The Public Theater in New York recently screened a spectacularly innovative piece of digital theater accompanied by a live Instagram feed. The work is called Rich kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran.

It’s a narrated story about events leading up to a fatal car accident in Tehran. The audience also follows this story as it unfolded on the victim’s Instagram feed. On the surface it’s about the rich kids’ lifestyle, and inequality, but subtly crosses over into story about consumerism and the unsustainable economic exploitation of the planet. It’s not didactic though. The director Jaavad Alipoor says he likes to write about topical things that audiences are already thinking about. But he hits them on emotional level. He originally wrote it as a play, but COVID stopped live shows, so he recreated it in digital format. It’s very intense to watch, switching between the narration on screen and the live Instagram feed. It keeps you absorbed and mirrors today’s bombardment of images and info.