Adaptation of “The Mission” in June

Theater director Kiomars Moradi is to stage an adaptation of José Maria Ferreira de Castro’s novel “The Mission” at City Theater in Tehran on June 10.   The play is adapted by playwrights Mohammad Charmshir and Farhad Mohandespour. It will run until early July, ISNA reported on its Persian website.  Mohammad Valizadegan, Mohsen Nouri, Milad Moayyeri and Pantea Qadirian act in the play. The Mission is the story of a Jesuit monk Father Gabriel who enters the Guarani lands in South America with the purpose of converting natives to Christianity. He soon sets up a mission where he is joined by Rodrigo Mendoza, a reformed slave trader seeking redemption. The movie adaptation of the novel by director Roland Joffe has won many awards including Palme d’Or, Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA.   Ferreira de Castro (1898-1974), a journalist and novelist, is considered one of the fathers of contemporary Portuguese social-realist (or neorealist) fiction. The nine years he spent in the Amazon jungles of Brazil led to the creation of two prominent novels “Emigrants” and “The Jungle” that have been translated into more than a dozen languages.