The Arabian Nights.

The Arabian Nights. Written and directed by Mary Zimmerman, performed by Berkeley Rep.

I went to see this because troisroyaumes raved about it, and I'm so glad I listened, because it's truly fantastic, and it's also hilarious. I laughed so hard I cried.

I know I read excerpts from The Book of a Thousand Nights and One Night in sixth grade (as part of our focus on Islamic civilization, we also attended services at a mosque), but all I remember of the stories of Scheherazade is that "The Enormous Fart," which is one of the stories dramatized in the play, was so scandalous that we weren't allowed to read it, because of the title. Ah, middle school.

Mary Zimmerman foregrounds the violence, sex, and humor that run through the tales and their frame-story, in which Scheherazade schemes to delay her murder by her husband the king at the end of each night, beginning with the first night of their marriage, by telling him stories that always end on a cliffhanger: the king's first wife committed adultery, and after murdering her for it he swore never to trust women again, vowing to marry a virgin each night and to kill her at dawn. Scheherazade is very nearly the last virgin in the kingdom when the king commands her father to bring her to him, and with the help of her sister, she manages to delay her death for nearly three years, 1001 nights. I was impressed by the sheer physical courage of Scheherazade, and of her sister Dunezade, who accompanies her; she knowingly confronts her own death with only words for her weapon. But they're extraordinary words.

( A thousand nights and one night more. )

*crosses fingers for more revivals/productions of Mary Zimmerman's plays*

Yuletide recs!

I have three windows of Yuletide stories open at the moment, so I'm going to keep these recs on the quick and dirty side. I'm also trying to rec things that I haven't seen get much traction on the comms as yet. These are just the shorter stories; hopefully I'll have time to plow through the longer ones before the reveal. 

Also, guessing game! As a reminder, I wrote three fics in two fandoms, both chromatic, both I've never written in before; as of this writing, none of my stories have been rec'd to the comms (which doesn't surprise me, really; I made a deliberate effort to offer the more obscure fandoms I could). And, you know, at least two of them seem really obvious to me, but that is because I'm the one living on the inside of my head. ^^

( A Night in the Lonesome October, Arcadia, Arts & Sciences RPF, Calvin & Hobbes, Circle of Magic, Disney Princess Superheroes, The Effluent Engine, Eugene Onegin, Hark, a Vagrant!, Heian Period RPF, Hogfather/The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Hunger Games, Gabriel Knight, K-20, Princess Tutu, The Prisoner, Qing Hua Ci, Sociology RPF, Their Majesties' Bucketeers, Threadless T-Shirts )

And finally, in the brilliant tradition of writing about Yuletide, With All Apologies to William Carlos Williams by Lanna Michaels. I'm still laughing.