Wish You Were Here
Now at Studio Theatre
Wish You Were Here at the Studio Theatre is interesting. The theatre shares this basic information before you see this play. “Salme’s getting married and her four best friends get her ready in a flurry of tulle and teasing about the wedding night ahead. But it’s 1978 in Karaj, on the eve of the Iranian Revolution, and over the next decade everything changes for these tightknit friends, their country, and the futures they find for themselves. The writer of the play, Sanaz Toossi, brings her wit, insight, and more than a few dirty jokes, to this story of diaspora from the people who stay in Iran.” It may help to know a little more about Iran so you can understand the play as the women move through the years. The play is well directed by Sivan Battat. I only noticed a little late in the play, that they were showing the years as they passed on the top of the stage, for each new scene.
The five women keep meeting together, fewer of them over the years, and finally only two. If you are a guy, you might find it amusing to hear what women talk about when getting together. Everything from how women’s pussies smell, to what male penises look like. Only one of the women claims to know that.
When the chatting begins, it’s 1978 in Karaj, Iran, where Salme (Layan Elwazani), Nazanin (Ellen Nikbakht), Zari (Ellena Eshraghi), Shideh (Shadee Vossoughi), and Rana (Ari Derambakhsh) are together making a fuss about the wedding dress that Salme is having adjusted for the impending nuptials.
The wedding is the central topic of discussion but there is the discussion of the female body and the man’s appendage. During this first scene, one of them dives under Salme’s bouffant skirt to sniff around for assurance that the bride is sufficiently fragrant for her wedding night.
The relationship among the women goes on as the Iran-Iraq war goes on from 1980-1988. The play covers the years 1979 to 1991.
Through peace and war, the women discuss waxing, finger and toe polish, menstrual cycles, yeast infections, body hair, and vaginas and more frequently using a popular term for them. But the play also looks at the fragility of friendships, and how they can wax and wane. The five friends disperse for one reason or another. Late in the play a New Friend (Ege Yalcinbas) is introduced. The most focused on is the relationship Nazanin and Rana, who’s not Muslim, but Jewish, and apparently leaves with her family, without telling the others, when the Iran-Iraq conflict begins. The two of them have pledged to each other not to marry, and it seems have declared their love for each other. The play comes to what sone may consider a happy conclusion, or at least the possibility of one.
The acting of the six women is superb, each in their own right. The costumes by Shahrzad Mazaheri; the lighting by Nic Vincent; the set design by Omid Akbari, and projection design by Doaa Ouf; all add immensely to the play.
Wish You Were Here is presented in 105 minutes, without an intermission. I think the audience could have been happy with 95 mins. The moving ending could have come a little earlier, without losing anything. But despite that I strongly recommend people see this production, as it is both serious and funny at the same time, and the women are interesting, and again, the acting is superb. It will be at the Studio Theatre through November 1, 2026, and tickets are available online.