Haram Iran

Jay Paul Deratany’s Haram Iran tells the story of two boys coming of age, and struggling with their identities as Arab Iranians, and as typical teenagers longing to discover their place in the world. Ayaz Marhouni and Mahmoud Asgari, two fifteen year old boys may have been gay or may have been experimenting with their sexuality– like many teenagers do, however, they get caught in a compromised position, publicly humiliated and tried in the Iranian legal system.

The story follows the boys’ passions–one for literature and the other for sports–and both for each other. The play takes the audience into the complexity of their relationship, and then the horrifying ordeal of being tried by an unforgiving Iranian legal system which misinterprets the Muslim law of Sharia.