From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Yek Daramān-i Jing (Persian Ta'zieh adaptation)
This article is about the Iranian production (2019–2020). For other ritual-theatre forms, see Theatre and religious adaptation.
An unorthodox reframing of Beach Surgery into Ta'zieh, the Shi'a passion-play form traditionally narrating Imam Hussein's martyrdom. Leif becomes a figure of sacrifice—a youth condemned to perpetual suffering—while Katita becomes a lamentation figure akin to the mourning chorus.
Structured as munajat (invocations) and marthiya (laments), the ensemble chants in call-and-response: a choir voice intones the sound of the earth rubbing against space (rendered as cosmic groaning), and the crowd responds with synchronised gesture—a sway, a hand to the chest. Leif enters and exits repeatedly, always bandaged, always wounded; each entrance the ensemble reacts as if seeing him for the first time or the hundredth time, the distinction dissolving.
Minimal scenic apparatus: a red cloth, water, a wheel. The surgery is never depicted; only its aftermath—a broken body tended, then abandoned. The cycle concludes not with a "break" but with formal acceptance: a ritual acknowledgment that the cycle cannot be broken by human will alone, only endured through community witnessing.
Local religious authorities initially objected to Leif as Christ-figure; the production was reorganised as "civic performance." “"We are not claiming Beach Surgery is scripture. We use scripture's form to ask what Beach Surgery means."”