Esmaeel Khalaj

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| native_name = اسماعیل خلج

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| birth_place = Tehran, Iran {{flagicon|Iran}}

| occupation = Actor

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| native_name_lang = Fa

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Esmaeel Khalaj (born 1936, {{langx|fa|اسماعیل خلج}}) is an Iranian playwright and film and television writer, director and actor.{{usurped|1=[https://archive.today/20131013132952/http://seenama.com/person/esmaeel-khalaj Esmeel Khalaj]}} He was born in Astara, but went to Tehran and studied acting under the Iranian acting teacher and director, Abdolhossein Nooshin. He started to write plays in the 1970s. In his plays, he has a very naturalistic worldview and bitter language. In fact, he is under the influence of European nineteenth-century realism and naturalism. Most places in his plays are coffeehouses and dirty places from downtown. His characters are prostitutes, pimps, thieves and illiterate people.Khalaj, Mansoor. (1992). Iranian Playwrights. Tehran: Akhtaran. {{ISBN|964-7514-13-1}}. pp.117-118 These characters use a simple and sometimes rude language, but at the same time they think about very difficult problems like death and life.[http://www.theater.ir/fa/basic/articles.php?id=6626 Esmeel Khalaj's Plays]