My Father Held a Gun

Why do men go to war? And what can woman do to stop them, if anything? Sahand Sahebdivan, born in Iran, and Raphael Rodan, raised in Israel ponder this question in a moving but also funny one on one encounter. Starting with letters written by soldiers during World War I, they evoke the situation in their respective countries of origin and remember the struggles and paths of their parents, play on the absurdity of their supposed antagonism, describe their lost loves, raise questions about the female body, argue over pacifism, and oppose each other (but not really) on the possibility that a man can really be a feminist. As accompaniment a clarinetist and a guitar player punctuate the story and complete the simplicity of the staging.

Passionate about the art of storytelling – they co-founded the Mezrab School for Storytelling – Sahand Sahebdivan and Raphael Rodan performed their previous creation, Kingdom of Fire and Clay, in Belgium in 2015. With My Father Held a Gun, the two men, this time co-writing with Albert Maizel, continue a conversation in which they play themselves, an Iranian and an Israeli, friends and storytellers who prefer to underline their similarities than their differences.