SCR mounts the West Coast premiere of O.C.-born Iranian American playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner Sanaz Toossi’s “Wish You Were Here.”
The Iranian Revolution was a shot heard around the world. Even now, nearly a half-century later, its effects are still being felt in Iran’s interactions with other nations.
“Wish You Were Here,” which takes place at the dawn of that event and covers the 13 years following it, had its world premiere at Williamstown Theatre in Massachusetts. Now it will be seen in its West Coast premiere courtesy of South Coast Repertory.
Playwright and Orange County native Sanaz Toossi was unavailable for an interview, so Culture OC spoke with Mina Morita, who is directing the 2022 script, her first time at the helm of an SCR production.
Comedy, drama, or both?
In SCR’s press release, Morita said Toossi wrote the play “as a love letter to her mother, who emigrated to the United States in the 1980s, after the Iranian Revolution. A comedy, it deftly mixes hilarious moments with poignancy and loss. Her characters speak with boldness and a revealing nature, inviting audiences into private moments, then subtly guiding them through a range of emotions that illustrate the complexity of friendship.”
“The ink on this love letter feels like it is written from Sanaz’s own veins,” Morita said. “She has poured her heart and care into this tribute to her mother.”
Morita defines the quintet of women characters as “glorious, brash and full of life. What they seek and how they love is larger than the time that has passed between us. I feel a profound love and responsibility for each woman and for how Sanaz’s and her mother’s world is wrought onstage.”
SCR artistic director David Ivers notes in the company’s press release that audiences “can expect to laugh even as they are moved by this transformational play. Sanaz writes a personal journey shaped by deep, intimate relationships, ever-enduring and universal truths – all in response to the Iranian Revolution.”
Managing director Suzanne Appel notes that the play “beautifully captures the strength and intimacy of female friendship. The confidences Toossi’s characters share will be recognizable to women from every corner of the world.”
While the show is billed as a comedy, it’s set against a turbulent backdrop. So is the script truly a comedy, or is it more of a dramedy that meshes comedic aspects with some that are more dramatic?
Morita told Culture OC that “yes, the play carries the joy of these women as well as the challenges of a changing life for each of them, yet saying it’s a combination of both comedy and drama, a dramedy, makes sense.”
Morita’s take
As director, what does Morita do to enhance and draw out the show’s drama and comedy? She cites “multiple ways a brilliant cast can explore both. While the characters in the play are really funny and brash, brazen and fun, they’re also contending with grief and there is a lot of negative space around those who have had to leave Iran.”
As such, “so much of it is calibrating and focusing on the resilience, bravery, brashness and strength of the five women. Each scene moves from year to year, starting in Karaj, Iran, in 1978 and ending in 1991. The play is about how they contend with change, and I hope the play will help audiences understand the complexity of what these characters had to go through.”
Morita said she hasn’t spoken with Toossi about where the ideas for the play originated, but defines the script as “a love letter to her mother, who grew up here.” She said the earliest version of the script debuted at Williamstown Theatre on July 1, 2020 and that it was first done at SCR as a staged reading in 2021. She didn’t know the script’s title at that point, yet said “it was part of an early SCR acting conservatory work, then part of that literary department.”
Asked whether the play is autobiographical, Morita said, “Like most of Toossi’s work, it’s based on and inspired by things in her life – in this case, that she relates to her mom’s life. She finds ways into the story in that way, lifting up what she’s interested in talking about.”
The director defines the script’s primary themes as “female friendship and the inevitability of change in a lifetime, whether marriage, war or the need to leave home and create a new life. When we’re younger, we imagine life is going to be a certain way – but a strong current is moving you, and you have to keep moving with that flow, that tide.”
Whether the play is like any others she has seen or directed, Morita said that for so many reasons, it isn’t. “Some of the themes are similar (to other plays). Iranian women are so often vilified or stereotyped in our media or entertainment: For example, actors have to play roles as terrorists or working with the government or show trauma of life. In stories depicting cultures of color, trauma is the focus.”
By contrast, “for this group of women, the focus is about the power and beauty of their friendship and their lives.”
Toossi's Transformation
Iranian American playwright Toossi won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play “English.” While planning to enroll in law school, she attended the 2013 SCR production of Amy Herzog’s “4,000 Miles.” It was enough to prompt her to move her life and career in the direction of becoming a playwright.
In an interview with American Theatre magazine, Toossi said she “thought about it every day for, like, a whole year. I was like, ‘These are actual people.’ I thought I could never be a playwright because playwriting is about showing people that you’re smart – that’s what I always thought it was.”
She’s currently under commission not just at SCR, but with Atlantic Theater Company, Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Manhattan Theatre Club. She has been recipient of the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Horton Foote Award, Hull-Warriner Prize, Outer Critics Circle Award and the 2023 Obie Award for Best New American Play.
SCR’s Appel notes that Toossi’s script “is imbued with both her family’s history of emigration and the cultural inheritance of the great Persian poets” and that “in addressing Iran’s past, her work resonates deeply with all of us experiencing a rapidly changing world.”
And, for those wondering about the significance of the title, Morita said it’s “tied into the fact that the women in the play wish those who aren’t with them could be – in particular. the other women who used to be there.”
‘Wish You Were Here’
When: Jan. 18 through Feb. 2. 7:45 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 2 and 7:45 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays
Where: Julianne Argyros Stage, South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Admission: $35-$114
Contact: 949-708-5555, scr.org
