To act on stage, Iranian actresses must observe certain Islamic/cultural dress codes. The focus of this article is Iranian actresses’ engagement with their own embodied specificity, an engagement that creates a space for both assertion and resistance; assertion of new forms of agency and resistance to Iranian hegemonic discourses. Religious hegemony among the others, mediate these actresses’ bodies in a way that all their body movements become religiously and semantically laden actions. The result of such laden actions is the emotional labours that are performed by these actresses mostly in service to the dominating religious system. The article contends that in recent years, the interplay of theatrical corporeality, subjectivity and cultural specificity has enabled the new wave of actresses in Iran to not only navigate but also develop their transgressive potentials in relation to their labour on the Iranian stage.
Paying particular attention to their certain corporeal actions and practices including veiling, voice and even stillness, which are framed by several censorial regulations and supervision, reveals how these women carve out a space for their resistance and creation. Through a survey of theatre reviewing in the theatre journals and blogosphere, a brief case study of Tehran-based stage and street theatre groups, and conducting interviews with their actresses, I investigate what corporeal activism and agential authorship means to Iranian actresses who practice it and to the members of Committee of Theatre Supervision whose attitude this corporeal agency destabilizes. Such approach is also significant for female scholars including myself who desire to represent/explore this potential through writing from their identity position as critics and historians.
