A group of friends from Tehran are spending the weekend with their children on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Sepideh has invited Elly, her daughter’s teacher, to join them, even though she hardly knows her. Everyone is having fun — until Elly unexpectedly disappears. Concern turns to anguish and then suspicion, bringing lies and unspoken truths into the open. Forced to show their true colours, the group’s unity begins to fray. A different Iran emerges — harsher and more traditional, where women’s roles are slow to change. In such a rigid society, can compassion resist the pressure to conform?

Created in spring 2023, this adaptation of Asghar Farhadi’s film brings together eleven actors from different backgrounds — Iraqi, Iranian, Belgian, Dutch and Afghan — for a director-less performance, in line with tg STAN’s collaborative ethos. Reduced to its core elements, the set design — with a simple tarp to evoke the wild sea — shines a light on the creative process. An unsettling parallel unfolds between the group of friends, who strive to remain united in adversity, and the actors from four different companies, who have embarked together on this theatrical adventure.

“As I look back on my previous screenplays — from Dancing in the Dust to Pastness — what they all seem to share, and what becomes more intense and clearer over time, is the question mark. A question mark that grows more multifaceted from one screenplay to the next. If I have succeeded in anything through my writings, it is in fortifying the courage to question — helping audiences to confront their fears, to plant the seed of a question in their minds. I come from a time when writing was about seeking comfort and contentment. But today’s world needs something else. Today’s world needs people who are willing to ask, not just answer. People who refuse to accept anything as permanent and unshakable.”
– Asghar Farhadi