The two lovers at the center of Amir Reza Koohestani’s haunting Timeloss have fought the same battle so many times, that it has practically stopped affecting them. They are two actors who have reunited years after their split in order to record lines for a DVD of a show they did in their youth, called Dance on Glasses (Koohestani’s breakthrough show). As they take their places in the studio, it’s obvious that he (Hassan Madjooni) isn’t over her (Mahin Sadri) and he annoys her with questions about her life after him, in between takes, which she elegantly deflects. The funny thing is that the lines they’re recording are also of an argument between lovers. Both quarrels seem to become one as the playwright and the actors do little to clarify if the tone or intention are coming from the actors or the characters they once played.
This makes for a farce that’s so full of pain and regret that sometimes we want to look away, its contents too intimate, its resonance too powerful, making us feel like eavesdroppers or worse, guests trapped at a dinner party where the hosts have suddenly realized they can’t stand each other anymore. The actors are wonderful, with Madjooni playing the man, like a restless creature offended about the fact that she was even able to continue living without him. It seems his memories of why the affair ended have little to do with the reasons why she doesn't even want to look him in the eye. Sadri efficiently makes her disinterest seem like a coverup for a pain that she had practically forgotten she had gone through, both actors bring a sense of having lived in these characters for so long, that we too, simplistically, might wonder at one point if the actors have a bond beyond the professional, a testament to the effortless quality of their work.
Koohestani wrote Dance on Glasses after a breakup of his own, and if anything Timeloss, makes for a devastating essay about the nature of moving on past heartbreak. Koohestani gets to exorcise his demons through theater, but what about those sitting in the audience who only get to replay ending affairs over and over inside their heads?
