Brent Askari’s momentous drama “Andy Warhol in Iran” is set in Tehran, 1976. But there’s a stunning moment in the drama running through Feb. 19 at Skokie’s Northlight Theatre, when a portrait of Mahsa Amini — the 22-year-old Kurdish woman whose death last year in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” sparked the global Women Life Freedom movement — fills the projection screens mounted above the stage. Far from removing the audience from the world of Iran 47 years ago, Amini’s image underscores the play’s incisive, captivating exploration of Iranian history and how it’s been indelibly shaped by the world’s Western superpowers, namely the U.S. and Britain.
Directed by Northlight Artistic Director BJ Jones, “Andy Warhol in Iran” transpires in a hotel room at the Royal Tehran Hilton but defies containment within those walls with a story that crosses continents and encompasses generations.
