The Islamic Drama Read online

  The Islamic Drama

  The Islamic Drama

  Jamshid Malekpour

  First published in 2004 in Great Britain by

  FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS

  Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate

  London N14 5BP

  This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

  To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

  and in the United States of America by

  FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS

  c/o ISBS, 920 NE 58th Avenue, # 300

  Portland, Oregon, 97213-3644

  Website: www.frankcass.com

  Copyright © 2004 Jamshid Malekpour

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Malekpour, Jamshid

  The Islamic drama

  1. Taziyah 2. Theater—Iran

  I. Title

  792.1'6'0955

  ISBN 0-203-50426-7 Master e-book ISBN

  ISBN 0-203-58441-4 (Adobe e-Reader Format)

  ISBN 0-7146-5565-1 (Print Edition)

  ISBN 0-7146-8446-5 (Print Edition)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Malik’pur, Jamshid.

  The Islamic drama = Ta’ziyah/Jamshid Malekpour.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical reference (p.) and index.

  ISBN 0-7146-5565-1—ISBN 0-7146-8446-5 (pbk.)

  1. Ta’ziyah—History and criticism. 2. Persian drama—History and criticism.

  3. Drama—Iran—History and criticism. 4. Islamic drama—Iran—History and criticism. I. Title. Ta’ziyah. II. Title.

  PK6422.M297 2003

  891'.5520516–dc21 2003055201

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

  Foreword

  IS THERE SUCH a thing as Islamic drama?

  Is it proscribed by the Qurʹan?

  These questions come up again and again in international theatrical discourse. They certainly came up often in my work on the World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre project. Now, at long last, precise and profound answers are available thanks to the impressive research offered by Iranian scholar Jamshid Malekpour in his important new scholarly volume The Islamic Drama.

  The answer to those old questions, of course, is ‘yes, there is an Islamic drama’, and Professor Malekpour argues that it is called Taʹziyeh. ‘A ritualistic form of theatre’ akin to early Greek drama but more closely related to the medieval European drama or even the spectacular communal elements of the 2,500-year-old Abydos Passion Play of Egypt with its public reenactment of the death and resurrection of Osiris, Taʹziyeh requires elements of both participation and belief for its theatrical realization. In such events, the secular and the ritualistic merge in a dramaturgically rich imaginative.

  Originally performed in inn-yards of caravan stops (caravanserai), Taʹziyeh is identified not just as Islamic but more specifically as a Shiʹa form of Islamic ritual. The second largest branch of Islam, Shiʹa is Iran’s official religion and today, as Professor Malekpour tells us, some 70 million Iranians practise it. Yet even among the Shʹia, Taʹ ziyeh is not so frequently seen, meaning that Professor Malekpour’s research is special indeed.

  When Taʹziyeh is done, it is always during the month of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar and the month of mourning for every Shiʹa Muslim. The exact date changes from year to year. The subject matter of Taʹziyeh is always connected to one particular event in the history of the Shiʹa: the death of the venerated Hussein, the son of Muhammad, on the plains of Karbala in AD 680. In its most traditional form—dating back to the tenth century—Imam Hussein is the historical protagonist and the tragic events of his death are ritually reenacted.

  The basic structure of Taʹziyeh was more or less fully evolved by the late eighteenth century, but that has not stopped writers since from using the form—particularly in the last hundred years or so—in a variety of new ways while managing to maintain the root story and its call to grieve and to believe. In this rich study, Professor Malekpour examines not only the classical Taʹziyeh texts but some very modern Taʹziyeh as well. The reader is even provided with a list of the many texts available and where they can be found. It is interesting to note in this regard that the repository of one of the largest collections of Taʹziyeh texts is the Vatican library in Rome.

  WHAT DOES TAʹZIYEH LOOK LIKE FROM A THEATRICAL STANDPOINT?

  As Professor Malekpour explains, Taʹziyeh is part ritual, part history, part poetic recitation, part storytelling, part music and part song. And because there are clear elements of improvization within the structure, Taʹziyeh offers room for political and religious interpretation. It is this element particularly which has caused Taʹziyeh political trouble. Taʹziyeh performances, we learn, eventually found themselves under such secular pressures that organizers eventually moved them away from the large cities almost entirely both to protect practitioners and to avoid further controversy. Yet it remained alive in those smaller communities and, since 1979, has gradually been allowed to re-emerge in other parts of Iran.

  The stated purpose of Taʹziyeh, we are told here, is ‘to make the audience emotionally involved so that they empathize totally with the martyrs’. Clearly, participation in Taʹ ziyeh is much more an act of religious faith than it is theatrical exhibition. But it is a real part of the performative spectrum and the whole community is called upon to participate, to enact its personages and its emotions.

  Because it is rooted in mourning ritual, those involved wear black and must maintain a skilled level of ritual suffering. Flags and banners are waved by the community at appropriate moments in the scenario and, as in the Greek drama, all the central roles— even those of women —are played by men. Music is another significant part of the event as are choral laments, structured eulogies, and communal recitations. Taʹziyeh also involves large communal processions, the carrying of coffins and banners. Originally only in verse, Taʹziyeh, especially in its early manifestations, even included masks and puppets.

  Taʹziyeh is obviously an event that requires some size and, although it has been performed indoors, it seems at its most comfortable in the open air, where its battle scenes can and have involved as many as 4,000 people. I suppose the closest Western equivalent might well be the Oberammergau Passion Play—still seen every ten years in Germany—which maintained itself as both an important religious and theatrical event for several hundred years while also going through a variety of textual interpretations.

  Professor Malekpour traces Taʹziyeh’s roots even further back in time than the Oberammergau stagings—to Zoroastrianism and to Mithraism in its development as part of early Shiʹa Islam. In doing so, he pays special attention to the form’s essential dramatic conflict between the Olya and the Ashghya, that is, between the believers and the nonbelievers, the good and the bad, the faithful and the pagans.

  Without doubt, a scholarly study of this importance to an understanding of Islamic drama is long overdue, and Professor Malekpour effectively positions Taʹziyeh within a lively discourse of religiously rooted theatre and ritual. He is obviously determined to get theatrical respect for the form, and I believe he achieves his goal brilliantly.

  Director Peter Brook is quoted in this book as saying that, for him, theatre must be ‘a mirror of the invisible’. When Brook first encountered Taʹziyeh in Iran he felt that it was precisely that ‘mirror of the invisible’ for i
ts community. Obviously this book will not lead to a rash of Taʹziyeh productions around the world, nor should it, but it will, like a UNESCO heritage designation, help ensure that Taʹziyeh will be more appreciatively seen, understood and, it is to be hoped, kept alive for generations to come.

  On behalf of the world of theatrical scholarship, I must say how very grateful we all must be to Professor Malekpour for this timely and important book.

  Don Rubin

  Editor, World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my editor Sian Mills for her care and expertise. My thanks also go to Dr Ali Montazeri, former head of the Dramatic Arts Centre of Iran, for his support, friendship and encouragement.

  List of Illustrations

  1. The battle of Karbala, the main plot of the Taʹziyeh.

  2. The Ikhernefret Stone, early evidence of the ritual drama of Abydos.

  3. The mourning pilgrims carrying the boat of Amun, the creator god of Hermopolis, at the Abydos processions.

  4. The wall painting of Mourning for Siavush. The coffin is carried by four men and surrounded by lamenting women.

  5, The Karbala procession. The coffin of Imam Hussein is carried by mourners

  6. (Fasl-nameh Theatre).

  7. Rowza-Khani. The mullah sits on the pulpit telling the stories of the Karbala events for the mourners.

  8. A religious procession of Muharram from the Qajar period (1787–1925).

  9, The religious procession of Muharram in recent times. Women beat their chests

  10. as a sign of mourning for Imam Hussein (Ghamoos).

  11. Bourzo, a famous story-teller of Shah-nameh.

  12. The Martyrdom of Siavush.

  13. A story-teller relates the tragedy of the Karbala plain, using a huge painted canvas. Shiraz, 1972.

  14. A religious painting of the Karbala events, used by story-tellers.

  15. Canvas showing the whole story of Moslem ibn Aqil, a follower of Imam Hussein, from his trip to Kufa to his capture and martyrdom.

  16. A battle scene of a Taʹziyeh in an open space (Iran).

  17. The Martyrdom of Ali Akbar.

  18. The Martyrdom of the Sons of Moslem.

  19. The Death of Hazrat-e Fatama.

  20. The Martyrdom of Imam Abbas.

  21. The Ruins of Damascus.

  22. The Martyrdom of Qasim.

  23. The original manuscript of Shah-Cheragh.

  24. A carpet on the ground forms the stage in a Taʹziyeh performance in 1860.

  25. A Taʹziyeh performance in the yard of a takiyeh in 1860.

  26. A Taʹziyeh performance in a takiyeh in Tehran. The pond is covered to be used as the stage.

  27. A takiyeh in Tehran in 1896. The stage is a rectangular brick platform in the middle of the yard.

  28. An empty space in the middle. The Taʹziyeh of Ali Akbar, 1997 (Ershad-e Sabzevar).

  29. Shamir and Ibn-e Saad in full combat dress (Ershad-e Sabzevar).

  30. The farewell scene of Ali Akbar with his mother. The mother is played by a male actor (Ershad-e Sabzevar).

  31. The pot of water symbolizes the river whose water is denied to Imam Hussein and his followers (Ershad-e Sabzevar).

  32. Ali Akbar in his simple white shroud or kafan (Ershad-e Sabzevar).

  33. The battlefield of the Karbala plain in The Martyrdom of Imam Hussein, 1975.

  34. The Taʹziyeh of Moses and the Wandering Dervish, 1975.

  35. A Taʹziyeh group in the Qajar period. The man in black with a manuscript in his hand is Moin al-Boka, the Master of the Taʹziyeh.

  36. Bazaar Sham in Shiraz, 1975.

  37. Mirza Gholam Hussein, a leading actor of the Qajar era, in the role of Imam Abbas.

  38. A contemporary actor of the Taʹziyeh, using a microphone on stage (Ershad-e Sabzevar).

  39. The Martyrdom of Imam Abbas, 1997.

  40. The Martyrdom of Imam Hussein, 1982 (Akasi Theatre).

  41. The mask of the demon in the Taʹziyeh of Binding the Demon’s Toes.

  42. Two photographs of musicians in the Taʹziyeh. The first is from the Qajar period and the second from recent years (Moseghi dar Iran and Ershad-e Sabzevar)

  43. The interior of the Takiyeh Dowlat, a painting by Kamalol Molk from the Qajar period.

  44. The exterior of the Takiyeh Dowlat in 1869.

  45. The dome of the Takiyeh Dowlat.

  46. The galleries and the decoration of the walls in the Takiyeh Dowlat.

  Introduction

  THE ISLAMIC DRAMA of Iran is known as Ta ʹziyeh1 or Shabih.2 It is a drama enacting the suffering and death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet of Islam. In 680 AD he was massacred along with his family in the plain of Karbala near Baghdad by the soldiers of Yazid, the Caliph.3 This drama was described by the distinguished theatre director Peter Brook as ‘a very powerful form of theatre’4 when he first saw a Taʹziyeh performance in 1970 in a village in the north of Iran. Many theatre critics, such as David Williams, claim that it was the Taʹziyeh that ‘had fired his [Brook’s] imagination’5 for future experimental productions such as Orghast and Conference of Birds.

  The evolution of the Taʹziyeh involved the incorporation of countless elements drawn from religion, mythology, folklore and traditional forms of Iranian entertainment. This development took place over a long period of time. However, the Taʹziyeh, in its fully evolved theatrical form, came into existence in the mid-eighteenth century. It reached its highest point during the rule of Nasseredin Shah (1848–96), who built the Takiyeh Dowlat. This magnificent playhouse for the Taʹziyeh provided seating for a large number of spectators. The Taʹziyeh suffered significantly in the twentieth century, when it was attacked by a number of pro-Western and nationalistic movements that objected to such religious dramas because of their belief that the performances encouraged social stagnation. The Taʹziyeh suffered even further when it was banned in the 1930s by the Pahlavi regime, and Taʹziyeh groups were forced to take refuge in rural areas far from the reach of the authorities.6 However, the support of faithful spectators (most of whom are from low socio-economic backgrounds) as well as the theatrical appeal of this form of drama with its simple, powerful and flexible style of performance, have kept the Taʹziyeh alive. Today it is possible to see many Taʹziyeh performances throughout Iran.

  Despite its importance, the Taʹziyeh has been almost totally ignored by Western theatre historians and critics.7 While Christian passion plays of the Middle Ages are dealt with extensively in almost every book that has been written about the history of world theatre, and numerous specialized books have been written about them, almost no mention of Islamic religious drama (the Taʹziyeh) has been made. Why such a gap has been left needs to be looked at.

  Islam is the world’s second largest religion, with a following of one billion people. Consequently, it would appear that the lack of recognition of the Islamic drama of Iran results from ignorance on the part of Western theatre historians, who seem to be interested only in Christian religious dramas. From a more pessimistic viewpoint one could assume that the lack of recognition of the Taʹziyeh is due to the anti-Islamic sentiments that the Western world has harboured for so long. One might argue that, because of political motives, the West has created an environment in which even the cultural achievements of the followers of Islam are completely ignored. Furthermore, this form of cultural discrimination, and the lack of understanding it produces, not only affects the Taʹziyeh but is also part of a bigger problem experienced in Asian theatre.

  The Taʹziyeh and other Asian theatrical forms have been interpreted and introduced to the West for the most part by diplomats and travellers. These were people who were not familiar with the theatrical techniques employed in the Taʹziyeh and other forms of Asian theatre and saw performances from an alien cultural-political perspective. Even if among them were those who did not wish to culturally exploit these performances, their views remained those of antique collectors rather tha
n theatre scholars. It is for this reason that most Asian performances, including the Taʹziyeh, were introduced to the Western world as if they were merely antiques, rather than the live and passionate performances that they actually are. The Taʹziyeh was labelled ‘a crude form of theatre’8 that failed to observe the unities of place and time. These diplomats and travellers did not understand that ignoring the neoclassical unities of time and place in fact created one of the theatrical strengths of the Taʹziyeh, as this allowed audience and performers to move from one place or time to another. Even those few Western theatre specialists, such as Antonin Artaud and Bertolt Brecht, who came across these performances, had such little knowledge of Asian theatre that their observations were based on emotional and dreamlike impressions rather than on scholarly evidence. Artaud (1896–1948), after seeing only one performance by a Balinese dance troupe in 1931, for instance, was drawn towards ‘Oriental theatre’ and based many of the controversial aspects of his own Theatre of Cruelty on what he understood from this performance.9 But the problem with Artaud’s theory in relation to Asian theatre is that it not only failed to make the understanding of Asian theatre for the West clear, it may even have made it appear to be more difficult to understand than it really is.

  Similarly, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) was also influenced by Asian theatre, and the development of the technique of Verfremdung—‘estrangement’ or ‘alienation’—was partly based on his understanding of the acting techniques employed in a Chinese performance (by Mei Lan Fang) that he saw in 1935 in Moscow.10

  Apart from Artaud and Brecht, who at least alerted the Western world to the importance of Oriental theatre, the few who have written on the subject have mainly concentrated on discussing Japanese and Chinese theatre. As a result most other forms of Asian theatre, including the Taʹziyeh, have been ignored.

  Of those Westerners who did show an interest in the Taʹziyeh, two are important. The first Westerner to pay serious attention to the Iranian religious dramas was the Comte de Gobineau, who, in his book Les Religions et les philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale (Paris, 1865), dedicated a section to the Taʹziyeh and introduced it to French scholars. The second was Matthew Arnold, who, in one of his lectures, Essays in Criticism (London, 1871), compared the Taʹziyeh to the passion plays of the Middle Ages. However, these and other writings on the Taʹziyeh were not written from a theatrical viewpoint and as a result they did not attract the attention of most Western theatre specialists. It was not until 1970 that the Taʹziyeh became known to Western theatre scholars. Peter Brook, after seeing a Taʹziyeh performance in that year, expressed his enthusiasm for its theatrical qualities. He has arguably made the greatest contribution to introducing the Taʹziyeh as a form of theatre to Western theatre scholars and, more importantly, to theatre performers.11 But somehow, despite Brook’s contribution, the West remained largely ignorant of the Taʹziyeh.12