The Arabian Nights.
Dec. 28th, 2010 12:46![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyThe Arabian Nights. Written and directed by Mary Zimmerman, performed by Berkeley Rep.
I went to see this becausetroisroyaumes 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.
The stories the play dramatizes fall into a rough division, with the first half being more ribald, and the second half being more somber (the people sitting next to me left at intermission, their loss, and my gain of the space to stretch my legs), but they are united by the frame tale, and by the same concerns within them: life, death, love, what it means to be human and how human beings should live. They are also punctured throughout by the majestic figure of the Caliph Harun ar-Rashid, and the golden age of his rule from Baghdad, and who apparently had to deal with a lot of whacky people if the stories are any guide--between that, his constant melancholy, and one of marriage proposals being turned down on stage, I felt kind of bad for him by the end of the play.
Though it's quite subtle, the play is also shaped by its--if I say 'didactic,' you will somehow think that I mean 'stodgy,' when they're not the same thing at all, and while the play is very gently didactic about Islam, it is anything but stodgy, and the production is absolutely fantastic, as was the set and the carpets used in it. The play is a model of a respectful, passionate interpretation, and at the end it even manages a disquieting smidgen of absolutely contemporary relevance--for of course, the play is set in Baghdad. It's not something you could do in literature, or even in film, but in theater it works, brilliantly and chillingly.
I bumped intovia_ostiense and sahiya at intermission, and afterwards we went out for a drink; 10 minutes later the cast showed up and proceeded to stake out a back table. Ah, Berkeley Rep, you are awesome.
*crosses fingers for more revivals/productions of Mary Zimmerman's plays*
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.
The stories the play dramatizes fall into a rough division, with the first half being more ribald, and the second half being more somber (the people sitting next to me left at intermission, their loss, and my gain of the space to stretch my legs), but they are united by the frame tale, and by the same concerns within them: life, death, love, what it means to be human and how human beings should live. They are also punctured throughout by the majestic figure of the Caliph Harun ar-Rashid, and the golden age of his rule from Baghdad, and who apparently had to deal with a lot of whacky people if the stories are any guide--between that, his constant melancholy, and one of marriage proposals being turned down on stage, I felt kind of bad for him by the end of the play.
Though it's quite subtle, the play is also shaped by its--if I say 'didactic,' you will somehow think that I mean 'stodgy,' when they're not the same thing at all, and while the play is very gently didactic about Islam, it is anything but stodgy, and the production is absolutely fantastic, as was the set and the carpets used in it. The play is a model of a respectful, passionate interpretation, and at the end it even manages a disquieting smidgen of absolutely contemporary relevance--for of course, the play is set in Baghdad. It's not something you could do in literature, or even in film, but in theater it works, brilliantly and chillingly.
I bumped into
via_ostiense and sahiya at intermission, and afterwards we went out for a drink; 10 minutes later the cast showed up and proceeded to stake out a back table. Ah, Berkeley Rep, you are awesome. *crosses fingers for more revivals/productions of Mary Zimmerman's plays*