Actress Roya Nonahali to return to Baghdad stage with ‘Like Water for Chocolate’
Iranian actress Roya Nonahali will return to the international stage with ‘Like Water for the Chocolate,’ directed and written by Ebrahim Poshtkouhi, at the Baghdad International Theatre Festival.
The production is an adaptation of Mexican author Laura Esquivel’s acclaimed novel, first staged in Iran in 2013 with Nonahali in the cast. It was later revived in 2016 and 2018, with Nonahali reprising her role, IRNA reported.
Poshtkouhi is returning to Baghdad with the production for a third time, extending a long-running international trajectory that has taken his work to festivals and stages in Moscow, Munich, St. Petersburg, Baku, Yerevan and Budapest. His theatrical language often draws on the traditions, music and folklore of southern Iran, weaving local cultural textures into contemporary adaptations.
His previous Baghdad appearances have brought major recognition. ‘Macbeth Zar’ won the top prize at the fourth Baghdad International Theatre Festival, while ‘Chaos Particles’ later won the festival’s Grand Prize and its Best Actress award.
‘Like Water for Chocolate’ follows Tita, the youngest daughter in a family bound by tradition, whose forbidden love and emotional world unfold through food, memory and magical realism. Esquivel’s novel, first published in 1989, has become a landmark of Latin American magical realism.
For Poshtkouhi, the Baghdad return places a distinctly Iranian theatrical voice once again on a regional stage, with southern Iranian cultural motifs meeting a globally recognized literary work.