Do you enjoy being talked at for 90 minutes? Because that’s what Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World does. Part experimental performance, part anti-murder mystery, part hyperspeed TED Talk on the nature of truth and knowledge in our globalised post-colonial times, Things Hidden boasts many hallmarks of contemporary theatre. For instance: big projections on multiple screens (which ‘authenticate’ and enhance what’s told, while also showing the devious nature of the image) and the energetic dismantling of storytelling’s normative conventions.
A brain-crushing hydra, it’s a little hard to summarise, but I’ll try.
Fereydoun Farrokhzad was an Iranian entertainer and political activist, famous in the ‘70s. Imagine an Iranian Tom Jones. In the ‘90s, as a political refugee in Germany, he was murdered, and the case remains unsolved. Many suspect the Islamic Republic had a hand in it.
Farrokhzad isn’t a fictional character – look him up. Indeed, Javaad Alipoor, the creator, director and main spieler in Things Hidden, asks us to get out our phones and go to Wikipedia. He also invites us to Google ‘subalternity’. Are we really confident we can solve this mystery, like the annoying podcast host character (Asha Reid)? How meaningful are the connections and comparisons we’re making? How reliable are our tools? And what do our western-centric processes reveal about ourselves?
Farrokhzad, Alipoor pedagogically corrects us, is not like Tom Jones. He is also not like Raam Emami, aka King Raam – who appears in the show as musician and storyteller – even if Emami was also on an Iranian government hit list.
Except for Emami (big props), I found Things Hidden exhausting. But perhaps I’m too much of a slow-processing, single-focus mind to appreciate its epistemological meta symphony.
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World played at the Sydney Opera House as part of Sydney Festival from Jan 19-21, 2024. The Australian production was staged by The Javaad Alipoor Company and the National Theatre of Parramatta. Find out more here.