TEHRAN – The musical drama “Oliver Twist” directed by Hossein Parsay has returned to the Tehran stage for the first time in eight years.
According to Irna news agency, the show premiered in 2017 at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall and was well-received after 120 performances, and is now being performed at the Tennis Stadium at the Enherab Sports Complex.
This show is based on the play “Oliver!” This musical, written by Lionel Bart, is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel “Oliver Twist”, which depicts the hardships of young Oliver in 19th century London.
More than 150 actors, singers and technical staff are involved, combining experienced performers with new talent.
The main actors are Hutan Shakiba, Benosh Tabatabay, Vanipal Shomon, Amikaveh Ahaninjan, Siamak Ansari, and Kazem Sayahi.
In this performance, Ryan Sarlak embodies the artistic Dodger, while two teenage actors, Parham Gholamloo and Arsham Jahanpana, play the role of Oliver Twist on separate nights.
“Oliver!” This is the first musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ famous work. The plot of Dickens’s original novel is considerably simplified for the musical, with Fagin presented more as a comic character than a villain, and much of the second half of the story omitted entirely.
“Oliver Twist” is the second novel by British author Charles Dickens. The work was originally serialized from 1837 to 1839 and published as a three-volume book in 1838. The story is about the titular orphan who, after being raised in a workhouse, escapes to London, where he meets a group of boy pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin, discovers the secret of parentage, and is reunited with his remaining family.
Rather than romanticizing the sordid lives of criminals, “Oliver Twist” exposes the cruel treatment of many orphans in mid-19th century England.
As an early example of social fiction, Dickens satirizes child labor, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the existence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan who worked as a child laborer in a cotton mill in the 1830s.
Dickens’s own experiences as a young man were also likely to have contributed, given that he spent two years of his life in a workhouse at the age of 12 and was subsequently denied part of his education.
“Oliver Twist” has been the subject of numerous film adaptations, including the 1948 film of the same name starring Alec Guinness as Fagin. The hit musical “Oliver!” (which itself was made into an Oscar-winning 1968 film), and Disney’s 1988 animated feature film Oliver & Company.
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