October 1, 2014
Dear Mr. Newton:
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 for modern audiences.
Despite a plot that nightly threatens death to the brilliant, clever Scheherezade, the themes in THE ARABIAN NIGHTS are life affirming, wise and compassionate.
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 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 the Sheikh, which he 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. 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 a new story into the old, weaving outrageous humor with profound tales of love, and she does this each night for 1, 001 nights, creating a rich tapestry of humor, wit, love, sacrifice, bravery, 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 has fallen in love with the brilliant Scheherezade, the master weaver of stories, and 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 and makes her cry. 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. . She 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, 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 that she 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 everything the father told him was true! 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 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 area 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 - not to mistreat others, not to be too proud, and not to be mislead by the physical.
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 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 the Sheikh, which he 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. 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 a new story into the old, weaving outrageous humor with profound tales of love, and she does this each night for 1, 001 nights, creating a rich tapestry of humor, wit, love, sacrifice, bravery, 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 has fallen in love with the brilliant Scheherezade, the master weaver of stories, and 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 and makes her cry. 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. . She 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, 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 that she 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 everything the father told him was true! 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 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 area 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 - not to mistreat others, not to be too proud, and not to be mislead by the physical.
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. However, they 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 now would be penniless without her. 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, her mother refuses, telling him he has not suffered enough. He is set upon by angry, vengeful women and when he returns, Azizah speaks to him through the poem her mother gives him, 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 the true beauty of life and art is to be found in the every day.
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 the true beauty of life and art is to be found in the every day.
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