"Hold Me, Damn It, Just Hold Me!" by Ali Foumani takes flight on the wings of "The Siberian Crane" by the same author. This play is an unavoidable metamorphosis from monologue to dialogue, a point where solitary voices move toward one another and transform into conversation. The characters react to enforced silence and systematic erasure by invoking the silenced. They engage with the absent, fight against forgetting, and revive erased memories within the space. "Hold Me, Damn It, Just Hold Me!" is a dialogue with dialogue itself. It's a remembering of remembering.
Ali Foumani is a poet, writer, and theater director. His poems and short stories were published in Iranian literary magazines during the 1990s and 2000s, and his first poetry collection was released in 2013 by Nogaam Publishing in London. Several of his plays have been staged by Iranian directors, though none of his works have been permitted for publication in Iran. Foumani has directed productions of his own plays as well as works by Anton Chekhov, Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams, and Samuel Beckett in Iran, the UAE, Canada, and the United States. Alongside his writing and directing, he has been active in education for over two decades. In addition to designing curricula and teaching literature, social sciences, and performing arts, he has conducted dozens of courses and workshops for students, artists, and educators in Iran and abroad. Asemana Books previously published his plays The Siberian Crane (2024) and Yousef, Joseph, Giuseppe (2025).
