SURREAL AND HUMOROUS: Mohammad Yaghoubi’s play “A Moment of Silence,” coming to the Berlind Theatre, is currently in rehearsal at Princeton University. Shown are students Kian Petlin ’28, Natalia Bonilla ’29, and Isabella Rivera ’27. (Photo by Jon Sweeney)

A Moment of Silence, by playwright and director Mohammad Yaghoubi, comes to the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center October 31, November 1, 7, and 8. Tickets are $20 ($10 for students).

The play “offers a deeply human meditation on Iran’s turbulent modern history,” according to a press release. “Shiva, the protagonist, wakes up to find she has been asleep for three years — only to realize she has missed the Islamic Revolution. Over the next decade, she continues to slip in and out of sleep, awakening each time to a drastically altered world: the war with Iraq, the murders of dissident artists, and upheavals within her own family. Layered with absurdity and poignancy, the play also follows the increasingly perilous journey of the playwright shaping Shiva’s story, as anonymous threats begin to blur the boundary between art and reality.”

Presented with significant support from the new Princeton Humanities Initiative, this project is also part of a new collaboration between the Lewis Center and the English Department supported by the University’s 250th Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. The production is cosponsored by Princeton’s Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES) and the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. Additional programming includes a talkback with the playwright, a conversation with the play’s translator, a lobby display on Iranian culture, a translation workshop, and interactions with Princeton and local high school students.

Shows are at 8 p.m. on October 31, November 1 and 7; and at 2 and 8 p.m. on November 8. McCarter is at 91 University Place. Visit mccarter.org for tickets.