The deafening noise and relentless visuals in And Here I Am will leave you stunned ★★★☆☆

The play has not officially started yet, but there is already enough to see from the stands in Theater Kikker in Utrecht. A woman who silently looks into a make-up mirror is surrounded by four other women. They wear sumptuous creations: asymmetrically cropped blazers, lace ruffles on blouses and trouser legs, a giant tulle collar on a tracksuit.

The hall doors close. Composer and performer Huba de Graaff (62) takes the floor. A long introduction, but it is also a long and complicated poem by the Iranian Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967) that she set to music: Let Us Believe at the Dawn of the Cold Season†

She talks about Farrokhzad’s life in a country with strict rules and stifling morals. About how the Iranian wrote autobiographical poems, in which she offers a female perspective on the world and makes no secret of her feelings of lust. But also how Farrokhzad tells her mother during her (only) pregnancy that they should put an obituary in the newspaper.

Farrokhzad dies at the age of 32 as a result of a traffic accident. She had to avoid a school bus. Published posthumously Let Us Believe she seems to foresee her death: ‘How they stand at intersections, worried about accidents.’ She also testifies to her resistance to her parents’ expectations by marrying her much older cousin: ‘I think my mother wept that night, the night I felt the pain and a being formed in my womb, the night I became an acacia bride.’

Sonologist De Graaff also makes frequent use of electronics for this project: rustling tape, distortion, rock-solid amplified percussion. The Turkish performer Imra Dinçer sings annex proclaims expressively with her dark voice, the Austrian percussionist Michaela Riener is a background singer, but she actually sings too well for that.

There are also the amazing Hungarian recorder player Dodó Kis and keyboard player Nora Mulder. With a rhythmic melody as a building block, they form the foundation of what twice results in a pruning-hard reinforced We Will Rock You-rhythm.

De Graaff’s electronic violin is almost never audible, she is too busy with a pedal in between. Sometimes images from the documentary can be seen on the back wall The House Is Black (1962) by Farrokhzad – she was also a documentary filmmaker. The images are intense; you see the disfigured faces of the lepers who followed Farrokhzad for three weeks in a leper colony. The deafening noise of De Graaff and the relentless images overshadow the drama of the poet and leave you feeling overwhelmed.

Finally, the chanson setting of sin easier to feel. In her lover’s arms, a woman feels guilt – in fact she just shudders with pleasure.