Saria Callas: A Bold Anthem of Resistance, Identity, and Freedom comes to Camden People’s Theatre

‘Saria Callas’ – a striking new play from Seemia Theatre is coming to Camden People’s Theatre in London this May before heading to Glasgow’s Oran Mor.

Identity, silencing, and resistance are all explored in this multimedia piece of work and in Saria Callas, boundaries between personal grief and global struggles blur. The play weaves together the artist's own unfulfilled dreams of becoming a singer with broader narratives of control over women’s voices and bodies across cultures. From Tehran to London, Saria Callas invites audiences to reflect on the universal fight for freedom and autonomy in an increasingly oppressive world. Through raw vulnerability and defiant joy, the work challenges not only political systems but also the everyday dynamics of power and protection in the most intimate of relationships. We spoke to writer and performer Sara Amini to find out more about the show.

The show weaves your own story into a wider tapestry of women's voices and silencing. Can you talk about the genesis of Saria Callas and how you approached its narrative structure?

For me, Saria Callas began as something deeply personal. I’ve always carried a lump in my throat from not being able to pursue a professional career as a singer. At first, Saria Callas was an eruption of that suppressed grief, and writing about it came very naturally and fluidly to me. But as I went on, I felt the need to find a way to make the issue of silencing and controlling someone else’s voice and body more tangible and relatable for a contemporary London audience. That’s how my very personal story became intertwined with other narratives – blending imagination and reality.

Music is at the heart of the piece, yet it’s also a forbidden fruit. How did singing become both rebellion and refuge for you?

For Saria, singing is like breathing. It’s an inseparable part of her, and no power can destroy it - even if it might have the power to conceal or hide it. I think in the play, singing becomes a symbol of rebellion, even though all it really does is exist and persist – nothing more.

When I began working on Saria Callas and reflected back on my teenage and early adult years, a deep question came to me: why did I keep learning how to sing when I knew I would never be allowed to sing publicly?

The answer I found was that singing was a part of me – it brought me such joy and felt so intrinsic that it seemed natural. And without intending to make a political or rebellious statement, just by being and insisting on nurturing what I loved, I was committing an act of rebellion. That sanctuary – my safe place – was, in itself, an act of defiant presence.

One of the central tensions is between a parent’s protective instincts and a child’s need to explore their identity. How did you navigate writing about that with honesty and tenderness?

Being a parent naturally and unconsciously places you in a very powerful position in relation to your child. As a parent, you constantly make decisions on behalf of your child in order to protect them, and the child is inevitably required to accept and live with those decisions. For me, the experience of motherhood and being in that position has been, and continues to be, deeply challenging.

The relationship between a parent and child, the dynamic, is naturally unequal and makes me want to rethink what protection is. This was shaped by my experience of growing up under a religious government that seeks to protect society. This ‘protection’ blends into most private aspects of people’s lives, often with a feeling of benevolence from the religious regime. How these well-intentioned morals interfere with deeply personal individual decisions - and there are some striking parallels you discover between this state system and the parent-child relationship which has made me question a lot.

What is the line, and when, how do you even walk it, cross it? To what extent should a mother make decisions on behalf of their child? Throughout the play Saria finds herself raising this question in a relatable way.

I relied on my own experiences and emotions, both as a mother and as a child. The interviews I had with non-binary individuals before writing Saria were also incredibly helpful in shaping the mother-child relationship through the journey of gender identity exploration.

Saria Callas travels from Tehran to Poland to London, spotlighting different systems of control. What connects these experiences for you?

We are living in a time when, even today, women in some European countries still don’t have the right to choose abortion. In Iran, women are fighting for their right to choose what to wear – and many other basic freedoms, including the right to sing in public. In Afghanistan, women have been stripped of their right to education. In the United States, we’re witnessing a wave of new laws that are increasingly anti-women and anti-trans rights.

Just as the left-wing political perspective in different countries is very much alike, it is striking to see the similar, disturbing views of extreme right-wing politics and nationalism across countries. This is where I’ve learned that beyond borders and cultural differences, the essence of oppression or the struggle for freedom is always the same.

Creating Saria Callas was, for me, a way of provoking the audience to reflect on the idea of freedom – but within a broader, more global context. Although the piece begins in a small, intimate, and seemingly distant world – one that might not immediately feel connected to a modern London audience – its aim is to ask a more universal question about bodily and vocal autonomy.

 You’re not just telling a story about repression, you’re also exploring the danger of becoming the oppressor. How did you come to that theme?

Living in Iran under the shadow of repression, and later experiencing life as a migrant in Europe, showed me the many different faces of oppression and what it means to live as a minority. At home and in society, we often – without even realising it – move between being the oppressed and becoming the oppressor.

Through our everyday behaviours, we may unintentionally limit someone else’s space. We can take away others’ freedom to exist openly, and in the very moment we’re fighting for our own freedom, we might be denying someone else theirs.

In Saria, I try to show how thin the line is between being oppressed and becoming the oppressor – and how important it is to constantly reflect on whether our own biases might be denying someone else their freedom.

This needs to be part of our daily practice if we want a truly free and flourishing society. The current state of the world – shrinking political spaces, limitations on freedom of expression, and the deeply troubling crackdown on trans rights – sadly, all stand as proof of this reality.

The piece is multimedia. How do these layers function in your theatrical language? 

In Saria, we use video to help make the environment in which Saria grew up more tangible for the audience – but the video goes beyond that, revealing the inner world of her mind. Music is also an inseparable part of this storytelling, just as singing is an inseparable part of Saria herself.

Saria expresses her emotions through reinterpreting various songs, and through her singing, we become familiar with the different landscapes of her inner world. I’m tired of the serious and gloomy perspective on the Middle East, and specifically on Iran. I would like to give the audience the opportunity to see me and us from a more human angle. Perhaps it can be said that Saria Callas, in a kitsch and popular style, attempts to escape the clichéd view of an Iranian woman, hijab, and Islam, but with a playful tone, by challenging forms of control and suppression in the face of freedom.

What does resistance look like to you now – as an artist, a parent, and a woman?

In my view, we’re standing at a historical crossroads – it feels like we’ve taken several steps backwards, and now we must find the path forward once again. We are living through some of the darkest days in recent history. What is happening in Palestine has, for me, stripped the word humanity of its meaning – and we need to redefine it.

The environment is rapidly deteriorating, and there’s no clear vision or plan in sight to stop the destruction.

As a mother, I want to teach my child to always fight for the best for all people and for freedom. As a woman and as a human being, I try to engage in the daily struggle for freedom and basic human rights –  especially for all children.

Even though I feel exhausted and disheartened by the world we live in, I believe there is no alternative to continuous and persistent resistance.

Being unapologetically Iranian, unapologetically a woman, unapologetically trans inclusive, but most of all unapologetically joyous is our biggest resistance. 

Saria Callas will be performed in London at Camden People’s Theatre 6th-17th of May (Tickets here: https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/Saria-Callas) and in Glasgow at Òran Mór on 26th-31st May (tickets here: https://playpiepint.com/plays/saria-callas/)