How Brent Askari came up with ‘Andy Warhol in Iran,’ now at Mosaic Theater
The playwright talks about his thought-provoking, deliciously funny play about justice, art, and politics and the clash of cultures between East and West.
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| Nathan Mohebbi as Farhad and Alex Mills as Andy Warhol in Mosaic Theater’s production of ‘Andy Warhol in Iran’ by Brent Askari. Photo by Chris Banks. Courtesy DC Theater Arts |
by Ravelle Brickman, DC Theater Arts
“Making money is art.” That’s the credo of the money-making pop artist — known for his portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s Soup cans — whose imagined plight at the hands of a timid revolutionary is the core of Andy Warhol in Iran, the new comic drama making its DC debut at Mosaic Theater Company.
The show, now extended through July 6, begins with Warhol — played by a radiantly comic Alex Mills — musing about his detachment.
Speaking directly to the audience — his face obscured by the signature wig and large dark glasses — he describes himself as an observer. He identifies with his camera, an ancient Polaroid and a relic, even in 1976. (The role is reminiscent of I Am a Camera, the 1951 play by John Van Druten and Christopher Isherwood, in which the latter describes himself as a passive observer, but then is drawn, reluctantly, into the world he observes.)
Warhol is in his room at the Tehran Hilton, waiting to hear from the Shah’s wife about a commission to paint her portrait. But, in the words of Brent Askari, the playwright pulling the strings, Warhol admits that he is really waiting “for something that could have happened … or would happen … or will happen.”
