THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
The title of the play is THE ARABIAN NIGHTS by
Mary Zimmerman, who is well known for adapting classic archetypal myths and
tales into innovative, ensemble theatre pieces, which incorporate music,
dance and spectacle to retell ancient stories to modern audiences.
Despite a plot that nightly threatens death to
the brilliant, clever Scheherezade, each story woven into the rich tapestry
of THE ARABIAN NIGHTS has a life
affirming, wise and compassionate moral that teaches a murderous, misogynistic
sheikh an important lesson. After 1,001 nights of Scheherezade’s funny,
outrageous, tragic, profound, thought provoking stories, the sheikh is a
changed man for the better.
Although there are decidedly adult themes in
The Arabian Nights, there could be an abridged version, which could be shown to
middle schools. There are many funny and beautiful stories that would be
appropriate and appealing to younger students.
The ancient tale of Scheherezade and her
murderous groom, Shahryar, is set in ancient Iraq. Sheikh Shahryar,
betrayed by his wife, kills her and her lover and then sets upon avenging
himself against all women by marrying a new bride every day and then killing
her on their wedding night. All the girls have fled the kingdom except
for Scheherezade and her younger sister, Dunyazade, the two brilliant daughters
of Wazir, the Sheikh's faithful advisor. The Sheikh orders Wazir to bring his
two daughters to him, which Wazir reluctantly does, but Scheherezade
assures her father that she will be all right for she has a plan. She knows
that the Sheikh is sick at heart over his evil deeds and his conscience plagues
him with darkness and sleeplessness. Scheherezade is a master story teller and
on their wedding night, she offers to entertain the Sheikh with a story before
he kills her. The story is outrageously funny and at dawn she reaches a
cliff-hanger. The Sheikh wants to know how the story ends so he spares her
life, allowing her to live one more night, so that she may finish the story.
But the next night she flawlessly weaves into the old story a new one,
this one filled not just with outrageous humor but also with plots of profound
love and sacrifice, and intriguing, mysterious, foolish, noble characters, and
she extends her life for one more night, for at dawn’s break she reaches
another cliff-hanger, and for one more night the sheikh agrees to spare her
life so that he may learn the end of the story. Scheherezade does this each night for 1, 001 nights,
creating a rich tapestry of stories filled with rich humor, wit, love,
sacrifice, bravery, nobility and foolishness - the whole panoply of life and
humanity, but woven into each of these stories is a pearl of great
wisdom. At the end of the 1, 001 nights, the Sheikh is a changed man and having
fallen in love with the brilliant Scheherezade, the master weaver of stories,
he spares her life.
There are approximately eight stories in THE
ARABIAN TALES, but the most important are the following:
In the story, "Perfect Love", a
shopkeeper who is overly proud of his piety and chastity, rejects a love letter
delivered by a little slave girl for her mistress. He tears up the love
letter, mistreats the little slave girl, makes her cry, and sends her back to
her mistress. One day, a mysterious, shrouded woman comes into his shop to
purchase some clothing. What the overly proud shop keeper can see of the
mysterious woman drives him crazy with desire and he wants to marry her
immediately. The mysterious,
heavily shrouded woman is shocked and informs him that her father thinks she is
so hideous that he wants to sell her as a slave, but if he is certain he wishes
to marry her, then every time the father tries to talk him out of the idea, he
is to cry, "I am content! I am content!" The shopkeeper hurries over
to the sheikh's home to ask the father for "Perfect Love's" hand in
marriage. The father is shocked to hear this and warns him that his daughter is
beyond ugly - that her mouth is a cesspit, her teeth a wreck, that she is bald,
that she is incredibly scabby, and is one horrifically ugly abomination after
another - a nose full of pimples, a filmy left eye, is short of an arm, a
flabby belly, and on top of it all is ill-tempered! But the shopkeeper only answers,
"I am content! I am content!" The father, incredulous, agrees
and gives his consent.
On their wedding night, the eager groom
discovers to his horror that he has been the victim of a joke - he did not marry "Perfect Love" but has married the very hideous and foul tempered daughter who is even worse than how her father had described her! But
the deal is binding. "Perfect Love" comes to the shop of the very
depressed shop keeper and tells him that she was the one who sent him the love
letter, and she was the mistress of the little slave girl, and the mystery woman who came to his shop shrouded in heavy
veils to get even with him for tearing up the love letter and mistreating her
slave girl. But she takes pity on him and tells him there is a way to get out
of the marriage and that is to pretend to be ecstatically happy and invite his
father-in-law to meet his family, and then invite every fool and village idiot
in the surrounding area to the party and introduce them as his family.
When the fools and village idiots show up and start singing and dancing
the "Family Dance", the horrified father begins to scream,
"You shall divorce her!" And in that way, the shopkeeper gets out of
a horrific marriage and learns his lesson - that there is no such thing as "perfect love".
In the story, “Sympathy the Learned”, a
brilliant young woman enters the court of a sheikh, with her brother whose sole
duty is to hold a parasol over her head. Sympathy dares to challenge the
Sheikh's sages to a contest of intellect, to which the men, smug in the belief
of their male superiority, laughingly agree. Her only demand is that if she defeats the sages, then she may gain possession of their scholarly robes, a symbol of their intellectual brilliance and accomplishment. The contest begins; however, the men are clearly no
match for her razor wit and intellect, and in a very short period of time, she
has defeated them utterly, leaving them shivering in their underwear without
their scholarly robes. The sheikh has fallen under her power - he is in love
with her, and offers his hand to her in marriage, but she refuses. She tells
him that her fortunes lie with her brother, who is a fool who squandered his
inheritance and whose sole means of support is to hold the parasol over her head. Sympathy tells the
Sheikh that kings do not need sympathy, for “sympathy must lie with those less
fortunate”.
In the story, “Aziz and Azizah”, a young man
betrays his beloved, a cousin with whom he has grown up, sleeping and playing
with her in innocence from childhood. On the day of their wedding he encounters
a mysterious woman and falls in love with the “Unknown”. The faithful
Azizah loves Aziz more than herself and interprets for him the “Other Woman’s”
mysterious messages which allows him to be united with the “Unknown”. The
loving and generous Azizah dies from heartbreak and when Aziz wishes to see her
suicide note, his mother refuses, telling him he has not suffered enough. He is
set upon by angry, vengeful women who beat him savagely. When he returns, his mother, now satisfied that he has suffered, gives him Azizah's suicide note, which speaks to him
through a poem, saying, “I am not afraid of death, for I
have known love.” Ashamed of his foolishness, Aziz puts on the robes of a
sheik and nightly sails the waters of the Tigris, pretending to be anyone else
rather than the stupid fool he is for betraying innocent love.
In "The Forgotten Melody", a selfish
musician who hoards his music for himself and does not share his gifts with
others, is taught a song by a famous composer, but the musician cannot
remember the gorgeous song. He goes around asking over and over again,
"What-what-what-what is it?" He comes across two women who promise
him that they will sing it in his ear, and when they whisper the song, they
begin a simple dance of every day life - a dance of sweeping, a dance of
planting, a dance of feeding the animals. When he joins them in this dance of
every day life, the exquisite song comes to him. The musician learns that art
is a gift and must be given away, and that art of great beauty can be found in
the ordinary, every day events of life. This knowledge humbles him and from
this, he becomes a truly great musician.
This is a beautiful and thought provoking play
which utilizes dance, music, and spectacle to create profound and magical
theatre for the audience.
Sincerely,
Kate Bridges
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