My Own Private Korsi

When I was a little boy living in Tehran, I distinctly remember our korsi – which, in our Iranian household, was a single lightbulb placed underneath a low coffee table covered by a heavy woven blanket. The adults would then place their legs underneath the table to keep their feet warm while playing Iranian versions of Gin Rummy, drinking hot saffron tea with a sugar cube nestled between their teeth. 

Since I was so small and squirmy, I would hide myself inside the korsi in my secret fortress, imagining myself as a general or commander of our household. I would whisper military-style instructions to my sister’s beige panty-hosed toes, sometimes circling the perimeter of the four wooden posts of the coffee table to keep out all potential foot invaders. Often I’d peek through our grandmother's blanket stretching the fabric just enough to make out which visitor had entered our home, marking them as a badjence, a bad guy. After all, I was General Arian protecting my family in my korsi command headquarters! 

The reality is that my younger self was hiding from the never-ending screech of missile attacks that blanketed Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war. My military commands were my childlike contributions to the Iranian war efforts – the warmth of the bulb and my mother’s feet, an escape from a world of chaos and turmoil that my four-year-old self wanted to run from. Most likely, it was all of these feelings combined and more yet to be discovered. 

For whatever reason, I never spoke about my korsi, the war, or immigrating to the United States. Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine that anyone in America would even understand much less care. It was just one of those complex and messy memories we bury. The older we get, these memories become less and less tangible and raise more questions. Did that happen to me? Were those memories real? Did I dream them up?

Sitting at the first preview of Sanaz Toossi’s Wish You Were Here, my clouded memories crystalized back into existence with vivid colors, penetrating sounds, and layered emotions. Watching these glorious actresses portray resilient Iranian women from that same time period made me feel seen. 

Watching the character of Nazanin hide her deepest fears suddenly brought back memories of my mother crying under our staircase, while my brother fought in the war. Hearing the missiles screech above the play’s Karaj home flooded my brain with my father’s rationalizations that we were going to be okay. Watching two women speaking on the phone from across the globe replayed all of my family’s conversations with our relatives back in Iran, filled with regretful positivity. Watching the bright daylight of Reza Behjat’s lighting design peek through the heavy curtains immediately recalled our korsi, my refuge from fear and pain. 

Sanaz’s play gives me hope that audiences can better understand Iranian people. How resilient we are. How much complexity we have to show. How much we’ve had to sacrifice. How much we want to be heard. How much we want to share. How much love we have to give. How much we want to be seen. 

And, in my case, I hid inside my own private korsi to learn that I want to be seen through theater.