Being with the family and among
Jews was effortless, like being in my
pajamas. Being among Muslims,
friends or neighbors, was like being in
my party dress. ... The fabric itched.
The zipper pinched."
As a young child, she took on the
role of observer. "I fashioned a person-
al reconnaissance I thought of as
human osmosis: learning the untold
by breathing in its vicinity. Years later,
I realized that the proper term for the
technique was journalism."
Early into the revolution, signs that
read "Down With the Shah" were
replaced with "Johouds [dirty Jews]
Get Lost." A swastika was painted
adjacent to their door. Her three
brothers had been sent off to the
United States, and her Jewish day
school was taken over by revolutionary
teachers. Women were forced to wear
headscarves, and violent acts and
repression by the secret police acceler-
ated.
Hakakian and her friends in the
Jewish Iranian Students Organization,
dreamers all, wanted to save their
community, Iran and the world. In
their offices, young men and women
quietly socialized. On one of their
weekly hiking expeditions, the group
was arrested and let go, after'secretly
swallowing copies of their uncensored
poetry.
In school, she had one truthful,
mildly defiant teacher who took risks
in encouraging her in her writing.
Eventually Hakakian was forced as a