Breaking Down Borders and Bridging Barriers: Iranian Taziyeh Theatre

Khosrow Shahriari

A thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Media, Film and Theatre

University of New South Wales

July 2006

ABSTRACT

In the twentieth century, Western theatre practitioners, aware of the gap between actor and spectator and the barrier between the stage and the auditorium, experimented with ways to bridge this gap and cross barriers, which in the western theatrical tradition have been ignored over the centuries. Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Piscator, Brecht, Grotowski, and more recently Peter Brook are only a few of the figures who tried to engage spectators and enable them to participate more fully in the play.

Yet in Iran there has existed for over three centuries a form of theatre which, thanks to its unique method of approaching reality, creates precise moments in which the worlds of the actor and the spectator come together in perfect unity. It is called ‘taziyeh’, and the aim of this thesis is to offer a comprehensive account of this complex and sophisticated theatre. The thesis examines taziyeh through the accounts of eyewitnesses, and explores taziyeh’s method of acting, its form, concepts, the aims of each performance, its sources and origins, and the evolution of this Iranian phenomenon from its emergence in the tenth century.

Developed from the philosophical point of view of Iranian mysticism on the one hand, and annual mourning ceremonies with ancient roots on the other, taziyeh has been performed by hundreds of different professional groups for more than three hundred years. Each performance is a significant event in the experience of actors and spectators.

The thesis argues that through a careful and comprehensive exploration of taziyeh from its emergence to our time, we can ultimately experience a new horizon in theatre in which we may discover theatrical potentiality and dynamism in a way that has not yet been achieved in conventional Western theatre.

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To thousands of anonymous and humble taziyeh performers whose hearts beat in their performances and who, with all their love and passion, patiently dedicated their lives to taziyeh theatre. Through their complex work they created one of the most complicated theatrical forms in the world, and by playing with reality, they tried to change their lives and the surrounding world across centuries and during the toughest periods of Iranian history. To those visitors who witnessed first-hand taziyeh performances and who, by writing about it enthusiastically, tried to convey their impressions and share their feelings with others. Without these witnesses we would have been deprived of invaluable information about taziyeh performances in its golden age. Finally, to those researchers and scholars who have tried to explain taziyeh according to their understanding. I dedicate this work to them all. And finally, to the passion, enthusiasm, truth and love of Gissoo Shakeri.

I would like to thank Dr. Lesley Stern for her support. I thank also Professor Jim Davis, whose reactions to the techniques of taziyeh performances and the incidents on taziyeh stages were encouraging. My special thanks go to Dr. John Golder and his wonderful memory and patience. In regular meeting with him, we discussed every single word. His precision, memory and comments restructured this thesis. I would like to thank associate professor Gay Hawkins and Dr. Jodi Brooks for their supports. I would also like to thank all the UNSW library staff, especially the inter-library loans staff. Through them I was able to locate and order reference materials from different parts of the world. Without their support, access to many of those old resources would have been impossible. My thanks also to the kind and helpful administrative staff in the School of Media, Film and Theatre, particularly Katy Arnold, Jennifer Beale and Julie Miller. I would like to thank Anne Collins and especially Dr. Suzanne Eggins who read my entire work and whose comments and corrections gave my work better form. And finally I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Michelle Langford. I found her too late to enjoy her full knowledge but still in time to accompany me on the final steps of this work and her lovely suggestions and comments gave my work the final shape. Without her this work could never have been shaped and finished as it is.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ORIGINALITY STATEMENT ...... ii ABSTRACT ...... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... iv LIST OF FIGURES...... 8 INTRODUCTION...... 9 Taziyeh theatre...... 10 The nineteenth-century eyewitness accounts...... 14 Twentieth century scholarly research ...... 16 Thesis outline ...... 19 Chapter One...... 19 Chapter Two ...... 22 Chapter Three ...... 23 Chapter Four...... 23 Appendices ...... 24 CHAPTER ONE Taziyeh: Persian popular epic theatre from the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century ...... 25 Introduction: an historical overview of Taziyeh...... 26 A short review of literature about taziyeh…………………………....…………………………………28 Eyewitness accounts of taziyeh performances: (1) 1667–1849 ...... 31 Selection of accounts...... 35 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1667)...... 36 William Francklin (1787) ...... 40 James Morier (1808–1809) and William Ouseley (1810–1812)...... 44 Ilya Nikolaevich Berezin (1842–1843)...... 60 Lady Sheil (1849)...... 61 Eyewitness accounts of taziyeh performances: (2) 1855–1895 ...... 66 Le Comte de Gobineau...... 66 Eyewitness ‘scripts’ of taziyeh: Gobineau and Pelly...... 75 Lewis Pelly and other eyewitness accounts...... 87 CHAPTER TWO Taziyeh’s sources and origins...... 90 The ancient roots of taziyeh...... 91 Mysticism ...... 93 ‘I am God’ or unification of contradiction...... 94 The Conference of the Birds...... 96 The events of Karbala...... 99 Annual mourning ceremonies...... 100 From mourning ceremonies and the emergence of Iranian mysticism to taziyeh...... 103 The allegorical character of Hussein ...... 112 Hussein and Christian/non-Christian myths ...... 112 Love/Absolute Truth/ God...... 116 Love, or another form of unification of contradiction ...... 117 The ancient roots of Hussein and Iranian ancient character ...... 127 CHAPTER THREE When the observer becomes a performer: techniques of taziyeh performance...... 133 Introduction ...... 134 I. The Actor ...... 135 Choosing the actor...... 135 Training ...... 136 Resemblance to character ...... 140 Female actors...... 141 Actor’s wages ...... 142 Actors’ jobs outside the theatre ...... 143 II. Character...... 144 Actor’s figure as character...... 144 Female and child characters...... 148 Doubling...... 150 III. Acting ...... 150 The mystical point of view ...... 151 Time and place ...... 152 Objects and symbolic meaning...... 154 Objects, the dead and animals ...... 154 The dead, the severed head...... 155 Animals ...... 156 Ground/soil...... 156 Love...... 156 The actor...... 158 The actor–actor relationship ...... 159 Spectators ...... 160 Actor–spectator...... 161 Spectator–actor...... 163 The role of coded signs...... 166 The playscript, or papers of the text ...... 166 IV. Text/manuscript...... 169 Authors ...... 170 The number of manuscripts ...... 170 Comedy, Gorize or digression ...... 174 Form and concept ...... 176 Types of soliloquy and dialogue...... 184 V. The taziyeh text/manuscript on the stage...... 189 Opening ...... 189 Lighting ...... 190 Music...... 190 Stage ...... 191 Short comic scenes ...... 192 Actors ...... 192 Spectators ...... 192 Props and costume...... 192 The actuality on the stage ...... 193 VI. The taziyeh oustad or master...... 203 The master’s role in the manuscript...... 210 Climax ...... 212 CHAPTER FOUR A different approach to taziyeh performances ...... 215 Introduction ...... 216 I. Brechtian theatre and taziyeh performances...... 218 Brechtian theatre...... 218 The actor/spectator relationship in taziyeh ...... 220 Spectatorial function………………………………………………………… .…………………….222 Taziyeh, alienation and the social gest...... 224 II. Guernica, cubist quality and taziyeh ...... 226 III. Taziyeh and magical realism...... 228 IV. Waiting for Godot...... 233 Life and death in Godot and taziyeh ...... 236 Love as a common theme ...... 240 V. Brook’s Observations ...... 241 VI. The dialectical observation and experience...... 252 Observing from the other side: being on one side, acting from the other side...... 253 Brook’s experience of the ‘Ah’ sound...... 256 The Legend of the Sigh ...... 257 CONCLUSION ...... 258 APPENDIX I: THE MANUSCRIPTS ...... 262 Taziyeh collections ...... 263 I. Alexander Chodzko, 1833–1840...... 263

5 II. Colonel Sir Lewis Pelly, 1862–1873 ...... 265 III. Wilhem Litten, 1831–1834...... 274 IV. Enrico Cerulli (1950–1954)...... 276 APPENDIX II: ILLUSTRATIONS...... 280 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 307

6 LIST OF FIGURES

Appendix II

Figure 1: A drawing of a taziyeh performance in open space played by wandering dervish in the city of Rustam Abad, in northern Iran...... 280 Figure 2: A drawing of a taziyeh performance in open space, in a takiyeh or possibly a caravanserai……281 Figure 3: The engraving shows one of the four horses bearing two feathered ‘objects emblematical of the death of Hussein’...... 282 Figure 4: An engraving illustrating the litter...... 282 Figure 5: Mirza Gholam Hussein, a leading actor of Qajar era, with full character’s costume, in the role of Abbas...... 282 Figure 6: The dome of Takiyeh Dowlat ...... 283 Figure 7: The metal dome of Takiyeh Dowlat from two different angles...... 284 Figure 8: A group of taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century...... 285 Figure 9: An exceptional photo from Takeyeh Dowlat when spectators filled up every space: yard, boxes, roofs...... 286 Figure 10: Takiyeh Dowlat...... 287 Figure 11: A scene from a taziyeh performance in Takiyeh Dowlat in 1869...... 287 Figure 12: Takiyeh Dowlat from one angle...... 288 Figure 13: Takiyeh Dowlat from a different angle………………………………………………………...288 Figure 14: A taziyeh performance in the Armenian caravanserai in the bazaar in Tehran...... 289 Figure 15: Takiyeh Niyebolsaltaneh (Kamran Mirza)in Tehran, in nineteenth century, with a rectangular platform/stage in the middle of the yard...... 290 Figure 16: A group of taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century...... 291 Figure 17: Another group of performers in the nineteenth century………………………………………...291 Figure 18: A group of taziyeh performers in acting costume in the nineteenth century...... 292 Figure 19: Four typical warriors in taziyeh performance in the nineteenth century ...... 292 Figure 20: A group of taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century...... 293 Figure 21: A group of taziyeh performers in Ghajar period ...... 293 Figure 22: A group of taziyeh comedy performers in the nineteenth century, some holding masks...294 Figure 23: Two taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century, one with demon mask...... 295 Figure 24: Different masks used in taziyeh performance in the nineteenth century...... 295 Figure 25: Different scenes of a taziyeh performance in open space………………………………………296 Figure 26: A group of musician with their musical instruments in the nineteenth century………………...297 Figure 27: A group of musician in the twentieth century with cymbal, drum and horn...... 297 Figure 28: The last page of a taziyeh manuscript…………………………………………………………..298 Figure 29: A page of a taziyeh manuscript on which the name of characters and the first word of their dialogue has been written…………………………………………………………………………299 Figure 30: A religious procession...... 300 Figure 31: The wall painting of mourning for Siavush...... 301 Figure 32: The scene of the killing of Siavush from a painting in canvas...... 302 Figure 33: A painting on a huge canvas used by Karbal story tellers...... 303 Figure 34: Different senses, which are included the Karbala events painted on the tile work, in the Moshire takiyeh theatre in Shiraz...... 304 Figure 35: Tile paintings of scenes including the Karbala events. Figure 36: Painted the tiles on the walls of Moshire takiyeh theatre in Shiraz...... 305 Figure 37: Some scenes of taziyeh performance with the women and children’s characters ...... 306

7

INTRODUCTION

Before setting off on a journey into the interior of Mexico in 1935, Antonin Artaud wrote: I am leaving in search of the impossible. We shall see whether I can nevertheless find it. I believe that in Mexico there are still seething forces, which pressurise the blood of the Indians. There the theatre, which I imagine, which I perhaps contain within myself, expresses itself directly.

[James Roose-Evans, 1989, Experimental Theatre from Stanislavsky to Peter Brook, Fourth Edition, Routledge Kegan Paul, London, p. 76.]

Different scenes, including Karbala events, painted on the tile work, on the walls of Moshire takiyeh theatre in Shiraz

8 Taziyeh theatre

It is early morning. The performance has not yet started. Eager spectators – men, women, and children of all ages – try to reach the performance site as early as possible. Entry is free. They come from all around, possibly from many miles away. They refer to themselves as ‘participants’ rather than spectators. The term shows how they define their relationship to the performance. They go to the taziyeh1 theatre, not merely to watch, as passive observers, but also to take an active role in proceedings. They arrive early in order to position themselves as close as possible to the stage and the events that are to be enacted on it. They are there to express themselves freely through intimate, emotional communication with the actors and their fellow participants, communication which goes far deeper than mere physical proximity.

It is through this communication that actors and other participants – the spectators – find the possibility of expressing themselves, and this is the basic motivation and impulse that takes spectators to taziyeh theatre so enthusiastically. The performance time, as well as the day and the date, are well known to the people. A permanent and accepted tradition during Muharram and Safar2, taziyeh is performed on a certain date, time and place every year. Should it be necessary, for some particular reason, to arrange a performance at a different time and in a different place, people are informed by word of mouth.

The performance area is a vast, open space, which can accommodate thousands of people standing or sitting in every corner and all around a central stage area. Participants position themselves wherever they are able to see what is happening, both on the stage and in its immediate surrounds. This may be on the ground, in the trees, and even on the walls or roofs of buildings adjacent to the performance site. A splendid sea of colour meets the eyes of the spectators from the moment of their

1 The term taziyeh (also spelled tazieh, tazie, tazieh, tazia or taziyat) and majles - e taziyeh literally means ‘mourning for dead’. In the Iranian social context, the term was originally used generally in connection with lamentation for the dead. More particularly, it referred to the mourning ceremonies held for the martyred Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, and his family during the month of Muharram. As these ceremonies developed into more conventionally dramatic form, which came to be extended into the following month of Safar, and at other times according to public demand, taziyeh began to assume its modern currency as drama. 2 Muharram and Safar are two consecutive months in the Islamic calendar during which Shiites mourn to commemorate the tragic events in Karbala which occurred during the first ten days of Muharram.

9 arrival. The performance site is decked with hundreds of black and green flags, hanging from numerous pillars. Attached to tall metal poles can be seen open hands with open fingers, also made of metal.

For some, these open hands represent the hands of a desperate people. For others, they are the hands of one of the main characters in the taziyeh dramas, Abbas, who has his hands cut off on the battlefield after he tries to bring a leather bottle of water to members of his family dying of thirst in the desert. Colourful and richly decorated horses stand riderless around the stage, the bridle of each one in the hands of an attendant. A dozen men, with leather water-skins slung on their backs, or with jugs and copper basins full of water on their shoulders, move through the crowd. They offer the gathering audience water, in commemoration of the characters whose story is about to be told; characters who on the days commemorated by the festival, suffered agonies of thirst in the sands of Karbala.

Water carriers are always represented in taziyeh performance. In taziyeh, thirst has both a literal and a metaphoric significance: it is at once a real physical need for people denied access to it in the heat of the desert, and a representation of a vital metaphysical necessity for life and existence, enabling one to rise up against cruelty and injustice.

In one corner of the stage, a heap of chopped straw symbolizes the sands of the desert. The actors throw the straw on the heads of the spectators as a metaphor of the desert dust. At particularly tragic moments in the performance, as his role requires, the actor will take up a handful of dust and throw it over his head, a gesture that is a traditional sign of mourning and grief in Iran. The raised hands, flags, riderless horses, water carriers, and the straw thrown over the participants create an atmosphere that suggests that the audience members are already involved and caught up in the events that are about to be enacted.

The complex current of energy between the actor and the spectator, between the stage and the surrounding performance site, has already begun to flow back and forth. Something magical is about to happen. On a bare stage, under the coordinating

10 direction of an onstage master3, real and metaphorical worlds, time past, present and future will all fuse into one. The physical, emotional and intellectual space between actor and spectator will be bridged, and everyone present will become a participant in an event that is both fact and fantasy, historical and contemporary, religious and deeply political. This is the process through which any subject matter becomes a metaphorical element in the mythical story of human struggle for justice and free will.

In these performances all the participants are experiencing a unique event together and are engaging in a formal dialectical dialogue4. The participants/actors and participants/spectators are sharing their experiences together, and this sharing of experiences is exciting and amazing for all despite their ages and genders. Indeed, they are all participating in a huge party enthusiastically. Actors hold papers in their hands and read from them. It is like reading an old story to others while some are living it on the stage.

At the end of the performance, all go home singing and dancing and even crying. It seems the participants are taking with them some awareness from the theatre to the outside world to share with others. This shared feeling makes all the participants happy and determined. Now, at the end of the performance, participants seem different from the people they were at the beginning, as if going outside is going to be another stage of the theatre. In other words, the end of the performance is the beginning of another stage so there is no end to this theatre.

In these performances we can see small children who play the children’s characters and are afraid of the stage atmosphere, crying and asking for their mothers. Their mothers go onto the stage to calm them down and nobody is surprised by these unpredictable actions. We see the actors, for instance who smoking, drinking water and talking to others when they are not playing, and they join spectators to laugh, cry,

3 The Master is the man responsible for taziyeh performance from the beginning, eg. organising, directing and being presented on the stage to help the actors during the performance. 4 I am here refering to ‘Benjamin’s dialectical image of ‘notion of the “dialectical image” in which opposing ideas never finally form into a new synthetic whole, but rather continually pass back and forth between extremes.’ (See Langford, Michelle E., 2006, Allegorical Images: Tableau, Time and Gesture in the Cinema of Werner Schroeter, Forthcoming, Intellect Books, Bristol, no page no. available.) Therefore, according to Benjamin, “dialectical” has nothing in common with its more familiar and comfortable usage in Hegelian traditions. Rather, he understands dialectics as an “eccentric” motion that “enacts a reversal between extremes”. (See McCole, John, 1993, “Allegorical Destruction” Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition, Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, p. 140.)

11 sing and dance throughout the performance. We see a character who is required by convention to kill another character as a part of the performance but he does not, and he now joins the others/spectators singing and dancing. We see how many sheep are slaughtered during the performance. We see how the heads of many white doves are cut apart and their blood is sprayed on the dead. We see how many dead are brought to the stage before they are taken to the cemetery to be buried.

All these taziyeh performances are, indeed, a collective journey to the innermost layers of the hidden historical collective unconscious5 of actor/spectators. It is drawn from the routine of everyday life, people’s knowledge, and philosophy of existence. Each performance is a new experience, a collective learning and life. It is a break from everyday life and a relief from social masks. No one performance is similar to others despite its similar subject. All the subjects are the same, but the performances are shaped according to the situation of the performance days and the participants’ wish and mode, and therefore exact performances can not be predicted.

Understanding the complexity of taziyeh form and content through understanding its historical, social and philosophical background makes it clear how complex and complicated elements may become profoundly woven together and enabled to bridge the gap between the actors and spectators.Yet taziyeh, with its vast number of participants remains a unique experience. Its ability to be received with that large participants is a mystery which should be discovered in order to open up paths into a theatre which has never been experienced before.6

Taziyeh performance, although banned at times during its long history, is performed for two months each year throughout the entire country. It is not restricted to a specific place or area, but takes place in any available location. These locations may be city squares and streets, crossroads or private houses as well as dedicated taziyeh

5 I am using historical collective unconscious in the Carl Jung sense as the people’s shared hidden memories which can be detected. (See Jung, Carl G. 1965-1962, Psychiatric Studies. Collected Work, 18 volumes Rutledge & Kegan Paul, and Princeton, N.J, Bollingen, London.) 6 Taziyeh and its form and technique deeply affected Iranian cinema in the 1960s. This cinema was developed after the first decade of the 1979 revolution by the New Iranian film makers who culturally inherited their experiences not only from the intellectuals or literature but from popular culture as well. Taziyeh, as a part of the popular culture, gave them, either consciously or unconsciously, a solid base to create their metaphorical Iranian cinema: Through the cinematic form they could communicate worldwide. Due to the complex nature of the relationship between taziyeh and Iranian cinema it will not be possible to cover this in the present thesis.

12 theatres, which can accommodate as many as 20,000 spectators. Taziyeh can be performed from time to time, and throughout the year, depending on demand. Just as in the past, each performance attracts thousands of people who come from hundreds of miles around to the performance site.

Each taziyeh performance is a special event. Such performances facilitate the spreading of ideas to the outside world. Consequently, the spectator is considered central to the performance. The creation of a unified group, with actors and spectators joined as one in their challenge to the established order, has been an initial and primitive motive of taziyeh performances for centuries. Many aspects of the social situation tend to remain unchanged throughout history, which means that taziyeh plays continue to have an impact.

The nineteenth-century eyewitness accounts

Taziyeh is a complex and unique phenomenon which was admired as a form of Iranian popular theatre by almost all nineteenth-century foreign travelers who witnessed and reported the event. Almost all these observers were amazed by taziyeh and in some cases competed with each other to explain this event as an authentic discovery of the unknown Orient. These rivals provide important details about taziyeh theatre and its development from the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century and assist in reconstructing the performative history of the form. Jean-Batiste Tavernier in his book Les Six Voyages de Jean Batiste Tavernier,7 was one of the earliest eyewitnesses. He was in Iran in 1667, and reported the initial phase of taziyeh as a form of theatre. More than one hundred years after Tavernier, one of the first accounts in which the taziyeh drama was reported in full theatrical form was written by William Francklin in his Observations Made on a Tour from Bengal to Persia in the Years 1786-1787.8 Twenty five years after Francklin, in 1809, James Morier gave

7 Tavernier, John Baptist, 1678, The Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier, A Noble Man Of France Now Living Through Europe into Persia, and the East-Indies, Finished in the Year 1670, Made English by F.P., Printed for R.L. and M.P. and are to be told by Johan Starkey at the Miter in Fleet-Street, near temple Bar, and Moses Pitt at the Angel in St. Paul Church-Tard, [The Fourth Book of The Travels of Monsieur Tavernier, Being, a Description of Persia], London,. 8 Francklin, William, 1787, Observations Made on a Tour from Bengal to Persia in the Years 1786-7, Printed for T. Cadell, in the strand, M. DCCXC., N.D., London, Reprinted in 1976 by the Imperial Organisation for Social Services, from a copy in Princeton University Library, printed and bound at the twenty fifth Shahrivar Printing House, by the Offset Press, Inc., Tehran,

13 his account.9 Alexander Chodzko, a scholar and diplomat, was so impressed by his observation of taziyeh during his stay in Persia in the 1830s that he collected thirty- three plays and took them to Paris.10

The years between 1848 and 1896, or the years of the reign of Nasereddin Shah Ghajar, can be considered the Golden Age of taziyeh performances. It was then that there were reports about taziyeh from different observers, among them Comte de Gobineau,11 Lewis Pelly,12 and Samuel Green Wheeler Benjamin.13 It was during this time that the Royal Taziyeh Theatre (Takiyeh Doulat) was built, according to the orders of the King. This was a huge and magnificent playhouse (built in 1869 and demolished in 1948) in which 20,000 spectators could be accommodated.

These observers from abroad were most impressed by the effect of the taziyeh performances on the spectators. Pelly, for instance, wrote in 1862:

If the success of a drama is to be measured by the effects which it produces upon the people for whom it is composed, or upon the audiences before whom it is represented, no play had ever surpassed the tragedy known in the Mussulman world as that of Hasan and Husain.14

Valuable first-hand accounts by witnesses, who provided lively, detailed impressions of this theatre, survive from this period. Moreover, they reported many dramatic aspects for the taziyeh performances. Indeed, their observations provide the foundations of the study of taziyeh, allowing scholars to analyze the form and technique of this drama when it was in its full and most spectacular form in its Golden Age, the nineteenth century.15 Surprisingly, despite all these valuable eyewitness accounts, taziyeh was still almost unknown during the nineteenth and the beginning of

9 Morier, James, 1812, A Journey Through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor to Constantinople in the Years 1808 and 1809, Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, London. 10 Chodzko, Alexander, 1928, Blochet, Catalogue des manuscripts persans. Chodzko edited and published two of these plays: The Messenger of God and The Death of the Prophet and published them in Persian, in 1852 under the title Djungi Chehadet [An Anthology of Matyr]. 11 Gobineau, Comte de, 1957, Les Religions et les philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale, Gallimard, Septieme edition, Paris. 12 Pelly, Sir Lewis, 1879, The Miracle Play of Hasan and Hussein, Collected from Oral Tradition, WM. H. Allen and Co., 2 volumes, London. 13 Benjamin, Samuel Green Wheeler, 1887, Persia and the Persians, John Murray, Albemarle Street, London. 14 Pelly, 1879, Volume I, preface, p. III. 15 For a full list of these accounts see Chelkowski, Peter J., ‘Bibliographical Spectrum’ in Chelkowski, (ed.), 1979.

14 the twentieth century to Western theatre practitioners and even to Iranian scholars and drama specialists until the end of the Second World War.

Twentieth century scholarly research

From 1928, taziyeh was banned by the new Iranian government (Reza Shah Pahlavi, 1925-1941) as part of the new dictator’s policy to prevent people gathering together. Taziyeh therefore became relegated to remote villages.16 During this time, some interest in studying taziyeh theatre can be traced through non-Iranian academic researchers. From the end of the Second World War, certain scholars began to take notice of taziyeh.

A remarkable event in these years was the effort of the Italian ambassador to Iran, Enrico Cerulli, who between the years 1950 and 1955, collected the incredible number of 1,055 taziyeh manuscripts from various locations in Iran and took them to Italy. They are kept in the Vatican library, and are considered to be one of the most significant collectives in the study of taziyeh texts.

In 1976 the Iranian Government, under the support and supervision of one of the major scholars of the Iranian culture, Peter Chelkowski, organized an international symposium on taziyeh held at the Shiraz Festival of Arts. The symposium gave the official guests the opportunity to watch some taziyeh performances arranged by the government, and to exchange their views and information with other participants. This event, despite its initial propagandistic aim of legitimazing its power, once again, set forth taziyeh as a phenomenon with great potential for discussion.

The symposium resulted in suggestions about the distinctive theatrical elements of taziyeh, some of which were reported by the nineteenth-century eyewitnesses. Some of the significant points mentioned by symposium participants were: the presence of coded signs and symbols; the absence of barriers of time and place; the separation between the actor and the role; and to some extent, the flexibility of the performances. In addition almost all the observers agreed on one point: the dramatic interaction between the spectator and actor in the taziyeh performances and its magnificent ability to bridge the gap and break down the barriers between the actor and spectator. This

16 See Avery, Peter, 1965, Modern Iran, London, Ernest Benn, pp. 290-91.

15 matter was one of the main points that attracted the attention of the nineteenth-century observers, and is a crucial concern of modern theatre practitioners.

In order to understand taziyeh and its technique, the scholars, who were unable to explain and closely analyze it, tried to find parallels to taziyeh in other well known Western theatrical techniques. Peter Chelkowski, for example, writes: ‘Jerzy Grotowski […] borrowed from the taziyeh tradition to fuse dramatic action with ritual as a means of uniting actor and audience’.17 He refers to Grotowski’s poor theatre and concludes ‘Grotowski [in his Poor Theatre] seems to be striving for what have always been the fundamental principles of taziyeh’.18 Chelkowski then tries to suggest the differences between taziyeh and Poor Theatre:

Grotowski […] controls intimacy by limitation of space, number, and distribution of spectators; his is a chamber theatre.19 […] ‘Taziyeh, in contrast, actively retains a fundamental principle of intimacy without placing any constraints on the size of the performance space or the number of spectators. This is le théâtre total.20

Chelkowski also suggested: ‘[Peter] Brook proved that Iranian dramatic conventions and cultural themes [taziyeh] could be effectively transposed to the Western stage with his successful adaptation of a twelfth-century mystical tract, The Conference of the Birds, into a theatrical play’.21

Iranian scholar Parviz Mamnoun has a different perspective. He suggests that taziyeh is a form of theatre which ‘Brecht strove unsuccessfully to attain’.22 Andrzej Wirth, despite Mamnoun’s comment, calls taziyeh ‘a part of the great Asiatic tradition’,23 and rejects any similarity between the Brechtian theatre and taziyeh. 24

17 Chelkowski, Peter, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies New York University, Time out of Memory Taziyeh, the Total Drama, Asia Society and Lincoln Centre Festival, July 2002, http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/taziyeh/chelkowski.html. 18 Chelkoweski, Peter, 1979, ‘Taziyeh: Indigenous Avant-Garde Theatre of Iran’, in Chelkowski, Peter, J. (ed.), 1979, Taziyeh, Ritual and Drama in Iran, New York University Press and Souroush Press, USA, p. 10-11. 19 Ibid., p. 10-11. 20 Chelkowski, Time out of Memory: taziyeh, the Total Drama np. 21 Ibid. 22 Mamnoun, Parviz, 1979, ‘Taziyeh from the Viewpoint of the western Theatre’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 157. 23 Wirth, Andrzej, ‘Semeiological Aspects of the Taziyeh’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 38. 24 Ibid., p.34.

16 Farrokh Gaffary had other ideas about taziyeh. Drawing a long bow, he believes Claude Confortes, French playwright and director, was directly influenced by taziyeh ‘in his Le Marathon (1972)’.25 Finally, Peter Brook seems to be the only recent theatre practitioner who has actually observed any taziyeh performances. One hundred years after Pelly, in 1970, Brook was impressed with taziyeh’s effect on its spectators and comments on what he observed ‘in a remote Iranian village’26. Brook expressed the same feeling as Pelly when he described taziyeh as ‘a very powerful form of theatre’27 and called the relationship between the actor and spectator in a taziyeh performance ‘one of the strangest things’ that he had ‘ever seen in theatre’28. It is possibly this observation, according to David Williams, that ‘fired [Brook’s] imagination’ for experimental productions such as Orgast in presepolis and The Conference of the Birds.29

Despite these impressive and considerable comments about taziyeh, these initially contradictory references illustrate the complexity of this form of theatre, which is still largely unknown. Close analytical explanation is needed in order to, first, find taziyeh’s proper place in dramatic culture, and second, to prepare a ground to learn from it as a significant theatrical experiment that can open up a new perspective in theatre practice in general and acting in particular. This thesis takes on these two analytical tasks.

Thus, the concern of this research will be, in the first place, to explain taziyeh as a theatrical genre and to examine, discuss and carefully analyze its techniques, form, philosophy and roots as an important form of live theatre. On the basis of a study of taziyeh, the ways this theatre exposes contemporary reality will be discussed by looking at how fact and fiction, real and imaginary, present and past and even future allegorically30 enter into a dialectical relationship and mutual exchange to reveal

25 Ghaffary, Farrokh, 1984, ‘Evolution of Rituals and Theatre in Iran’, in Iranian Studies, Vol. XVII, No. 4, Autumn 1984, p. 371. 26 Peter Brook, 1979, ‘Learning on the Moment: A Conversation with Peter Brook’, in Parabola, Myth, tradition & the Search for Meaning, Volume 4. 27 Peter Brook, 1993, There Are No Secrets, Thoughts on Acting and Theatre, Methuen Drama, p. 38. 28 Brook, 1979, parabola, Volume 4. 29 Williams, David, 1988, Peter Brook: A Theatrical Casebook, Methuen, London, p. xiii. 30 By allegory I am referring to Walter Benjamin’s conception of allegory. Allegory refers to a mode of expression that presents two or more opposing views simultanously and often dialectically. (See Benjamin, Walter, 1985, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans., John Osborne, Verso, London & New York.) As Michelle Langford has argued ‘by appearing to say one thing (on the literal level), while in fact saying something quite different (on a figural level). They are also dialectical because

17 something about contemporary reality. Taziyeh can reveal the importance of engaging in a collective remembering of past events as a basis for establishing and maintaining a set of social values in the present, and communicating these from generation to generation. By analyzing the taziyeh genre, this study seeks to open up discussion of a wider concept of acting, which will be explored in the final chapter.

This thesis is organized into four chapters, whose contents are briefly outlined below.

Thesis outline

Chapter One

To achieve the aims of this thesis, it is first essential to know taziyeh in detail and as it was performed in the first place. The detailed descriptions of taziyeh performances in the nineteenth century or the Golden Age of taziyeh, which were reported by eyewitnesses, are a crucial, remarkable and only source in this regard. These accounts have never before been brought together in a single study. Only parts of these important accounts have at times been quoted by some scholars and researchers in the twentieth century. Through the comparative study of these eyewitness accounts, which will be examined in this research, a detailed picture emerges of taziyeh as it was performed in its full theatrical form. In addition, important points about the performances will be discovered. These nineteenth-century accounts can be used as an important reference for the analytical explanation of taziyeh as a form of theatre with powerful and distinctive characteristics.

Consequently, in Chapter One I examine taziyeh from the sixteenth century up to the end of nineteenth century. The chapter begins with a brief overview of previous research undertaken by Iranians, the reasons taziyeh was generally ignored by Iranian scholars, and Iranian political and social circumstances in the twentieth century that affected the development of taziyeh. Then, I turn to discuss the importance of foreigners’ eyewitness accounts, and the corresponding lack of Iranian reports. I examine taziyeh performances through the eyes of foreign travelers and visitors. Early eyewitness reports examined (covering the period 1667–1849) are those by Jean-

they have the capacity to sustain a complex relationship between conflicting temporality.’ (See Langford, 2006, no page no. available).

18 Baptiste Tavernier (1667), William Francklin (1787), James Morrier (1808–1809), William Ouseley (1810–1812), Ilya Nikolaevich Berezin (1842–1843) and finally Lady Sheil (1849). From the second half of the nineteenth century I closely analyze the accounts of the Comte de Gobineu (1855–63), Lewis Pelly (1859–73), C. J. Wills (1866-81), Arthur Arnold (early 1876), Samuel Green Wheeler Benjamin (1882-83), Edward G. A. Browne (1887-88), and Samuel Graham Wilson (1895). These are eyewitnesses who describe taziyeh almost in great detail. Given the importance of these eyewitnesses accounts, in many cases lengthy excerpts are quoted.

Even with a full picture of taziyeh as it was performed on the stage in the nineteenth century and through eyewitness accounts, it is also important to examine the crucial factor of its roots and sources. Without an understanding of taziyeh’s origins, it will be impossible to comprehend this complex form of theatre and its complicated techniques.

A distinction which should be stated clearly is that almost all accounts of taziyeh initially locate its origin and development in the Shiite sect of Islam. Even in The New Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance its origins are described as follows:

[taziyeh’s] historical basis was the heroic martyrdom of Husayn [Hussein] grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the redemptive figure of the Shiite branch of Islam.31

The idea that the origin of taziyeh was connected to the Shiite sect of Islam was accompanied in some earlier research by references to ancient mythological roots.32

In addition to the obvious limitations of research which confined taziyeh to one sect of Islam, one of the most crucial factors which played a decisive role in shaping this complicated theatre has been strangely ignored. This important factor is the philosophy of Iranian mysticism. Ignorance of this element can be explained through taziyeh’s significance as a threatrical form was concealed for decades under a dense layer of religion through the allegorical presentation of Shiite characters.

31 Kennedy, Dennis (ed.), 2003, Oxford Encyclopaedia of Theatre and Performance, Oxford University Press, 2 volume, p. 1324. 32 For a recent example see: Malekpour, Jamshid, 2004, The Islamic Drama, Frank Cass, London.

19 This interpretation of taziyeh as a religious phenomenon creates a deep and ongoing misunderstanding about the origins of taziyeh. Its concepts, form and aim, as well as its appearance, have been commonly thought to closely resemble the Western European medieval cycle. Even in the previously cited New Encyclopaedia of Theatre and Performance, taziyeh is introduced thus: ‘[t]he Taziyeh […] plays of Persia […] are similar in both structure and function to the ‘passion plays of medieval Europe.’33 In fact, these references were to the religious processions, scenes and tableaux and not the taziyeh theatre, which has its specific form, concept and philosophy and requires a different theatrical and critical approach.

Consequently, despite all the admirable comments and suggestions, theatrical analysis has not yet sufficiently explored taziyeh’s real place. Critics and commentators have not fully accounted for taziyeh’s full nature and impact, what (borrowing Antonin Artaud’s words) we can describe as taziyeh’s power and dynamism as a ‘seething force pressurizing the blood’ of the people to change their destiny.

Taziyeh took root at a significant historical juncture in 963 AD, a time of national upheaval, through the social exigency to act immediately in reaction to foreign Arab occupiers. This historical background, therefore, has a direct, fundamental and crucial impact on the emergence of taziyeh as a theatrical form. Indeed, it was originally a rebel demonstration for freedom, taking the form of gathering in mystic houses and mourning ceremonies absorbing the commemoration or procession conducted for the grandson of the Prophet, killed together with his followers, in the desert of Karbala in 680 AD.

Annual public mourning commemorations, tableaux and mock battles, gradually gave expression to thousands of legends and stories recited by professional storytellers. These ceremonies, which reflect the event of Karbala, evolved into a theatre, through the complex and profoundly rich philosophy of Iranian mysticism. Developing over a period of nine centuries, the result was an Iranian ‘carpet of codes’34, involving a tapestry of ancient beliefs and myths, embodying legends from Persia, Mesopotamia, the Middle East and Western Asia. Taziyeh has been kept alive in the hearts of the

33 Kennedy (ed.), P. 1324. 34 See Barthes, Roland, 1974, S/Z, Hills and Wang, New York, quoted by Wirth. See Chelkowski, (ed.), 1979, p. 34.

20 people for centuries, with perhaps the same raison d’être now as almost fifteen hundred years ago.

Chapter Two

In order to fill this crucial gap in taziyeh scholarship, I first clarify the idea of mysticism and its role in taziyeh theatre. The ideas and beliefs of Halaj, one of the most significant tenth century mystic philosophers, are discussed. I then examine The Conference of the Birds, a Sufi fable, written by twelfth century Iranian Sufi poet, Faridoddin Atar. This discussion opens up a new perspective on the significant role played by Iranian mysticism in shaping taziyeh’s form and techniques and on the origin of taziyeh performances, without which the form and techniques of taziyeh cannot be understood and explained.

In Chapter Two I also closely examine other elements which played an important role in shaping taziyeh theatre, such as mourning ceremonies, religious processions and the events of Karbala which were used as important allegorical elements to illustrate the socio-political circumstances of contemporary reality. The discussion of these aspects is shaped by accounts written at the time (from the tenth century onwards) by travelers and historians. These references and accounts demonstrate the first serious social movements, their effects and the achievements, which ultimately over nine centuries led to the taziyeh theatre in Iranian society.

In a further section in Chapter Two I examine taziyeh sources and origins through the main character of taziyeh performances, Hussein. Discussion shows how this allegorical character in taziyeh, based on the historical event of Karbala, was formed in the process of taziyeh’s evolution. In order to give a clearer impression of this allegorical character, I compare Hussein with popular images of Jesus and with the characteristics and concept of ‘the rising and dying gods’. The religious concept of resurrection has been attributed to Hussein as well as to Jesus. A consideration of mourning ceremonies in the mythical world shapes the final part of this chapter. After covering the background of taziyeh and philosophical, historical and social circumstances in which it emerged, Chapter Three then moves on to cover taziyeh and its form and concepts.

21 Chapter Three

In Chapter Three I discuss taziyeh performance, and then endeavour to bring the two previous chapters together in order to argue how interdependent they are. Taziyeh is based on physical techniques, conventions, and principles, through which the intense relationship between the spectator, character and actor is formed. I argue that the gap between actors and spectators is bridged, and the barrier between stage and auditorium is broken down. As a result, a profound dialectical dialogue between actor and spectator is established in the theatre and all present at the performance are united as one.

In this chapter I also discuss the many aspects and dramatic elements of taziyeh, including the actor, character, acting techniques and text/manuscript with some references to free association of ideas. I then analyze a text/manuscript on the stage, according to eyewitness accounts. In the final parts of this chapter I describe the role of the powerful element in taziyeh performances, the master and the climax in taziyeh.

Chapter Four

In this chapter I attempt to draw some analogies between a variety of Western art forms, including theatre, painting and literature. Comparisons are made with the work of Bertolt Brecht, Pablo Picasso, magical realism and Samuel Becket as well as with Peter Brook who is the only recent, influential western theatre practitioner to travel to Iran on two occasions: in 1970 and 1971. On both visits, he had the opportunity to observe taziyeh performances. On the first occasion, he observed a taziyeh performance in a remote village in a natural setting. The second occasion was on a formal stage, in the Shiraz International Arts Festival, at which he was one of the official guests. I close Chapter Four with a discussion of my findings on acting inspired by taziyeh theatre in which the character, despite its conventional characteristics, finds an active role.

Examining eyewitness’ accounts in Chapter One provides valuable insight into the nature and effect of the performances themselves. Mysticism and philosophical understandings, in Chapter Two, extend and supplement existing studies from a religious perspective. Detailed analysis of structure and form in Chapter Three,

22 demonstrate what makes taziyeh a truly unique form of theatre; and finally, ways of thinking about taziyeh in non-Iranian contexts and the possibility of translating some of its concepts into Western theatre in Chapter Four represents an effort to create the possibility of breaking down barriers between Western and non-Western theatre ─ a highly arbitrary distinction in any case. I believe my detailed analysis may provide a way, or at least an incentive, to explore the theatrical possibilities of taziyeh techniques and philosophy in other contexts across cultures while seeking for a different interpretation of theatre in order to open up new horizons towards theatre’s meaning, aim, essence and relationship between the actor and spectator.

Appendices

In the Appendix I, which follows the brief Conclusion to the thesis, important taziyeh manuscript collections are listed and compared to each other according to their taziyeh titles and subjects. As an example of literary form and the language of translation, some parts of one of the taziyeh texts translated by Pelly are quoted and some comments on his translation are offered.

Appendix II offers the reader access to 38 images of taziyeh performances and actors, many of which are not accesible to Western scholars.

23 CHAPTER ONE Taziyeh: Persian popular epic theatre from the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century

This chapter provides a general picture of taziyeh based on a wide range of accounts, covering not only the development of taziyeh theatre over the last four centuries, but also the way in which performances have been received, how they have functioned as popular theatre, and how taziyeh continues to bridge the barrier between spectator and stage, which is a crucial principle of taziyeh performance.

The interior of Takiyeh Dowlat in Tehran, which could accommodate 20,000 spectators. With four storeys it was the only round takiyeh theatre in Iran.

[Built in 1869 and demolished in 1948 Painting by Kamalolmolk (1848-1940), kept in Golestan Musseum in Tehran.]

Introduction: an historical overview of Taziyeh

The nineteenth century was a significant period for taziyeh. Taziyeh benefitted from the generous support of the authorities who used it in a variety of ways for their own ends. In addition – thanks largely to the official blessing it received – it blossomed as a form of professional theatre. Indeed, it is not too much to suggest that, in performance terms – spectacle, costume, music, acting etc. – the nineteenth century was taziyeh’s Golden Age.

The aims of the government in supporting taziyeh were to mask the injustices of a brutal regime with a show of sympathy and support for a mass cultural form. Their efforts on behalf of taziyeh, which usually meant financing epic performances of extraordinary splendour, enabled them to provide themselves with a rich source of entertainment and pleasure while at the same time providing the ‘masses’ with a public demonstration of their rulers’ wealth and power. Moreover, as they knew very well, turning the drama into a rich spectacle was likely to undermine any oppositional revolutionary message it might have contained and blunt its political point. To this end the authorities sought to create the best possible productions, using the finest available talent. They gathered together the best actors from across the country and arranged for them to perform in the most impressive theatres. Takiyeh Dowlat, or the Royal Theatre in Tehran, capable of seating up to 20,000 spectators, is perhaps the most celebrated nineteenth-century Iranian playhouse, but authorities all over the country, and in various quarters of major cities, sought to emulate the productions mounted there.

Strict prohibitions were placed by the religious authorities on painting, the playing of music and the impersonation of humans (i.e. playing a character, acting). Indeed, the portrayal on a stage of an extensive range of such figures, angels and genies, but in particular the Prophet, his family and descendants (the innocent and pure, according to Shiite belief) amounted to an act of blasphemy. To enact, or to ‘create’, another human being was regarded as tantamount to usurping the role and function of God, for he alone is the creator of man. Religious leaders, however, turned a blind eye, and taziyeh theatre, the people’s theatre, was allowed to proceed.

25 However, growing dissatisfaction with a succession of incompetent and corrupt Mozaffaredin Shah Qajar governments (1896–1907), together with resentment towards the control exerted by foreign powers over the domestic politics and economics of the county, led to the formation of and revolts by various secret societies and religious groups during the late nineteenth century. This social unrest ultimately focused on the demand for a constitution. With the signing of a constitution by the king, on 30 December 1906, the face of Iranian society changed. However, when Reza Pahlavi (who reigned1925–1941) took over as the new dictator in 1925, he made public gatherings of more than two people illegal. In 1928, on the pretext that large gatherings of people were a political threat to public order, the government of Reza Shah placed an absolute ban on performances of taziyeh. As a result, all the professional taziyeh groups were driven from the major cities into villages and remote areas.

During the Second World War the Allied Forces’ protests over Reza Shah’s rapprochement with Nazi Germany forced him to abdicate in favour of his son in 1941. He was sent into exile on the Maries Island in South Africa where he died in 1944. Mohammad Reza Shah, the son of the former king, took over as the new king but he was no more sympathetic towards taziyeh than his father had been. In 1948, the magnificent Royal Taziyeh Theatre in Tehran was demolished and a government bank built in its place. From 1941 to 1953, with a new government in power, led by an inexperienced young king and under the pressure of the Allied Forces, a democratic and liberal movement began to emerge. Influenced also by the USSR who had emerged from the Second World War as the victor, and whose propaganda filtered into Iranian society through the Iranian pro-Soviet communist party, intellectuals began to use the theatre in order to popularize their socialist or liberal ideas.

In this period (1941–1953) Iranian society once again experienced freedom after sixteen years of Reza Shah’s dictatorship. In 1953, due to pressure from the democratic movement, the King left the country. A few days later, with the support of the United States of America and with the forces of General Zahedi, a pro-American general, a coup took place and the elected government was overthrown. Mohammad Reza Shah came back to Iran and was re-installed in power. All the democratic, liberal and communist parties were banned and the authorities imposed harsh

26 restrictions on performances in general. Theatres, as places where gatherings took place, became a particular target of the authorities. Consequently, until 1978 when the Shah was overthrown in favour of a democratic government, which took the form of an Islamic regime, no performance could be arranged unless government permission had been obtained, whether the performance were in a city theatre or some faraway village. During these years Iranian intellectuals and artists put their efforts into fighting the strict censorship laws which sought to create a context of terror and police dictatorship. Under these social and political changes, taziyeh gradually moved again into the provinces and rural areas.

In the early 1970s a number of Western avant-garde theatre companies were welcomed with open arms: Peter Brook took his Orghas in Persepolice to Iran and performed at the Shiraz Arts Festival in 1971, and Robert Wilson took Overture to Ka Mountain to the Shiraz–Persepolis Festival of Arts in 1972.35 However, according to Hunt and Reeves, what appeared to be a laudable effort to raise Iran’s cultural level by exposing local theatre artists to foreign influences was in reality ‘an expensive front to gain prestige for an authoritarian regime and an attempt to get something else into the world press other than the adverse comments on the Shah’s brand of constitutional democracy’.36 Indigenous work was suppressed: Iranian theatre groups had to overcome all manner of obstacles put in their way by the censorship laws in order to perform for a few nights. Although a number of Iranian scholars tried to write about taziyeh theatre, and a handful of performances were organized on indoor stages using commercial theatre conventions such as selling tickets, taziyeh went largely unacknowledged.

A short review of literature about taziyeh

Abdolah Mostoufi, a politician and memoir writer, was one of the first Iranians who dealt with taziyeh. In some sections of his three-volume book Sharhe Zendaganiye Man ya Tarikhe Ejtemaii va Siasiye Dowrane Gajar (The Story of My Life or the Social and Administrative History of the Gajar Period),37 Mostoufi described some

35Robert Wilson’s work Overture to Ka Mountain, spread over seven mountains, lasted seven days and nights and included thirty actors and twenty Persian recruits. Other groups took their works to the Shiraz Festival, among them: Alwin Nikolais with his dance company, Hungarian theatre company ‘Squat’, with their work: Pig, Child Fire, and Tadeusz Kantor with his Polish group. 36 Hunt, Albert & Reeves, Geoffrey, 1995, Directors in Perspective: Peter Brook, CUP, p. 159. 37 Mostoufi, Abdollah, 1371/1992, Sharhe Zendaganiye Man ya Tarikhe Ejtemaii va

27 details of taziyeh performances during and after the Gajar period. Mostoufi, who was born in 1876 in Tehran and died in 1950, in his book recorded his memoirs about taziyeh performances, theatre houses and Takiyeh Dowlat at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. His work is valuable because he recoded some details about taziyeh performances in the Persian language, which made it the only reference for Iranian scholars who did not have access to Western reports and were not aware of them. Mehdi Forough was the first Iranian scholar who considered taziyeh as material worthy of serious study and he compiled and discussed taziyeh as an Iranian passion play. In 1952 he was awarded a Master’s degree by Columbia University for a thesis entitled A Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice in Persian Passion Plays and Western Mystery Plays.38 This was subsequently published in Iran in English. Forough’s work, despite its emphasis on comparison between two plays of the Sacrifice of Abraham, was the first scholarly publication which was exclusively devoted to taziyeh and explained some of its characteristics.

In the years following the Forough thesis a number of works were written in French, English and Persian demonstrating a growing academic interest in taziyeh. In 1962 for example, Majid Rezvani wrote about taziyeh in his book Le Théâtre et la Dance en Iran published in French in Paris.39 In 1964, Yazdan Hushvar submitted a thesis entitled The Emergence of Religious Plays in Iran (Pidayesheh Namayeshateh Mazhabi dar Iran) to the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran University. Then two men better known now for their challenging work in Iranian cinema turned their attention to taziyeh. In 1965 Bahram Baizii discussed taziyeh in his Namayesh dar Iran (Theatre in Iran).40 And in the autumn of 1966 the twenty-year-old Parviz Sayyad included a taziyeh scene – Abdulla Hafif – in a series of performances he staged at the 25th Anniversary of Shahrivar Theatre, a state-owned indoor playhouse in Tehran. In 1971 Mayel Baktash and Farrokh Gaffary dealt briefly with taziyeh in their Taatre Irani (Iranian Theatre).41 In addition to Forough’s work, the books of both Iranians,

Siasiye Dowrane Gajar The Story of My Life or the Social and Administrative History of the Gajar Period], 3 vol., 3th Edition, Zawar, Tehran. 38 Forough, Mehdi, 1952, A Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice in Persian Passion Plays and Western Mystery Plays, Master Thesis, Columbia University, reprinted by the Ministry of Culture and Art, Tehran. 39 Rezvani, Majid, 1962, Le Théâtre et la Dance en Iran, Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris. 40 Baizaii, Bahram, 1344/1965, Namaysh dar Iran [Theatre in Iran], Kavyan, Tehran. 41 Baktash, Mayel, and Gafary, Farokh, 1350/1971, Taatre Irani [Iranian Theatre], Shiraz Art Festival Publication, Tehran, Iran.

28 Rezvani in French and Baizaii in Persian, provide considerable information about taziyeh.

An International Symposium on taziyeh organised by the annual Shiraz Festival of Arts in the summer of 1976 under the direction of Farrokh Ghaffary and Peter Chelkowski as the chairman, can be considered a significant event in the study and development of taziyeh. In contrast to the propagandist aim of the government, Chelkowski, a passionate lover of Iran, organized for researchers and scholars with different backgrounds from around the world to participate in this symposium, and it was a crucial step in taziyeh scholarship. During this event, the papers of which were collected and published in 1979 with the title Taziyeh, Ritual and Drama in Iran, edited by Cheklowski, many different aspects of taziyeh were explained and in my opinion this is still the only reliable collection of scholarly work on taziyeh. Peter Brook was the first theatre practitioner who attempted to incorporate elements of taziyeh into his practice. Peter Brook had the opportunity to see taziyeh first-hand in a remote village in 1970 and 1971, and was able to judge the extraordinary audience response and the unique actor–audience relationship generated by the performance.42

From 1979, instead of the expected liberal democratic regime, a religious power was established as the new government. While heavy censorship laws prevented comment and debate, Iranian scholars and intellectuals were instructed to seek out and publish materials that had been ignored or repressed under previous regimes. The collection and publication of taziyeh manuscripts was one benefit of this research.43

On the other hand, the establishment of an Islamic regime undermined the historical necessity of a social movement for democracy in Iran and even led some non-Iranian scholars to search for revolutionary elements in Islam. They consequently took a religious perspective in discussing taziyeh and saw this ancient form as an essentially

42 Brook, Peter, 1993, There are No Secrets – Thoughts on Acting and Theatre, Methuen Drama, London, pp. 38-43. 43 The following Iranian works are relevant here: Ansary, Jaber, 1366/1987, Daramadi bar Namayesh va Niayesh dar Iran (An Introduction to Theatre and Parying and in Iran), Jahadeh Danishgahi, Tehran; Malekpour, Jamshid, 1987, Persian Passion Play, University of Tehran, Iran; Also 1366/1987, Saire Mazamin dar Shabieh Kani (taziyeh), Jahad Daneshgahi, Tehran; Homayuni, Sadegh,1368/1989, Taziyeh dar Iran (Taziyeh in Iran), Navide Shiraz, Iran; Ajand, Yaghob, 1373/1994, Namayeh Nameh Novisi dar Iran (Playwriting in Iran), Nashre Nai, Tehran; Salehi Rad, Hassan (collector), 1374/1995, Majalese Taziyeh (The Taziyeh Manuscript), From Dar Band Sar Village, Sorush, Tehran; Taghiyan, Laleh, 1374/1995, Dar Barahyeh Taziyeh va Theatre dar Iram (About Thetre and Taziyeh in Iran), Nashre Nai, Tehran.

29 religious/Islamic phenomenon.44 But new voices and new attempts are emerging from amongst the Iranian scholars living in Western countries. Among them Negar Mottahedeh, who is particularly interested in gender, and Kamran Scot Aghaie should be mentioned. 45

Eyewitness accounts of taziyeh performances: (1) 1667–1849

From Jean-Batiste Tavernier (1667) to Lady Sheil (1849)

Some of the most useful historical sources of description and comment on the Muharram mourning ceremonies and the taziyeh drama into which these celebrations eventually developed during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are the accounts of foreigners46 who either visited Persia briefly or worked there extensively.47 These are a widely divergent group of individuals, of varied

44 Accounts written by non Iranian scholars include: Chelkowski, Peter, J., 1980, ‘Iran: Mourning Becomes Revolution’, Asia 3, (May/June), pp, 30-7, and 44-5; Ansary Pettys, Rebecca, 1981, ‘The Taziyeh: Ritual Enactment of Persian Renewal’, TJ, October, pp. 341-54; Ale- Mohammad, Reza, 2001, ‘An Iranian Passion Play: Taziyeh in history and Performance’, NTQ, New Theater Quarterly, volume XVII, part one (Vol. 65), February, published in association with Rose Buford College, pp. 54- 65. 45. See Mottahedeh, Negar, 2005, ‘Karbala Drag Kings and Queen’, in The Drama Review 49, 4 (T188) New York, University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ‘Taziyeh, A Twist of History in Everyday Life’ in Scot Aghaie, Kamran (ed.), 2005, The Women of Karbala, Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shi’islam, University of Texas Press; and Scot Aghaie, Kamran (ed.), ‘Gendered Aspects of The Emergence and Historical Development of Shi’i Symbols and Rituals’, in Scot Aghaie (ed.), 2005. 46 The importance of these reports becomes apparent when we appreciate that in the seventeenth, eithteenth and nineteenth century Iranian scholars and historians took taziyeh performances for granted as a part of everyday Iranian life. As a result, and as far as we know, in only a few Iranian diaries, such as those of Mohamad Hassan Khane Eetemadol-Saltaneh and Abdolah Mostawfi, accounts of taziyeh performances are mentioned as part of the events arranged by the King in the Royal Theatre. See Eetemadol-Saltanah Dairy (1875-1895), 1379/2000, Amir Kabir, Tehran, and Mostawfi, Abdollah. 47 Written accounts and reports about Persians by westerners started in the sixteenth century, a century which saw great changes in the Iranian political situation and also in the nature of its relationship with the West. Shah Ismail (1501-24), the founder of the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722), established a powerful theocratic Shiite state and united the country as a power against the strong military power of Turkey with its Sunnite orthodox religion. In 1507, the first European fleet since Nearchus’ squadron over 1800 years before, appeared in the Persian Gulf. It was a Portuguese fleet, which seized the Gulf islands. For over a century no other Western power could challenge the Portuguese in this region. The French, English and Dutch tried and competed to open up commercial contact with Iran through military, commercial and religious missions. England was the first to establish this relationship. The rediscovery of Persia and writing about its culture marked the beginning of a new era in relations between Iran and the West. Numerous reports and accounts were written and published. The effects of the reports of travellers, missions, merchants, diplomats, and craftsmen, through William Shakespeare’s works for example can be traced as follows: In Comedy of Errors (Act IV, scene I) the Second Merchant says to Angelo: ‘I am bound for Persia, and want guilders for my voyage’. He then demands payment of some money due. A. J. Arberry in his book The Legacy of Persia, suggests that ‘there can be little doubt that Shakespeare had Ralph Fitch or one of his companions in mind when he wrote these lines’. Ralph Fitch with some other merchants were the first Englishmen to travel to the Persian Gulf and beyond by overland rout via Tripoli, Aleppo, and the Euphrates Valley. The First Witch in Macbeth

30 nationalities, education, class and profession, and their accounts of both the mourning ceremonies and taziyeh performances tend to occur as part of more extensive descriptions of the life, manners and culture of the ‘mysterious Orient’. Amongst them are, for example, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a seventeenth-century ‘Noble Man of France’; William Francklin, a Cambridge-educated ensign to the Bengal Native Infantry, who went on furlough to Persia; James Justinian Morier, an English author, who entered the diplomatic service and, as secretary to Lord Elgin, followed the Grand Vazir in the Egyptian campaign; Sir William Ouseley, a British Orientalist who had studied in Paris and Leiden and who accompanied his brother as his secretary when the latter was appointed ambassador to Persia; Ilya Nikolaevich Berezin, a Russian academic and the author of books on the Arabic and Persian languages and on Persian history; Joseph Arthur, comte de Gobineau, a diplomat, ethnologist and social thinker, whose theory of racial determinism greatly influenced the development of racist theories and practices in Western Europe; Samuel G. W. Benjamin, an American envoy to Iran, who wrote ‘the first essay on the Persian theatre […] by an American’.48

In the second half of the nineteenth century there is the career soldier–diplomat Colonel Sir Lewis Pelly, who held many high-level political posts in East Africa and India, and spent some fourteen years in Persia and the Gulf; C.J. (Charles James) Wills, who travelled for fifteen years in Iran as a medical officer of the Indo-European Telegraph Department; the prolific Cambridge orientalist, Edward G. Browne, whose interest in oriental studies was aroused by reading Gobineau; and the Reverend Wilson, who spent many years as a missionary in Persia. Only one female voice can be heard amongst those of many males, and it is that of Lady Sheil, who accompanied

(Act IV, scene i) says: ’…Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the’ Tiger.’ Again Arberry suggests: ‘as we know from Fitch’s journal that he sailed in the Tiger for Tripoli. This indicates a strong likelihood that Shakespeare read the journal in Hakluyt’s Principal Neviggations. In King Lear (Act III, Scene vi), Lear says to Edgar: ‘You sir, I entertain for one of my kindred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments; you will say they are Persian attire, but let them been changed.’ In The Merchant of Venice (Act II, Scene i) Shakespeare puts the following words into the mouth of the Prince of Morocco when he is addressing Potia: ‘I pray, Thee, lead me to the caskets, To try my fortune. By this scimitar, That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince, That won three fields of Sultan Solyman, I would outstare the sternest eyes that look.’ Nearly sixty years later, Milton made another use of the same source of information in Paradise Lost (Book X, Lines 431-6): ‘As when the Tartar from his Russian foe, By Astracan over the snowy plains, Retires, or Bactrian Sophy from the horns, Of Turkish crescent leaves all waste beyond, The realm of Aladule in his retreat, To Tauris of Casbeem […] (see Arberry. A.J., 1953, The Legacy of Persia, Oxford, At the Clreendon Press, London, pp. 343-346.) 48 Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 261.

31 her husband on his posting as British Minister to the Shah of Persia in the mid- nineteenth century.

One of the few bonds uniting most of these travellers and visitors is that they found themselves in Persia in an official capacity, having been posted there as diplomats, public servants, or professionals of one sort or another. It was not necessarily of their own free choice that they found themselves exposed to an alien culture for months or years of their young lives. For, understandably, most of them travelled relatively early in their lives, usually in their twenties or thirties. Berezin, for example, was only 24 years old, and Brown only 25, when they lived in Iran. Few were as old as Matthew Arnold, the poet, critic and Oxford Professor of Poetry, who only travelled to the East in his retirement in his fifties.49 The experiences these Westerners underwent were generally, of course, quite alien to the cultural, let alone theatrical, experiences they already had and their comments on them, whilst rich and detailed, are the products of the imperialist mind – not always without a touch of condescension or racism.

It is Mumammad Ja’far Mahjub’s view that:

Other Westerners [Gobineau and Sir Lewis Pelly, with their laudatory rhetoric, are excluded], including William Francklin, who was the earliest among them, disliking Ta’ziyeh due to their unfamiliarity with the customs and manners of Persian society and ignorance of its language, and comparing its performance with developed Western theatre, generally dismissed Ta’ziyeh as ridiculous and clumsy.50

Frankly, this is what one might expect, and the more so when one acknowledges that these by and large Christian foreigners were not always any more welcome in the theatres than they were in the ‘religious places’.51 As the American envoy Samuel Benjamin wrote in 1887: ‘It is not easy for those of other beliefs to gain access to the Royal Takieh.’52 But Muhammad Ja’far Mahjub is guilty of exaggeration. Francklin,

49 Matthew Arnold’s essay, ‘A Persian Passion Play’, was published as one of his first Essays in Criticism, in 1865, well before he actually visited Persia, but shortly after he had been impressed by Gobineau’s account of Persian theatre, published earlier in that year. Arnold’s essay is little more than an English summary, with lengthy quotation in translation, of Gobineau. (See Arnold, Matthew, 1865, Macmillan, Ser. 1, - No. 2, pp. 259-307) 50 ‘The Effect of European Theatre and the Influence of its Theatrical Methods upon Ta’ziyeh’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 147. 51 Arnold, M., 1871, p. 129. 52 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 381.

32 in his Observations at least, offers no evidence of ‘disliking’ taziyeh, or of finding it ‘ridiculous’. True, Dr. Wills writes in 1886 of one dramatic incident that is ‘sufficiently ludicrous’ and another that ‘may seem puerile’, but this, he makes clear, is ‘when seen for the first time by a European’. His concluding judgment is that, once familiar with the foreign culture, the European ‘is not ashamed to confess that he too, at times, may shed a tear for the forgotten martyrs of a false religion’.53 And the following year Benjamin begins a sentence like this: ‘The absurd attempt to represent tents [with sofas and uncouth beds]’. But he ends it thus: ‘was […] no more absurd than the buskins and tragic masks worn by those who enacted the death of Agamemnon [in] Athens two thousand years ago’.54

Nor was Edward Browne impressed by ‘the introduction of the Shah’s carriages, with postilions barbarously dressed in a half-European uniform, in the middle of [a] piece’ about the bereaved women of Hussein’s family encountering the murderous Shimr: he thought it an ‘absurd piece of ostentation […] typical of Kajar taste’.55 But his brief account of the taziyeh is otherwise remarkable for its tolerant objectivity. Indeed, what surprises the modern reader is the extent of the tolerance and comparativism shown in these accounts, and how much less exclusive and one-eyed they are than one might have anticipated. No-one exemplifies this more readily than the American politician S.G.W. Benjamin, whose frequent attempts to draw an analogy between, on the one hand, details of taziyeh theatres and performances and, on the other, the choruses and buskins of Greek theatre, the conventions of the Greek and Shakespearean stage, the amphitheatres of Rome and Spanish bull-fights, reveal a cultured open-mindedness that is genuinely illuminating.56

It should also be noted that, for all the range of class, educational and cultural experience that these writers represent, there is not a shred of evidence that any of them had had experience as a Western theatre practitioner – which is in no way surprising – or a regular theatre-goer – which perhaps is.

53 Wills, C.J., M.D., 1886, Persia As It Is, being sketches of modern Persian life and character, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London, pp. 215-16. 54 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, Chapter XIII, P. 390. 55 Browne, Edward, 1959, A Year Amongst the Persians, Cambridge, England, p. 604. 56 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, pp. 381, 389, 390, 392, 384, 387.

33 But, however diverse, partisan or naïve these accounts may be, they are the work of first-hand observers and they offer precious eyewitness descriptions of celebratory processions and performances for many centuries, from the middle of the seventeenth (Tavernier made his observations in 1667) to the dawn of the twentieth centuries (Wilson was published in 1895). For the present thesis the importance of these accounts is two-fold: they provide detailed evidence, not only of the changing nature of taziyeh performance over time, but also – and this is of special significance – of the theatrical experience itself, the way in which popular audiences have interacted with and responded to it since the middle of the seventeenth century.

Selection of accounts

The twelve accounts of taziyeh I have selected for close attention were written at different moments over an extended period of time, under different performance conditions and in a range of different geographical locations. For example, prior to 1523 the city of Tabriz, in the northwest corner of Iran, was the capital city of the Safavid dynasty. In that year Qazvin, in the heart of the country and out of the immediate reach of invading Turks, became the capital. In 1588 Isfahan took over as the capital, until 1796, when Agha Muhammad Khan, founder of the Gajar dynasty (1796-1925), proclaimed Tehran, close to Qazvin, his capital and gave it the title of Dar ol-Khelafeh (the House of Caliphate). These cities retained, and continue to retain, their importance, long after they had relinquished the title of capital. Our accounts provide evidence of taziyeh performances in each of them.

A number of the accounts, perhaps inevitably since they are responses to the same events, draw attention to the same features of performance, and describe broadly similar reactions to them. Only two were written prior to the nineteenth century. I intend, therefore, to examine each of these, by the aristocratic French Tavernier and the Cambridge Englishman Francklin, independently and then, in order to avoid what might otherwise become a tediously repetitious analysis, consider the nineteenth- century descriptions en bloc.

34 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1667)

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s description of the rituals commemorating the death of Hussein, which took place in all likelyhood in the streets of Isfahan, is only one of many foreigners’ accounts that date from the second half of the Safavid rule in the seventeenth century and which have become an important source for the study of the development of the cult of Hussein. It offers us a glimpse of the gradual development of the pageantry of the Muharram festival that was later to develop into full-blown taziyeh drama. It is in the second of his The Six Voyages … through Turky [sic] into Persia, and the East-Indies, translated from the original French by J. P. Philips,57 that Tavernier gives a vivid description of the preliminaries leading up to what he calls the ‘Grand Festival of Persians’. The richly detailed text is worth reproducing in full:

Eight days before the Festival begins, some of the more zealous sort black all their Bodies and their Faces, and go naked in the Streets with only a covering about their secret parts. They carry two Flints, one in each hand, which they knock one against another, writhing their Bodies, and making a thousand antick Faces; and all the while crying out, Hussein, Hosen; Hocen, Hussein; which they act and speak with so much Labour, ‘till they foam again at the mouth. In the Evening, the devout people admit them into their Houses, and feed them very well. During those days, as soon as the Sun is set, you shall see at the corners where several Streets meet, Pupits set up for certain Preachers, who prepare the people that slock to hear them to the devotion of the Feast. Now in regard all Ages and Sexes go, there is no time in all the year so favourable for the Women to meet Gallants.58

While his account does not make this absolutely clear, it would seem that this first encounter of Tavernier’s with ‘the Feast of Hosen [Hasan] and Hussein’ predates a second that occurred on 3 July 1667, when he was privileged to observe events from a position close to the Déla, where the King sat. Unlike the first festival, this later one was held indoors, on a temporary ‘stage’. The Déla, he explains:

is a Room built with a jetting upon that side of the Meidan next to the Palace Gate, one story high. Several Pillars sustain the flat bottom or floor of the Déla, enrich’d with a Grotesco work of Gold and Azure, in the mid’st

57 See Tavernier, 1678, pp. 160-163. 58 Ibid., P. 161.

35 whereof there was a Fountain that was fill’d with Water by the contrivance of Pipe. The Stage or Déla was op’n upon three sides, the longest side jetting out upon the Piazza.59

Then follows a lengthy, very detailed description of the ceremony, which began at about seven o’clock in the morning, once the King, Shah-Saphi II (Shah Soliman II), surrounded by all his nobles, had taken his place upon a throne set in the centre of the room:

So soon as [the King] was sate down the Great provost appear’d at the end of the Piazza mounted upon a fair Horse, attended by certain young Lords, who caus’d the people, consisting of the Companies of the two quarters of the City which are twelve in all, to advance to the places which were design’d for them. […] As he was about his duty, a Horse-man entered the Piazza, arm’d with a Bow, a Quiver, and a Scimitar, follow’d by seven Man that carry’d every one a Pike upright in their hands, with every one a Man’s Head at the top. Those were the Heads of certain Uzbeck-Tartars, the neighbouring and mortal Enemies of the Persians, which those men had cut off from the shoulders of their conquer’d Foes. The King caus’d five Tomans a piece to be giv’n to them that carry’d the Heads, and ten Tomans to their Leader. After them enter’d three hundred Turks, which were fled from the Borders of Turkie[sic], from whence the Country-people were tak’n by force, and sent to the Warrs of Candy. […] All these were order’d to advance into the middle of the Piazza, where they made their obeisance to him three times, and then humbly besought him that they might dwell in his Kingdom, with their Wives, their Children, and their Cattel. The King order’d Money to be distributed among them, and that they should have Lands assign’d them to manure. Then the Provost caus’d the Companies to advance, every Company having the Thill [shaft] of a Wagon carry’d before him; upon every of which Thrills was a Bier three or four Foot high, the Wood of the thill being painted with a Grotesco of Gold and Silver, and the Bier cover’d with Sattin. When the first Company had order to march, three Horses were led before, richly harness’d; when they were come about a hundred Paces forward into the Piazza, in a view of the King, they that led the Horses caus’d them gallop, and then all the company fell a running and dancing about with the Bier. Besides that, every one slung up his short Cassock, his Girdle, and Bonnet,

59 Ibid., p. 161.

36 put their fingers in their mouths, to whistle as loud as they could. While the naked people, with their Flint-stones in their hands, ran knocking their Stones together, crying out, Hussein Hocen, Hocen Hussein, ‘till they foam at the mouth again; not omitting to wryth their Bodies, and to made all the scurvy Faces as before describ’d. The three Companies succeeding one another in the same Formalities, by and by came two Companies more with a little Bier upon their Thills, and in each Bier a little Child that lay as if dead. They that accompany’d these two Biers wept and figh’d [sic] most sadly. There two Infants represented the Children of Hussein, who when the Prophet was slain, were tak’n by Terid[sic] Caliph of Bagdat, and put to death.60

Tavernier goes on to note that the ceremony was an occasion for large numbers of courtesans to come forward, throw themselves on the ground in tears, confessing to the sin of prostitution, in the belief that by virtue of this ritual their sins would be forgiven. It was also an opportunity for other spectators to fall to fighting ‘smartly’ in front of the King, and so die honourably and, they believed, achieve sainthood.

Seeing the fighting grow hot, the Grand Provost called for five elephants. At the sight of these, ‘cover’d with Houses of Cloth of Gold’61 and ridden by royal standard- bearers and Governors, the combatants were distracted and the fighting brought to an end.

Tavernier’s account then turns back to the King’s room, where a small scaffold, some five feet lower than the King’s and covered with tapestry, was erected. Upon it and covered in black velvet stood a great elbow-chair. In the chair, with six other mullahs standing around him sat a mullah, who proceeded to

ma[k]e a Discourse upon the Death of Hussein and Hocen of about half an hour long, which being ended, the King caus’d a Calaat or Habit of Honour to be giv’n him, as also to the others, though not so rich. When they had all put on the Habit, the fame Moullah return’d to his Chair, and made a Prayer for the health of the King, and the prosperity of his Kingdom.62

60 Ibid., pp. 161-162. 61 Ibid., p. 163. 62 Ibid., p. 163.

37 These various ceremonies lasted the whole of the morning, until noon, at which point the King retired to his harem. As for the people,

they carry their Biers up and down the City, and where-ever two Companies meet, whether it be for the upper hand, or to get formost, they presently fall together by the Ears, and knock one another down: for they are not permitted to cary any other Arms than good big Clubs, almost as big as Levers.63

Some time later – again Tavernier is unspecific as to dates – another festival is celebrated, the Feast of the Camel, in remembrance of Abraham’s sacrifice of his only son Isaac in obedience to God’s command. The Frenchman then gives an account of this festival, an account based in part on the evidence of his own eyes and in part upon report. The Persians, he writes:

have a great reverence for this Festival, saying that it was a Camel and not a Ram which God sent to reprieve Ishmael (affirming that Ishmael was to have been sacrific’d, and not Isaac). They choose out for this Ceremony one of the fairest Camels they can meet withal, and adorn and dress him up with several Plates of counterseit Gold and Silver, and then lead him without the City to a place which is before a Mosquee on the other side of the River of Ispahan, upon Zulpha side; the Deroga of Provost accompanying the people. The King was formerly wont to be at this Feast, accompany’d with his Nobility, and I have seen him there; but of late years he never goes, the Deroga supplying his place. When the King went thither, several Moullahs pray’d for half an hour, after which the King took a kind of a Jav’lin and darted it aginst the Camel: but now in the absence of the King, the Deroga gives the first stroak. At the same time they sing the Camel to the ground, with Ropes ty’d to his legs, and cutting off his head and neck together, they divide the rest of the Body into eleven parts more, to the end all the twelve Companies may have every one their share. Evry Company carries their share to the Master of the Companies House, who is generally the ancientest among them. Which part is kept and salted up ‘till the next Feast, and the piece the year before, so ‘till then preserv’d, is then boyl’d (sic) with Rice, and is the foundation of the Feast for the chief of the Company, who take it for an honour to eat of it: For the rest,

63 Ibid., p. 163.

38 they Boyl Rice with Mutton and Hens, and besides that, distribute large Alms to the Poor.64

Tavernier’s testimony is the more useful for being both unbiased and precise. Not only is his account untouched by any suggestion of racism or coloured by condescension, but it offers evidence of the festivals he has witnessed that, by virtue of its detail and precision, suggests that it is accurate and reliable.

William Francklin (1787)

William Francklin was a 24-year-old Englishman, who served as an ensign on the Bengal Establishment and who, during a period of furlough in 1787, travelled from Bengal to Persia. Immediately upon his return in 1788, he published, in Calcutta, an account of his travels under the title Observations made on a Tour from Bengal to Persia in the Year 1786–7.65 During a two-month stay in Shiraz, in the south of Iran, he witnessed the ‘period of solemn mourning; it is called by the natives Dèha, or a space of ten days’66 at the beginning of Muharram, during which time there is general lamentation over the ‘circumstances attending the melancholy fate of the Imam Hossein’.67 A number of other accounts of the celebrations appeared during the course of the eighteenth century, from those of the Dutchman Corneille Le Brun in 1704 and 1718,68 to those of Salamons and Van Goch in 1739 69 and Samuel Hmelin in 1774.70

If Francklin’s observations merit special consideration here, it is because, as Peter Chelkowski has noted, they constitute a record of the ‘break-through in the Muharram ceremonies, where ritual observance became ritual drama’.71

Le Brun certainly attests to the fact that ‘ritual observance’ had developed. A range of tableaux-scenes depicting in realistic costume and pantomime the suffering and killing of Hussein and staged on fixed and mobile platform-stages had been

64 Ibid., p. 163. 65 Francklin, 1976, pp.246-251. 66 Ibid., P. 239. 67 Ibid., p. 247. 68 Brun, Corneille Le, 1718, 1739, Voyages par la Moscovie, en Perse et aux Indes, 2 volumes, Amsterdam. 69 Salamons and Van Goch, 1739, Die Heutige Historie und Geographie, oder der Gegenwaertige Staat von Koenigreich Persien, Flensburg, Altona. 70 Hmelin, Samuel, 1774, Reise durch Russland…Reise durch das nordische Persien in den Jahren 1770, 1771 bis in April 1772, St. Petersburg. 71 Chelkowski, ‘Bibliographical Spectrum’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 258.

39 introduced – but as yet these pageants had still not achieved the status of full-blown dramas: they continued to lack text and lyrics.

Francklin’s account, therefore, though rather less precisely detailed than that of Tavernier, is of no less value. It opens with a description of preparations: the erection of Mumbirs and the al Wakàa, a recital of the life and times of Ali and his sons, Hasan and Hussein:

On the 27th of the preceding month of Zulhuj, they erect the Mumbirs on the pulpits in the mosques, the insides of which are on this occasion lined with black cloth. On the 1st of Mohurrum the Akhinds, and Peish Numazz’s (or Mahomedan preists) mount the pulpits, and begin what is denominated by the Persians, al Wakàa […]. [T]he recital is made in a slow solemn tone of voice, and is really affecting to hear, being written with all the pathetic elegance the Persian language is capable of expressing. At intervals the people strike their breasts with violence, weeping bitterly at the same time, and exclaiming, ah Hossein! ah Hossein! Heif az Hossein! Alas for Hossein!–Other parts of the Wakàa are in verse, which are sung in cadence to a doleful tune.72

Then come details of the emergent drama:

Each day some particular action of the story is represented by people selected for the purpose of personating those concerned in it; effigies also are brought out and carried in procession though the different neighbourhoods: among these they have one representing the river Euphrates, which they call Abi Ferat. Troops of boys and young men, some personating the soldiers of Ibn Saad, others those of Hossein and his company, run about the streets, beating and skirmishing with each other, and each have their respective banners and ensigns of distinction. Another pageant represents the Caliph Yezzeed seated on a magnificent throne, surrounded by guards; and by his side is placed the European ambassador afore mentioned.73

Francklin had already told the ‘anecdote’ of the Caliph Yazid and the European ambassador, though without giving any hint that he was describing a dramatisation of any kind:

72 Francklin, 1976, pp. 246-248. 73 Ibid., pp. 248-249.

40 [A]t this period an ambassador from one of the European states happened to reside at the Caliph’s court, who, on the arrival of the prisoners, was struck with compassion at the miserable appearance they made, and asked Yezzeed who they were; the Caliph replied, that they were of the family of the prophet Mahomed, and that the [severed] head was the head of Hossein the son of Ali, whom caused to be put to death for his rebellion; whereupon the ambassador rose up and reviled the Caliph very bitterly for thus treating the family of his own prophet. The haughty Yazzeed, engaged at the affront, ordered the ambassador to go himself and bring him the head of Zein al Abudeen, on pain of immediate death; this, however, the ambassador flatly refused; and, as the Persian believe, embracing the head of Hossein, turned Mussulman; on which he was immediately put to death by the command of Yazzeed.74

So, it is perhaps not illegitimate for us to call this the taziyeh of The Foreign Ambassador. With rather more confidence we may refer to a second dramatization, details of which are also given, as the taziyeh of The Marriage of Càsim. This, for Francklin ‘among the most affecting representations’,75 tells of the marriage of Hasan’s son, Hussein’s nephew, to his [Hussein’s] daughter:

[The marriage, however,] was never consummated, as Casim was killed in a skirmish on the banks of the Euphrates, on the 7th of Mohurrum. On this occasion, a boy represents the bride, decorated in her wedding garments, and attended by the females of the family chanting a mournful elegy, in which is related the circumstance of her betrothed husband being cut off by infidels (for such is the term by which the Sheias speak of the Sunnies). The parting between her and her husband is also represented, when on his going to the field she takes an affectionate leave of him; and, on his quitting her, presents him with a burial vest, which she puts round his neck: at this sight the people break out into most passionate exclamations of grief and distress, and execrate the most bitter curses upon Yezzeed, and all those who had any concern in destroying the family of their Imaum.

The sacred pigeons, which are affirmed by the Persians to have carried the news of Hossein’s death from Kerbela to Medeena (having first dipped their beaks in his blood as a confirmation), are also brought forth on this occasion.

74 Ibid., pp. 245-246. 75 Ibid., p. 249.

41 The horses on which Hossein and his brother Abbas are supposed to have rode [sic], are shewn [sic] to the people, painted as covered with wounds, and stuck full of arrows.76

He goes on – and this material is of particular significance to the present thesis – to describe the ‘enthusiasm’ of the Persian spectators for these processional dramatizations, even to the point of ‘court[ing] death’:

During these various processions much injury is often sustained, as the Persians are all frantic even to enthusiansm, and they believe uniformly that the souls of those slain during the Muhurrum will infallibly go that instant into Paradise; this, added to their frenzy, which for the time it lasts is such as I never saw exceeded by any people, makes them despise and even court death. Many there are who inflict voluntary wounds on themselves, and some who almost entirely abstain from water during these ten days, in memory of, and as a sufferance for, what their Imaum suffered from the want of that article; and all people abstain from the bath, and even from changing their clothes during the continuance of the Muhurrum. On the 10th day, the coffins of those slain in the battle are brought forth, stained with blood, on which scymitars [sic] and turbans are laid: – these are solemnly interred, after which the priests again mount the pulpits and read the Wakaa [event]. The whole is concluded with curses and imprecations on the Caliph Yazeed.77

This description makes clear that by 1787, the ‘breakthough’ into text-based theatre had occurred, the arrival of a theatre that employs, as the occasion requires, both prose and verse. Furthermore, Francklin gives extensive evidence of the kind of theatre that is being presented, a performance mode in which realism is perhaps not the primary concern: the symbolic representation of burial vests as a symbol of death, or a journey from which the wearer will not return, to the Euphrates River; the use of animals and birds, the latter with painted wings when required to bring news of death, and the former ‘made up’ to indicate that they had been wounded and their riders killed.

76 Ibid., pp. 249-251. 77 Ibid., pp. 251-252.

42 James Morier (1808–1809) and William Ouseley (1810–1812)

Until Henry McKenzie Johnston published his biography of the Morier brothers in 1998,78 relatively little was known of the life of James Justinian Morier, creator of Hajji Baba, the likeable, picaresque rogue whose best-selling comic adventures were first published in 1823.79

Morier based the story of Hajji Baba on knowledge he acquired on his travels in the East. He went twice to Constantinople: in 1808–9, at the age of 28, and then again, between 1810 and 1816, travelling on both occasions via Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor. With the assistance of his uncle William Waldegrave, the 1st Baron Radstock, Morier had entered the diplomatic service and, as a secretary to the notorious Lord Elgin, had earlier followed the Grand Vizier in Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign.

Morier was first in Tehran between 14 February and 7 May 1809. In the company of his fellow traveller and guide, Mirza Abdul Hassan (King of Persia’s Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of London), he was invited ‘by the Jemidars (Indian officers) of the Envoy’s guard, to see that part of the ceremony of the Moharrem, which was appropriated to the day’.80

It is by no means impossible that Morier was known personally to another valuable eyewitness of taziyeh performance, the learned Oriental scholar, Sir William Ouseley, who accompanied as secretary his brother, Sir Gore Ouseley, when the latter was sent in 1810 as ambassador to Persia. The title of Morier’s lengthy account of his second journey to Constantinople concludes: ‘Together with an account to the proceedings of His Majesty’s embassy under His Excellency Sir Gore Ouseley’.81 It is interesting to speculate that their paths may even have crossed, possibly in 1812, when we know that Ouseley recorded his reactions to taziyeh. At any rate, by 1810 Ouseley was already a committed and published Orientalist: in 1794, at the age of 25, he had studied Persian at Leiden and by 1801, a mere seven years later, he had published

78 McKenzie Johnston, Henry, 1998, Ottoman and Persian Odysseys: James Morier, Creator of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, and His Brothers, I.B. Tauris. 79 Hajji Baba of Ispahan was first published in London in 1823 in three volumes, and reappeared in 1835. Hajji Baba’s French and German translations both appeared in 1824. 80 Morier, 1812, p. 194. 81 Morier, James, 1818, A Second Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816 [with a journal of the Voyage by the Basils and Bombay to the Proceedings of His Majesty’s embassy under His Excellency Sir Gore Ouseley], Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, pp. 175-184.

43 several volumes on Persian manners, history and geography.82 It was in January 1812 that Ouseley was exposed to ‘the only Persian exhibition that can be styled dramatick’, namely the ‘ten acts of the Murahhem [Muharram], performed on so many successive days’.83 He was fortunate enough to see several performances, either in part or in their entirety.

Both Morier and Ouseley are struck by the extraordinary degree of frenzy exhibited by the people during the celebrations. However, perhaps because they are both stereotypical, stiff-upper-lip, public-school Englishmen and reluctant to accept as authentic the spectacular public outpouring of emotion, neither is wholly convinced that the spectators are not themselves occasionally playing a well-rehearsed role too. In 1808–1809 Morier tells how one scene:

Produced great lamentation among the spectators, who seemed to vie with each other in the excess of their weeping, and in the display of all, the signs of grief. […] In some I could perceive real tears stealing down their cheeks, but in most I suspect that the grief was as much a piece of acting as the tragedy which excited it. The King himself always cries at the ceremony; his servants therefore are always obliged to imitate him.84

Whether he was less prepared to doubt the genuineness of the spectator response at his second exposure to it is hard to gauge, but in 1810–16 he shows little hint of suspicion:

[I]t is necessary to have witnessed the scenes that are exhibited in their cities to judge the degree of fanaticism which possesses them at this time. I have seen some of the most violent of them, as they vociferated Ya Hossein! walk about the street almost naked, with only their loins covered, and their bodies streaming with blood by the voluntary cuts which they have given to themselves, either as acts of love, anguish, or mortification.85

82 1795, Persian Miscellanies; 1797-1799, Oriental Collections; 1799, Epitome of the Ancient History of Persia; 1800, The Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal; 1801, translation of the Bakhtiyar Nama and Observation on Some Medals and Gems. 83 Ouseley, William, 1823, Travels in Various Countries of the East, more Particularly Persia, three Volumes, published by Rodwell and Martin, New Bond street, printed for the author by Priscilla Hughes, Brecknock, London, III valums, III, pp. 163-164. 84 Morier, 1812, p. 196. 85 Morier, 1818, p. 176.

44 According to another eyewitness of identical ‘nightmarish’ scenes some 70 years later, S. G. W. Benjamin: ‘[i]t [was] not uncommon for men to fall dead in these processions, overcome by the loss of blood or the terrible pitch of excitement to which they have wrought themselves’.86 Benjamin, however, clearly doubts that everyone who participated in these processions did so for legitimate, spiritual motives and he is quick to add that usually it was not the intelligent, law-abiding Persians who joined in these processions, but rather ‘the more ignorant or vicious classes, who crave excitement, or delude themselves into the belief that by such an occasional outburst of fanaticism they may lay up a reserve of piety that shall float them safely through another year of iniquity.’87

With reference to the preliminary chanting of the mullah, Morier notes a most curious custom:

[The Mullah] had scarcely turned over three leaves, before the Grand Vizier commenced to shake his head to and fro, to utter in a most piteous voice the usual Persian exclamation of grief, ‘wahi! wahi!, wahi!’, both of which acts were followed in a more or less violent manner by the rest of the audience. The chaunting of the priest lasted nearly an hour, and some parts of his story were indeed pathetic, and well calculated to rouse the feelings of a superstitious and lively people. […] In the very tragical parts [of the taziyeh performance], most of the audience appeared to cry very unaffectedly. […] In some of these mournful assemblies, it is the custom for a priest to go about to each person at the height of his grief, with a piece of cotton in his hand, with which he carefully collects the falling tears, and which he then squeezes into a bottle, preserving them with the greatest caution. […] Some Persians believe, that in the agony of death, when all medicines have failed, a drop of tears so collected, put into the mouth of a dying man, has been known to revive him; and it is for such use, that they are collected.88

Ouseley, on the other hand, is far from convinced, and is encouraged in his doubts by more than one Persian:

86 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 380. 87 Ibid., p. 380. 88Morier, 1818, pp. 178-179.

45 Crowds of people who express their sympathy and grief not only by groans and sighs, but by howls of very suspicious loudness; violent beating of breast; rending of garments, and even tears, which many, by annual practice, have taught to flow at will. Individuals, lamenting events that happened in a distant country, above eleven hundred years before, appeared to have suffered the loss of a parent or a child […]; all affected a negligence in dress; a depression in countenance and a whining tone of voice in which they uttered frequently the ejaculation “Ya Hussein”! […] But whatever some enthusiasts might have really felt, I know two or three Persians who, in secret, laughed at this ‘mockery of woe’, although they seemed externally, to participate in the general affliction.89

Lest we should think Ouseley totally unwilling to accept that the spectators’ reactions might have been genuine, he does admit that ‘some incidents and expressions […] proved exceedingly affecting: and I could give credit to Mirza Shefia and a few other spectators for the sincerity of their tears’. And ‘twenty or thirty women and young girls who were watching from ‘the court walls and […] the roof of an adjacent building’ were ‘distinctly […] heard sobbing in melancholy sympathy with the [bereaved character in the drama]’.90

Morier is particularly vivid in his description of the city’s preparations for the celebrations, the erection of torch-lit tents both in the streets and in private houses:

The preparations which were made throughout the city consisted in erecting large tents, that are there called takieh, in the streets and open places, in fitting them up with black linen, and furnishing them with objects emblematical of the mourning. These tents are erected either at the joint expense of the mahal, or district, or by men of consequence, as an act of devotion; and all ranks of people have a free access to them. The expense of a takieh consists in the hire of a mullah, or priest, of actors and their cloth, and in the purchase of lights. Many there are who seize this opportunity of atoning for past sins, or of rendering thanks to heaven for some blessing, by adding charity to the good act of erecting a takieh, and distribute gratuitous food to those who attend it.

89 Ouseley, P. 163. 90 Ibid., p. 165.

46 Our neighbour Mahomed Khan [Mahomed Khan Amou, the King’s former playfellow and chief of the Camel Artillery] had a takieh in his house to which all the people of the mahal flocked in great numbers. During the time of this assemblage we heard a constant noise of drums cymbals and trumpets.91

On his first visit in 1808–09, Morier made careful notes on the ritual manner in which each day’s celebrations and performances would begin, starting with speeches and the chanting of the mullah from his high chair:

Many of [the Indians and Persians attending] arose and made long speeches […] on the death of the Imaum, though they intermixed much extraneous matter. After this a Persian Mollah, a young man of a brisk and animated appearance, ascended a temporary pulpit, and commenced a series of chaunted sermon proper for the day. At the end of every period he was answered in chorus by the multitude: and when he was nearly at the end, and had reached the most pathetic part of his harangue, he gave the signal for the people to beat their breasts, which they did accordingly with much seeming sincerity, keeping time to his chanting.92

‘Next’, Morier continues, ‘on a small temporary stage, appeared several figures, who acted that part of the tragedy of the history of the Imaum appointed for that day’.93

In the course of his two visits, Morier seems to have seen three taziyeh performed. In 1808–09 he saw one that dealt with ‘the death of the two children of [Hossein’s] sister Fatime, who, at the close of the performance, was killed by Ameer, one of the officers of Yezid’.94 Then, on his second visit in 1810–16, on the eighth night of the Moharram, he was invited along with the rest of the Embassy to the Grand Vizier’s house and saw a drama about which he writes nothing. Two days later, however, on the tenth day of Moharram, at the King’s invitation he saw the taziyeh of the Death of Hussein in the great city square. In 1812, Ouseley saw ‘three or four’ taziyeh ‘imperfectly and accidentally’, but on other occasions, ‘with other gentlemen, by express invitation, two of the principal, complete [taziyeh], and represented in the best style; the first at Mirza Shefia’s house, the other in presence of the king. […] The

91 Morier, 1818, p. 177. 92 Morier, 1812, pp. 194-195. 93 Ibid., p. 195. 94 Ibid., p. 195.

47 principal circumstances [of the first] were the marriage of Sekinah (Husein’s daughter) and the death of Kasem [Sekinah’s husband].’95 Two days later, on 25 January, he saw the taziyeh that Morier also reported, ‘the grand catastrophe, the death of Husein’.96

Both travelers give valuable accounts of the physical contingencies of the various performance spaces they visited, the conditions of the performances and the arrangements of and for the accommodation of the vast number of spectators who attended. It may be instructive to quote at length and consider the sometimes exhaustive accounts that each man gives of the climactic taziyeh, the dramatization of the death of Hussein. Ouseley – who here gives the merest hint that he may have been a theatre-goer back in England – saw it acted in Tehran:

at the Meidan or square, which exhibited more valuable decoration than, probably, ever graced an European theatre; for the king had lent on this occasion, thousands of his most precious and brilliant jewels; he beheld the exhibition from a room over the gateway, close to which a tent had been pitched on the walls and carpets spread for the Ambassador and his party. There we took our places, about noon; enjoying a perfect view of the square which was lined with musketeers, yesaouls or constables, ferashes and other royal servants; its walls being covered with many hundreds of women, mostly wrapped from head to foot in their white chaders.97

Morier is clearly describing the same event, and in the same city, though, as we have noted, not necessarily witnessed in the same year as Ouseley:

We set off after breakfast, and placed ourselves in a small tent, that was pitched for our accommodation, over an arched gateway, which was situated close to the room in which His Majesty was to be seated.

We looked upon the great meidan, or square, which is in front of the palace, at the entrance of which we perceived a circle of Cajars, or people of the King’s own tribe, who were standing barefooted, and beating their breasts in cadence to the chaunting of one who stood in the centre, and with whom they now and then joined their voices in chorus. Smiting the breast (St. Luke,

95 Ouseley, p. 164. 96 Ibid., p. 165. 97 Ibid., pp. 165-166.

48 xviii.13.) is an universal act throughout the mourning; and the breast is made bare for that purpose, by unbuttoning the top of the shirt. The King, in order to show his humility, ordered the Cajars […] to walk about without either shoes or stockings, to superintend the order of the different ceremonies about to be performed; and they to be seen stepping tenderly over the stones, with sticks in their hands, doing the duties of menials, now keeping back a crowd, then dealing out blows with their sticks, and settling the order of the processions. […] A short time after we had reached our tent, the King appeared; and although we could not see him, yet we were soon apprised of his presence by all, the people standing up, and by the bowing of his officers.98

Ouseley gives only a brief account of the ‘solemn procession’99 that preceded the commencement of the drama, but Morier in 1810–16 itemizes every stage of it with his customary detail and precision:

First came a stout man, naked from the waist upwards, balancing in his girdle a long thick pole, surmounted by an ornament made of tin, curiously wrought with devices from the Koran, in height altogether about thirty feet.100

On his earlier visit Morier had clearly been impressed by the ‘performance’ of the pole-bearer and, for once, he recorded this moment in some detail:

[A] high and cumbrous pole was brought into the scene. It was ornamented with different coloured silks and feathers, and on the summit were fixed two curious weapons made of tin, and intended to represent the swords of Ali. This heavy machine was handled by a man who, having made his obeisance to it (by first bowing his head, then kissing it) took it up with both his hands, and then amidst increasing applauses balanced it on his girdle, on his breast, and on his teeth.101

After the first half-naked man, Morier’s 1810–16 account continues, came:

another, naked like the former, balanced an ornamented pole in his girdle still more ponderous, though not so high, upon which a young dervish, resting his

98 Morier, 1818, pp. 179-180. 99 Ouseley, p. 166. 100 Morier, 1818, p. 180. 101 Morier, 1812, p. 195.

49 feet upon the bearer’s girdle had placed himself, chaunting verses with all his might in praise of the King. After him a person of more strength and more nakedness, a water carrier, walked forwards, bearing an immense leather sack filled with water slung over his back, on which by way of bravado four boys were piled one over the other. This personage, we were told, was emblematical of the great thirst which Hossein suffered in the desert.102

Morier had been struck by these ‘emblematical’ water-carriers in 1808–09; indeed, it was the only detail of the procession to which he drew his readers’ attention: ‘They bore on their backs bullocks’ skins filled with water, no inconsiderable weight; but, in addition, they each received five well-grown boys, and under the united burthen, walked round a circle ten feet in diameter, three times consecutively.’103

After the water-carriers, Morier continued in 1810–16, came:

[a] litter in the shape of a sarcophagus, which was called the Caber Peighember, or the tomb of the prophet, succeeded, borne on the shoulders of eight men. On its front was a large oval ornament entirely covered with precious stones, and just above it, a great diamond star. On a small projection were two tapers placed on candlesticks enriched with jewels. The top and sides were covered with Cashmerian shawls, and on the summit rested a turban, intended to represent the head-dress of the prophet. On each side walked two men bearing poles, from which a variety of beautiful shawls were suspended, at the top of which were representations of Mahomed’s hand, studded with jewellery.

After this came four led horses, caparisoned in the richest manner. The fronts of their heads were ornamented with plates, entirely covered with diamonds, that emitted a thousands rays. Their bodies were dressed with shawls and gold stuffs; and in their saddles were placed some object emblematical of the death of Hossein. When all these had passed, they arranged themselves in a row to the right of the King’s apartment.104

Morier includes two engravings that illustrate the litter, the poles with representations of Mohamed’s hand and one of the four horses bearing two feathered ‘objects

102 Morier, 1818, p. 180. 103 Morier, 1812, P. 195. 104 Morier, 1818, pp. 180-182.

50 emblematical of the death of Hossein’ (see Figures 3 and 4 in Appendix II). These are of considerable help to us in trying to visualize the pageant.

The final stage of the procession, immediately prior to the commencement of the drama, is described in no less detail:

After a short pause, a body of fierce-looking men, with only a loose white sheet thrown over their naked bodies, marched forwards. They were all begrimmed [sic] with blood; and each brandishing a sword, they sang a sort of hymn, the tomes of which were very wild. These represented the sixty-two relations or the martyrs as the Persians call them, who accompanied Hossein, and were slain in defending him. Close after them was led a white horse, covered with artificial wounds, with arrows stuck all about him, and caparisoned in black, representing the horse upon which Hossein was mounted when he was killed. A band of about fifty men, striking two pieces of wood together in their hands, completed the procession. They arranged themselves in rows before the King, and marshalled [sic] by a maỉtre de ballet, who stood in the middle to regulate their movements, they performed a dance, capping their hands in the best possible time. The maỉtre de ballet all this time sang in recitativo, to which the dancers joined at different intervals with loud shouts and reiterated clapping of their pieces of wood.105

Ouseley, too, mentions this – he had previously noticed the ‘prophet’s coffin [… with its] gold-embroidered cloth blazing with the lustre of diamonds, emeralds and rubies’106 – but can only add a couple of details to Morier’s exhaustive account: one of the four horses was that ‘of Ali Akbar (Hussein’s eldest son recently killed) or of Kasem (his nephew)’ and following Hussein’s white horse bristling with arrows ‘the inner garment lately worn by its unfortunate rider was then displayed; pierced in many places and stained with blood’.107

Then, says Ouseley, ‘the colloquial part begins’108: he means, of course, the spoken drama. However, before we consider their evidence of the performance itself, we must look at what our travelers can tell us about the playing space and the stage.

105 Ibid., pp. 182-183. 106 Ouseley, p. 166. 107 Ibid., p. 166. 108 Ibid., p. 166.

51 On his first visit to Persia Morier makes scant mention of the physical conditions of the taziyeh performance he saw, the Death of Hussein [Mytredom of Hussein], except to say that ‘on a small temporary stage, appeared several figures, who acted that part of […] the history of the Imaum appointed for that day’(my italics).109 In 1810–16, however, he is more forthcoming:

Part of the square was partitioned off by an enclosure, which was to represent the town of Kerbelah, near which Hussein was put to death; and close to this were two small tents, which were to represent his encampment in the desert with his family. A wooden platform covered with carpets, upon which the actors were to perform, completed all the scenery used on the occasion.110

Ouseley cannot add to this brief description of the neutral, unlocalised playing space, that took on such identities as the drama might require of it, except to specify that he is writing about an outdoor performance and that the enclosure representing ‘the habitations of Husein, his family and the few brave companions that remained faithful to him’ was ‘divided by a canvass seraperdeh111 ’.112

‘The processions were succeeded by the tragedians’113, writes Morier in 1810–16, as he moves at last to a description of the climactic taziyeh performed on the tenth day of Moharram. ‘Hossein came forwards [sic], followed by his wives, sisters, and relatives.’ It is a great pity that a writer who is as prepared as Morier to commit his observations to paper in such detail was unable to do so to the extent that he would have liked in respect of the performance. The actors ‘performed many long and tedious acts’, he continues – it is not clear whether ‘tedious’ here means ‘painful’ or whether the inadequacy of his Persian caused him to find the spoken parts of the performance ‘wearisome’– but, unfortunately, ‘[his] distance from the stage was too great to hear the many affecting things which no doubt they said to each other’.114

We know that taziyeh performances – The Death of Hussein in particular, no doubt – attracted many thousands of spectators. And the exaggerated acting style employed by

109 Morier, 1812, p. 195. 110 Morier, 1818, p. 180. 111 Seraperdeh literally is a curtain at the door of a royal court. 112 Ouseley, P. 166. 113 Morier, 1818, p. 183. 114 Morier, 1818, p. 183. From a remark made on p. 184, it would seem that Morier was ‘at about fifty yards’ distance’ from events.

52 the performers was, at least in part, a function of the need to communicate meaning across very significant distances. However, it is also the case, as Ouseley notes, that they ‘recited or chaunted, as at the former exhibition, from written papers’115 (my italics). In other words, it was not only during the enacted drama, but also in the earlier stages of the procession and preliminaries, that the actors carried their scripts in their hands. Morier had been struck by the way in which the actors:

read [‘their speeches written on paper’] with great action and vociferation and excited much interest in their audience, so that many sobbed and wept aloud; and when the ceremonial required the beating of breasts, many performed that part with a species of vociferous zeal, which seemed to be jealous of louder intonations from any breast than their own.116

Since Morier’s inability to hear clearly obliged him to limit his description of the performance to Hussein’s final moments, as he awaited his death-stroke, we must turn to Ouseley for evidence of how the majority of the performance proceeded. Ouseley the secretary does not let us down and, while many of the one thousand words that follow are devoted to narrative, simply telling the story of Hussein’s last days, he does go on to supply us with precious information about the performance and the manner of the actors’ presentation:

[T]he women address many pathetic speeches to the arrow-stricken horse; and utter loud lamentations at sight of the bloody garment; their distress, meanwhile, arising from the want of water, becomes intolerable. One hero gallantly undertakes to procure them relief; he sallies forth; is opposed, fights bravely but is overpowered and slain. Abbas, the brother of Husein, then resolves to try the perilous adventure; he clothes himself in complete mail; girds on his scymetar; grasps his lance, departs amidst the benedictions of his grateful friends, and, having succeeded in filling a leathern meshek at the river, fights back his way through crowds of foes, but is intercepted, wounded, and deprived of the water just as he brings it within view of those who so much want it. Husein himself at length prepares to go; his sister Zeineb […], his daughter Sekinah and his infant son, endeavour by their tears, entreaties and forebodings to dissuade him from his enterprise of desperation. A herald of the enemy is introduced with due form; he proposes

115 Ouseley, P. 166. 116 Morier, 1812, p. 195.

53 terms; Husein indignantly rejects them; and his charger is led out. The women renew their solicitations with much weeping; some faithful warriors offer to devote themselves for his safety; but convinced that Providence has already decreed whatever must befal the son of Ali and of Fatimah (daughter of the prophet) he declares his intention of rushing amidst the hostile ranks. Next appear the Jinn […] or genii, whose chief the Shah e Jinn expresses his readiness to assist him; he with thanks, declines any supernatural aid, unless immediately from God. The little genii then pay homage to Husein and kiss the feet of his horse; he rides forth; many cavaliers are seen galloping about the plain in coats of iron mail, with shields and lances; quivers full of arrows and bows in cases. Husein is environed by the soldiers of Yezid, and taken prisoner, dismounted and beheaded with a khanjar or long knife, by Shamer. The tent of Husein is demolished and burnt; his women seized and carried off in black cajavahs on camels; and finally, a lion comes from the desert and scatters earth on the dead bodies, and on some detached heads of those who had been martyred in the holy cause.117

Had we not known that Ouseley was writing about a performance – by which he was ‘gratified’ – we might be forgiven for believing that he was simply retelling a story he had read or else heard. The account raises a number of interesting questions regarding the manner and style of taziyeh presentation. Are real horses used in performance, or perhaps hobbyhorses, and do they really ‘gallop about the plain’? And real camels? And a lion? And ‘little genii’? How are ‘crowds of foes’ represented? By large numbers of supernumeraries or, as in Shakespeare, do ‘four or five most vile and ragged foils’ do duty as an army? How is a man beheaded with a khanjar[dagger]? Are the ‘detached heads’ perhaps made of wax? How is a river represented? To what extent do the actors strive for realism, or is this a mode of performance in which the ‘imaginary forces’ of the spectator are brought heavily into play?

Morier, though he only gives details of the final moments of the performance, provides a number of answers to these questions. And Ouseley is not silent on these issues, despite his propensity for story-telling. Morier, for example, writes graphically that ‘the unfortunate Hosein lay extended on the ground, ready to receive the death- stroke from a ruffian dressed in armour, who acted the part of the executioner’.118 He

117 Ouseley, pp. 166-168. 118 Morier, 1818, p. 183.

54 also expands Ouseley’s brief comments on the burning of Husein’s tent, to say that ‘[s]everal reed huts [which] had been constructed behind the enclosure [and representing the town of Kerbala] were of a sudden set on fire’.119

Clearly, in spite of the fact that all the players carried their scripts in their hands throughout the performance – ‘the books or papers, which they held tended to dissipate any illusion’120 – a certain degree of illusionism is both sought and achieved. The performance ‘conveyed a most accurate idea of the Arabian dress and mode of warfare’, and the ‘introduction of heralds, the challenges of knights, […] their single combats, their military pomp […] coats of mail, shields, lances and banners, the armour and caparisons of their horses’ brought instantly to Ouseley’s mind images from the Western medieval age of chivalry, what he had seen ‘delineated in our emblazoned Romances, and other illuminated Manuscripts’.121 It is no less evident that real horses are used, and in all probability – though Ouseley does not actually say so – real camels.

On the other hand, predictably, real women are not cast in the roles of female characters, but ‘[a]s on the former occasion, young men and boys were clothed like females’.122 The former occasion to which Ouseley refers is the taziyeh of The Death of Kasim, which he had seen two days earlier and in which ‘the lovely Sekinah was personated by an impudent boy and the elder female characters by men’.123 As William O. Beeman has noted, ‘The females depicted by males in taziyeh are thus ‘labeled’ as women by their dress but do not resemble women in their portrayal’. It is not simply the wearing of the veil that indicates female gender, but ‘the coding of the veil with black dress’. Beeman continues, with specific reference to The Death of Kasim:

The audience knows they are women by semiotic convention rather than through mimesis. This device allows them to be ‘social’ women without being ‘sexual’ women. There is a conventional scene […] that depicts the wedding between Qassem, Imam Hosein’s nephew, and Zeinab, his daughter. This scene is tremendously moving and evokes tears. Nevertheless, there is

119 Ibid, p. 183. 120 Ouseley, p. 165. 121 Ibid., p. 168. 122 Ibid., p. 169. 123 Ibid., p. 165.

55 no hint of sexual desire between the bride and groom. They are man and wife in a religious sense but not in a physical sense.124

Beeman is as much concerned with contemporary as historical performances of traditional theatre, which he has himself seen, but there is little doubt that what he witnessed in the 1970s differed little from what Ouseley saw almost two centuries earlier. Commenting on the reactions of ‘twenty or thirty women and young girls’ to the performances of males in the roles of Sekinah and Zeinab, he ‘distinctly heard them sobbing in melancholy sympathy with the widowed bride and, suddenly, tittering at the awkward motions of those men who represented the female personages’.125 There is here the same combination, as Beeman records, of an intensely moving experience, but yet one which at the same time involves females in so obvious a manner as to provoke ‘tittering’.

As for the genii or jinn, who ‘kiss the feet of Husein’s horse’ – malicious spirits capable of flight or of appearing in either human or animal form – these were represented by ‘children, probably nine or ten years old, dressed in black garments, their faces, heads and shoulders being covered with red handkerchiefs’. They all held ‘drawn swords’ and their chief, ‘the Sháh e Jinn or “king of the Genii” was taller than the others; he wore armour, carried a bow, quiver and shield and had, like his attendants, a red handkerchief thrown over his head’.126 And the ‘generous lion … [who] scatter[ed] dust on the martyr’s bodies [sic]’ was, as one might have anticipated, played by a ‘person in the skin of a wild beast, moving awkwardly on his hands and knees’.127 To this Morier adds a detail of both the drama and its presentation: ‘The tomb of Hossein was seen covered with black cloth, and upon it sat a figure disguised in a tiger’s skin, which was intended to represent the miraculous lion, recorded to have kept watch over [Hossein’s] remains after he had been buried’.128

The detached heads ‘sticking in the ground’, which, not surprisingly, Ouseley had at first taken to be ‘waxen or wooden’, he quickly found to be ‘animated; the eyes and

124 Beeman, William, 1992, ‘Mimesis and Travesty in Iranian Traditional Theatre’, in Gender in Performance, the Presentation of Difference in the Performing Arts, Laurence Senelick (ed.), Tufts University, University Press of New England/Hanover and London, pp. 18-9. 125 Ouseley, p. 165. 126 Ibid., p. 169. 127 Ibid., p. 169. 128 Molier, 1818, p. 183.

56 lips moving’. They belonged to ‘men who from enthusiasm in the cause, had voluntarily submitted to a partial interment, and remained above three hours thus buried to the chins in earth.’129 It is to Morier that we owe a complementary detail: not only did some Persians bury themselves alive, but ‘others put their heads underground, leaving out the body. The heads and bodies were placed in such relative positions to each other, as to make it appear that they had been severed.’130

To suggest that mere ‘enthusiasm’ was enough to encourage a man to spend three hours together buried head-up or, particularly, head-down in sand might seem something of an understatement on Ouseley’s part. Indeed, Morier explains that it was done ‘by way of penance; but in hot weather the violence of the exertion has been known to produce death’.131 After all, such was the fanatical zeal with which other roles were received by spectators for whom all disbelief had been suspended that participation in certain aspects of taziyeh presented a real threat to both life and limb – so much so that foreigners, Russian prisoners (who had possibly been arrested on the border of Iran and Russia, according to the long and historical conflict between two countries in the province of Azarbayejan) were cast in the thankless roles of soldiers of Yezid, and the ability to withstand considerable physical violence seems to have been the essential requirement for the actor cast as the loathed Shamer, slayer of Husein:

Some Russian prisoners had been hired, or compelled, to represent the soldiers of Yezid; and, on the death of Husein, could scarcely escape by galloping at full speed, from a shower of stones, which the mob pelted at them in rage against the enemies of their saint; Shamer, by whom he was decapitated, suffered more especially from the violence of their fury; and I [Ouseley] saw him receive many hearty blows and kicks, amidst innumerable execrations.132

Lastly, while other sources will tell us that the River Euphrates will be represented symbolically by a pot of water, as we have demonstrated it would seem that, like costumes, properties such as swords, shields, lances and ‘decapitated’ heads are real.

129 Ouseley, P. 169. 130 Morier, 1818, p. 183-184. 131 Ibid., p. 184. 132 Ouseley, pp. 169-170.

57 If Ouseley says something about presentation, he is in no way informative on the subject of staging, or about the actors’ use of space, or about the issue that lies at the heart of the present dissertation, the manner in which the taziyeh actor performs his role. However, as we have seen, he is eloquent on two important and closely related matters: the mode of performance as a mixture of realism and convention, and the intensity with which performance was received. We shall return to these matters in Chapter Three.

Ouseley concludes his account with a description of the procession that brought the day’s ritual to a close, a procession led by horses richly adorned with the king’s jewels, and including the prophet’s coffin. Following this:

[an] extraordinary dance was performed by eighty or an hundred athlete men, of whom several were naked to the waist; some held in their hands swords and long-bladed knives, and had either actually cut themselves (as is generally the case) in different parts of the body, or had with paint, exceedingly well imitated on their skins, the appearance of bleeding wounds. A certain tune regulated the measure of this dance under the direction of a man who, beating time with a wand, chaunted [sic] all the while in a loud voice the praises of MUHAMMED and his family, particularly of A’LI whom he frequently invoked the exclamation of “A’li Shir-i-Khuda!” Oh! Lion of God!” several among the dancers joined in this hymn or song, striking together in perfect cadence, two pieces of hard wood, each in size and shape like the half of a large orange; the action was violent, although they did not rise very high from the ground, rather jumping forward, with one leg advanced before the other, and then retreating suddenly; but there were a few, who passed between the others, according to a regular and reconcerted movement; the manly figures of those actors, the clashing of swords and daggers, the striking together of the wooden pieces, and the chaunting of their hymn or song, in which several females raised their voices, induced me to imagine that this performance, partly religious and military, might resemble, in some respects, the Salian dance among the ancient Romans.

A pompous and tedious enumeration of the king’s titles, with many benedictions, closed this entertainment, and we returned to our houses

58 through streets and bazaar, where all the shops were shut, and but few persons visible.133

Ilya Nikolaevich Berezin (1842–1843)

Ilya Nickolaevich Berezin was a Russian academic and specialist in Near Eastern Studies, who published a number of books on oriental language, history and culture. His Pueshestwie po sievienoy Persi […] appeared in 1852, nine years after his return from Iran, where early in 1843 he had seen taziyeh performances from the third day of Muharram until the day of Ashura. Berezin’s account of taziyeh performance is important for a variety of reasons. His visit to Iran, from 1842 to 1843, when he was only 24 years old, came at a time when a vast number of takiyeh, both custom-built, permanent theatres and temporary, dismantlable structures, were being installed both in Tehran and throughout the country. His account of the takiyeh Khaji, and of the performances and texts of the several plays he saw there is of particular interest because ‘it is one of the first scholarly renderings of the subject’.134 It is the more frustrating, therefore, that Berezin’s book is so inaccessible. Fortunately, the Russian- speaking wife of the French scholar Jean Calmard was able to provide her husband with a French translation, which he cites at some length in his article ‘Le mécénat des représentations de ta’ziyeh’.135 Although Calmard refers to the pages of this translation from which he quotes, I have found no evidence that the volume itself has been published. It is upon Calmard’s quotations that I have been obliged to rely:

During my stay in Tehran, as many as 58 takiyeh [taziyeh theatres] were set up in the city, but not all at the same time; throughout the ten days that the performances lasted, the actors went from one takiyeh to another newly installed one, and there they repeated the great mystery. And thus passed the month of Moharram.136

Even the Russian embassy and the English mission have takiyehs:

All these takiyehs are essentially public and open to all who wish to attend; but increasingly the rich, reclusive during Ramadan, have set up at their homes a takiyeh

133 Ibid., pp. 170-171. 134 Chelkowski, ‘Bibliographical Spectrum’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 260. 135 Calmard, Jean, 1974, ‘Le mécénat des représentations de ta’ziyeh’ in Le Monde iranien et l’Islam, Geneva, 2 Vols, II. pp. 74-126. See in particular p.74, note 5. 136 Ibid., p. 95. unpublished translated by Suzanne Eggins.

59 in their andarun [the women’s apartment] and invite only friends to the performances: in this case, all the actors are women.137

Lady Sheil (1849)

It is not until the publication, in 1856, of Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, ‘simply an attempt to describe the manners and the tone of feeling and society’138 of Persia in the middle of the century, that we are afforded the opportunity to see taziyeh through the eyes of a woman. Lady Sheil, or, to give her her full name, Mary Leonora Woulfe Sheil, had married Justin Sheil before he, at the age of 33, took up a posting to Tehran in 1836 as British envoy to the court of Persia. The couple returned to England in 1853, by which time Sheil, a soldier–diplomat and staunch Catholic, who had arrived in the Middle East a captain, had not only risen to the rank of colonel, but had been knighted.139As a diplomatic wife more used to the excitement of Western European society, Lady Sheil’s Persian experience was not an unalloyed pleasure: on 2 December 1849, she speaks bluntly of ‘the monotonous current of life in Persia’. ‘The existence is tiresome enough for a man’, she writes, ‘but to a woman it is still more dreary’.140 She pities the lot of Persian women, especially the restrictions imposed upon them in respect of their dress:

[A woman] cannot move abroad without being thickly veiled; she cannot amuse herself by shopping in the bazaars, owing to the attention she would attract unless attired in Persian garments. This is precluded by the inconvenience of the little shoes hardly covering half the foot, with a small heel three inches high in the middle of the sole, to say nothing of the roobend or small white linen veil, fitting tightly round the head (over the large blue veil which envelopes the whole person), and hanging over the face, with an open worked aperture for the eyes and for breathing; then the chakh-choor, half-boot, half-trousers, into which gown and petticoat are crammed.141

Not that she felt any intense desire to mix on too intimate a basis with local women; her preference was clearly for more refined, European company:

137 Ibid., p. 95. 138 Sheil, Lady, 1856, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia 1848 – 1853, John Murray, Albemarle Street, London, p. 2. 139 Justin Sheil’s elder brother, Richard Lalor Sheil (1791-1851), was the founder of the Catholic Association. 140 Sheil, p. 122. 141 Ibid., p. 122.

60 [I]ntimacy with Persian female society has seldom any attraction for a European, indeed I regret to say there were only a few of the Tehran ladies whose mere acquaintance was considered to be desirable. […] The distance at which the Russian mission resided prevented me from cultivating as much as I wished the acquaintance of Princess D – and her amiable daughter; and the remaining European female society of Tehran was limited to one or two ladies, the wives of foreign officers in the Shah’s service.142

To English ladies accustomed to taking their pleasures in the ‘London or Paris season’ her best advice is that they avoid ‘a land where life […] much resembles that of a convent’.143 So she devoted herself to ‘the fine garden of the Mission, hitherto […] much neglected [as] the only resource left to [her]’.144 The climate did not make gardening a simple matter. However, with the help of Mr Burton – previously head gardener at Teddesley Park in Staffordshire, whom her husband, on behalf of the Shah, had invited out in late 1848 to take charge of the six-acre Royal Gardens at Tehran – she managed to ‘astonish everyone with the fineness of [her] celery, cauliflowers etc’.145

It was in December 1849 that Lady Sheil witnessed taziyeh theatre, a form ‘somewhat resembling the Mysteries produced […] in old times in England’.146 In the usual way she is astonished by the ‘emotion of the Persians […]. On every side, and from all ranks, sighs, groans, and weeping, without restraint, are heard, mixed with impregnations against the perpetrators of the cruelties suffered by the prophet’s grandson and his family.’147 The Persians give vent to their grief, she notes, not without a slight hint of scorn, ‘in the style of schoolboys and girls’:

Various extraordinary and ludicrous noises accompany their demonstrations, which one is sometimes inclined to mistake for laughter. When one begins the contagion spreads to all. I too felt myself forced, would I or not, to join my tears to those of the Persian women round me, which appeared to give considerable satisfaction to them.148

142 Ibid., pp. 123-124. 143 Ibid., p. 124. 144 Ibid., p. 123. 145 See Gaskell, Elizabeth, 1852, short story, ‘The Shah’s English Gardener’, London. 146 Sheil, p. 125. 147 Ibid., pp. 125-126. 148 Ibid., p. 129.

61 Her reaction was similar to that of Mr. Burton, the gardener, who is reported to have said that ‘he was so out up [cut up] by it, he could not help crying’, and excused himself for what he evidently considered a weakness, by saying that everybody there was doing the same’.149 But, although Lady Sheil attended several performances, including the taziyehs of The Death of Hussein and The European Ambassador, Elchee Fering, she ‘confess[es] with some shame, that [her] patience and curiosity were insufficient to carry [her] through a complete performance of the entire [ten-day] drama’.150 Her evidence is nonetheless of value, particularly her description of the physical conditions under which she and the rest of the audience watched the performance.

Elizabeth Gaskell described the Noorooz (New Year), the great spring festival, when ‘a kind of miracle-play was acted simultaneously upon the various platforms in the city; the grandest representation of all being in the market-place, where thirty or forty thousand attended.’151 Lady Sheil, however, saw performances in an indoor space, custom-built by the Prime Minister, but an ‘immense building holding several thousand persons.’152 From the perspective of someone accustomed to scenic realism presented in a European proscenium theatre, she describes its ‘somewhat novel design’:

The stage, instead of being at the bottom of the building, was formed of a large elevated platform in the middle of the pit, if I may call it so, perfectly open on every side, and revealing, to the entire destruction of all exercise of the imagination, the mysteries which ought to pass behind the curtain. Two tiers of boxes surround the platform. […] On reaching the building, I [together with other invited foreign ministers] was conducted to a very comfortable loge, with an antechamber, or kefshken, ‘slipper-casting’ room, where one leaves the outer shoes. The front of the box was carefully covered over with a thick felt carpet, pierced with small holes, which, while they allowed us to see all that passed, completely excluded us from the view of the audience. The Shah’s box was at the top, facing the performers; on his right were the boxes of his uncles, the prime minister, the English minister as senior, the Russian minister, etc. On his left were the boxes of his mother

149 Gaskell, p. 65. 150 Sheil, p. 126. 151 Gaskell, p. 67. 152 Sheil, p. 126.

62 […], and his wives; then that of the prime minister’s wife, then mine, and next the Russian minister’s wife. 153

The behaviour of these ministerial wives on the one hand and humbler female spectators on the other, and the manner in which the two classes of female were treated by those organizing the spectacle, could scarcely have been more different. For the ministers’ wives:

[t]he fatigues of the day were relieved by constant supplies of tea and coffee, with pipes incessantly for those who liked them. […] Part of the pit was appropriated to women of humble origin, who were in great numbers, all carefully veiled, and all seated on the bare ground. Before the ‘curtain drew up’, it was ludicrous to witness the contention among these dames for places, which was not always limited to cries and execrations. They often proceeded to blows, striking each other heartily on the head with the iron heel of their slippers, dexterously snatched off the foot for the purpose; and, worse still, tearing off each other’s veils; several ferashes [menial servants, who spread carpets, pitch tents etc.] were present to keep the peace, armed with long sticks, with which they unmercifully belaboured these pugnacious devotees.154

Lady Sheil’s account of The Death of Hussein adds only the occasional detail to what we are already very familiar with in this taziyeh. Hussein and his family travel to Cufa in the desert of Kerbala; Yazid’s army appears; Hussein laments his fate, goes out to fight and returns, he and his horse covered with arrows. Hussein and his followers are cut off from the Euphrates; more lamentations and more fighting; Shimr appears with his men, makes speeches, to which Huessein replies; Hussein’s sons, Ali Akbar and Ali Asghar go to fight and are brought back dead. Hussein’s daughters, tweve-years- old Sekkeena and Rookheeya, are then killed. Then the angel Gabriel appears with attendant angels, followed by the King of the Gins, and both lament Hussein’s fate. Moses, Jesus Christ and Muhammed return to earth to join in the general grief. Shimr finally ‘does his work’ and on the following day, the eleventh,155 the interment of Hussein and his people takes place at Karbala.

153 Ibid., p. 126-127. 154 Ibid., p. 127-128. 155 Lady Sheil inadvertently writes ‘tenth’.

63 The taziyeh of The European Ambassador tells of events that follow the killing of Hussein, when the Imam’s family are taken prisoner and brought, with Hussein’s severed head, to the court of Yazid in Damascus. Elchee Fering, ‘some fictitious European ambassador, probably Greek’, dares to raise his voice in protest at the massacre at Karbala, and for his trouble is ‘rewarded with the crown of martyrdom’.156

It is the manner of this presentation that interests us here, of course. ‘Everything was done to make the scene as real as possible’, Lady Sheil writes,157 though we must be careful not to assume that by ‘real’ she necessarily means ‘historically authentic’. She is particularly impressed by the costuming of the actors: ‘Hossein, his family, and attendants, were in the costume of the time.’158 Gabriel and his ministering angels were ‘all radiant in spangled wings’159, and, to the writer’s momentary surprise, Moses was ‘attired as an Arab sheikh, which probably enough was a correct representation of his real costume, though not bearing much likeness to Michael Angelo’s [sic] conception’.160 Christ ‘was made to appear in garments denoting poverty, though certainly not with any intention of indignity’.161 Mahommed was dressed in some ‘grandeur, in which silvered silk and Cashmeer shawls were prominent’.162 The costume of Ambassador Fering was an habitual cause for concern, and an anecdote reveals how an item of clothing, a visual property, might be imported from the everyday life of the audience, the better to ‘enhance the mourning experience’:163

There is always great anxiety that the costume of his Excellency should be European and military, and, above all, a cocked hat and feather are highly prized. At Serab [a city in north-wertern provience of Iran], some years ago, a deputation once waited on my husband to borrow his coat and cap for the Elchee Fering […] At Tehran our horses […] are in constant requisition during the month of Moharrem […] to appear in the pageant.164

156 Ibid., p. 126. 157 Ibid., p. 128. 158 Ibid., p. 128. 159 Ibid., p. 128. 160 Ibid., pp. 129-130. 161 Ibid., p. 130. 162 Ibid., p. 130. 163 Beeman, 1992, ‘Mimesis and travesty’, p. 15. 164 Ibid., p. 126.

64 The Ambassador’s [Elchee’s] wife wore ‘a European bonnet […] with the curtain hanging over the forehead and the front on her neck’.165

Only one detail of staging is left frustratingly unexplained: the manner in which the actors contrived to make the angel Gabriel ‘descend from the skies, attended by his ministering angels’.166

There is little in Lady Sheil’s account of taziyeh to justify any suggestion that it has a distinctively feminine perspective. It is true that she devotes more space to matters of social etiquette, the behavior and treatment of female spectators and to the costumes worn by actors and audience, but this hardly sets her apart, in any significant way, from the male commentators that preceded her.

Eyewitness accounts of taziyeh performances: (2) 1855–1895

Le Comte de Gobineau167

Arguably the most influential account of Persian drama and theatre, both in the latter part of the nineteenth century and since, has been that of the French diplomat and prolific man of letters, Joseph Arthur, comte de Gobineau –‘one of the most admirable descriptions of Taziyeh, as a text and equally as a performance’168– who made two extended visits to Persia between 1855 and 1863; the first as First Secretary at the French mission in Tehran (July 1855–October 1856), then chargé d’affaires (October 1856–January 1858), and the second as minister (January 1862–October 1863). It was in 1865, after his return to Paris, that Gobineau’s Religions et philosophies dans l’Asie centrale was published, by Perrin, the second in a trilogy of works that the author was to devote to Asia.169

However, if Gobineau’s name is still remembered outside the circle of Orientalist scholars, where his achievements remain controversial, it is on account of an essay he published in 1853–55, before he first went to Persia, an Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (An Essay on the inequality of human races). This deeply pessimistic view

165 Ibid., p. 130. 166 Ibid., p. 128 167 The excerpts from de Gobineau’s work presented here were translated by Suzanne Eggins. 168 Fulchignoni, Inrico, ‘Quelques Considérations Comparatives entre les Rituels du Ta’ziyeh Iranian et les “Spectacles de la Passion” du Moyen-Age Chrẻtien en Occident’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 131. 169 Trois ans en Asie (1859) and Nouvelles asiatiques, 1876.

65 of human history, born of the author’s own unhappy childhood and youth, and of a frustrated search for his own allegedly noble origins, presents a simplified account of contemporary opinions on the ‘racial factor’ in history and the hierarchy of races. According to Gobineau, only the white, Aryan race possessed the supreme human virtues. In spite of Matthew Arnold’s assertion in 1871 that Gobineau was ‘favourably known […] by his studies in ethnology’, Arnold’s essay, which appeared for the first time in 1865,170 is not based on his own observations – Arnold did not visit Persia until the 1870s – but on Gobineau, whom he had read. The real success of the Essai was posthumous, and assured by Gobineau’s German admirers, the principal of whom was Richard Wagner. Conceived in his youth, the Essai formed the basis of all Gobineau’s future work, and, as Calmard points out, his extensive and acute observations on Persian life and manners were biased by his constant need to verify his racial theories.171

Gobineau’s lengthy three-chapter account of taziyeh has not escaped the criticism of recent scholars: Peter Chelkowski claims that his description of Persian drama is ‘somewhat exaggerated and […] not always precise’172 and L. P. Elwell-Sutton suggests that his knowledge of the Persian language is ‘unreliable’.173 However, despite this it not only offers by far the most detailed discussion to that time published of taziyeh as both drama and theatre, but also suggests that the form of the ritual event in which taziyeh played the crucial part had, by 1865, undergone significant changes since Morier and Ouseley had reported their observations in the first decades of the century.

Stressing the flexibility of taziyeh performances and the element of improvisation in the way that a troupe might decide to extend or abbreviate roles/scenes according to the needs of the moment (audience appreciation or the sudden indisposition of an actor), Gobineau suggests that one (recent?) development of the form may even lead to taziyeh one day losing ‘the principal element of its greatness’:174

170 This essay appeared in the first series of Arnold’s Essays in Criticism Macmillan, pp. 259-307. 171 See Calmard, Jean, 1974, Le Mecenat des Representations de Taziyeh, Le Mone Iran et l’Islam, vol. 2, Jeneva. 172 Chelkowski (ed.), 1979. p. 260. 173 Elwell-Sutton, L.P., ‘The Litrary Sources of the Taziyeh’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, pp. 175-176. 174 Gobineau, 1957, P. 328.

66 One begins to emerge from the legend of Karbala and to compose plays about the adventures and the lives of a large number of saints. […] The custom develops of preceding the plays by prologues which tend to make them equal in time and importance.175

To demonstrate just how wide-ranging their subject matter might be and ‘how weak the link is that unites them to the real play,176 Gobineau describes the narrative of two of these ‘prologue plays’. One of them features the Emperor Tamburlaine and the distress that overcomes him when reminded of the tragedy at Karbala. The other is the Biblical story of Joseph, and tells how his jealous brothers, having disposed of him, present his blood-stained coat to their father. Jacob bewails his loss, until the Angel Gabriel, sent by God, tells him that his misfortune is not one-hundredth of that which Ali, Hussein and his children will one day suffer. To soothe Tamburlaine’s troubled mind, and to convince the doubting Jacob, a taziyeh is performed. Gobineau is fearful that in all likelihood a desire for novelty on the part of spectators will one day lead to these ‘prologues’ becoming entirely separate from the taziyeh dramas – ‘ they will constitute a particular arm of theatrical performances’177 – but hopes that ‘this decadence’ is yet a long way off.

The second of Gobineau’s four chapters on Persian theatre opens with a seven-page description of various kinds of theatre space/building devised for taziyeh performance. Lady Sheil’s account, quoted earlier, makes two points clear. First, that sometimes immense custom-built playhouses for the performance of the Muharram celebrations had become the order of the day by the late 1840s. Second, that the traditional physical arrangements and staging methods employed in these playhouses remained very much what they had been in earlier provisional sites. Describing Muharram celebrations in Astragal, William Richard Holmes noted in 1844 that ‘in every mahal [suburb] of the town one of [sic] more large buildings, called takiyehs, had been prepared at the expense of the inhabitants, or by some rich individual, as an act of devotion for the various performances of the season’.178 Whether Holmes is referring to permanent structures, or simply temporary seasonal, structures, is not clear, but

175 Ibid., p. 328. 176 Ibid., p. 330. 177 Ibid., p. 330. 178 Holmes, William Richard, 1845, Sketches of the Shores of the Caspian, London, p. 326, (quoted by Samuel R. Peterson in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 68).

67 Peterson suggests that the practice of establishing permanent theatres for taziyeh dates ‘from the 1820s’.179

This is not to say that temporary performance spaces were superceded by purpose- built theatres. Eyewitnesses in the last quarter of the century make reference to tent performances of taziyeh dramas. Indeed, the detailed account of C. J. Wills, fifteen years a doctor in Persia, from 1866 to 1881, of the ‘enormous’ structure it took ‘an entire regiment of soldiers’180 a week to erect against the front wall of the palace of the Zil-es-Sultan at Ispahan warrants extended quotation:

Three masts, each over seventy feet high, sustain the vast tent, which is held in place by ropes attached to trees and to stone columns purposely built into adjacent walls. […] Three sides of the tent are open to the air, the fourth side is formed by the wall of the palace; the windows of five of the rooms look directly on to the arena, and thus form convenient private boxes. A huge platform, some thirty yards square, forms the stage; it has been carpeted and stands some six feet above the ground. A mimbar, or native pulpit, is placed in the corner of the stage. The left half of the open space intended for the audience is carefully roped off into squares for the women […]. This left half is exactly in front of the young Prince’s box […]. A space ten feet wide is left around the stage itself for the entrance and passage of the numerous processions of men, women, angels, devils, prophets, soldiers; in fact all the thousand-and-one personages of a sensation drama, that lasts a week, sometimes fifteen days.181

Arthur Arnold’s account, based on a visit in early 1876, adds nothing of substance to that of Wills. It is brief and, perforce, reliant on hearsay, since he and his European party had been advised against attending a performance, on the grounds that their Christian presence might give offence: ‘The moollahs would certainly object, and [it was] feared there might be a disturbance’.182 One can only surmise that early eyewitnesses made no reference to the hazards of being a Christian, either because as guests of VIPs their presence was considered acceptable, or else because, as Lady Sheil recorded, ‘the front of the box [from which they watched the performances] was

179 See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 68. 180 Wills, C.J. 1886, Persia As It Is, Being Sketches of Modern Persian Life and Character, Samson Low, Marston, Searrle & Rivington, Crown Building, 188, Fleet Street, London. p. 206. 181 Ibid., p. 206-207. 182 Arnold, Arthur, 1877, Through Persia by Caravan, Tinsley Brothers, London, Vol. II, p. 129.

68 […] covered over with a thick felt carpet, pierced with small holes, which, while they allowed [them] to see all that passed, completely excluded [them] from the view of the audience’.183

For all its brevity, however, what Wills’ description makes clear is that, in respect of their general physical arrangements, the permanent indoor structures and the temporary outdoor structures – whether these were in town squares, or the courtyards of caravan serays, bazaars or private houses – were very similar indeed.

Gobineau had noted in 1865 that the government made no contribution to the financing of the taziyeh productions, but that ‘the kind and the wealthy nobles make it their duty to establish takiyehs’.184 Tehran, and other major cities and towns, boasted their own by this time:

Every area [of the town] had several and people took care to use all spaces – large or small, all the crossroads, in order to present theatrical performances. But that was not enough. Residents of the different areas contributed money to buy a space where they had constructed, at their cost, a takiyeh more or less vast and well-appointed.185

As Gobineau says, there is no standard size for a takiyeh, nor any class restriction placed on who may or may not enter, only upon where they may, in the first instance, sit:

The small takiyehs hardly fit two or three hundred spectators. But there are others, such as that of the Sipehslalar [literally ‘the general’ and the title of the highest ranked person in the Gajar period] and of Wely-Khan [the King’s goldsmith], and that of the area of Sertjeshmeh [southern providence in Tehran], which have space available for at least two or three thousand people. All are completely public; anyone can enter if they wish: beggars and the most ragged, like the most wealthy lord, can turn up freely and take a seat without being turned away. […] Without doubt the rich and powerful people occupy the best positions, not those from which one sees best, because one sees equally well throughout, but those which are the most ornate. Nonetheless, when these distinguished places are empty, no obstacle is raised to stop the rabble from placing

183 Sheil, p. 127. 184 Gobineau, p. 339. 185 Ibid., pp. 339-340.

69 themselves there and one sees, without any shock, those in rags sitting on the Faroun carpets, on silk and velvet.186

He selects for detailed description one of the finest takiyehs – ‘one of the most beautiful theatres’ – that he knows. It is perhaps the most comprehensive description we have of an indoor, custom-built space for taziyeh performance in the mid- nineteenth century. The building takes the form of:

a parallelogram which can hold from three to four thousand people. This is not the last word in magnificence. In Ispahan there are takiyehs which accommodate twenty to thirty thousand spectators; […] In the centre of the space, at a height of four or five feet, a platform called the sakou is erected, made from baked bricks and accessible at its two extremities from two rather narrow ramps, around five feet in length. Around the sakou, posts painted black support long horizontal sticks, also black, which display coloured glass and lanterns intended for night-time lighting. […] Enormous tent poles, positioned in the centre of the parallelogram and several of which rest on the sakou, support a tent or canvas which envelops the entire edifice and which protects the assembly from the sun in summer and, in winter, from the snow and rain. […] These tent poles are, up to a certain height, wrapped in tiger and panther skins, to recall the violent character of the scenes which are to be played. Shields of steel and of hippopotamus skin are attached to the tent poles, and behind each of these a naked saber and a flag are crossed. This is what is properly called the theatre and from all sides, from all corners of the immense space, one sees it in its entirety.187

There follows a lengthy description of the audience boxes, in particular a reserved space known as the tâgnumâ, which, even though raised some ten feet higher than the sakou, can function as an extension of the principal playing area, when the dramatic action requires it:

Opposite the sakou, in the same direction of its length, is a box held up by scaffolding fastened against the wall and elevated to around 15 feet. One reaches it by 4 or 5 degrees of elevation, in order not to infringe too much on the size. […] This box, or as it is called this tagnuma, is an annexe of the sakou. In many of the places where certain characters must be placed particularly in evidence, this tagnuma is used. Then

186 Ibid., p. 341. 187 Ibid., p. 342-343.

70 the actors come and go from the sakou to the tagnuma, by jumping from the platform, despite its height. The spectators rush to help them remount when they need to. They are in fact within arm’s reach, for with the exception of the sakou and the box, as well as a space of three or four feet that is strictly kept clear around the platform, all the rest belongs to the public.188

Not the least noteworthy point to emerge from this is the clear implication that the sakou is a rectangular structure at this point in time, not circular, as it was soon to become. It also provides the earliest reference we have to the existence and use of a ‘secondary stage’. Unfortunately, Gobineau does not provide any dimensions for this supplementary acting space, or describe the kind of dramatic moment for which it might have been used, occasions when ‘particular characters need to be shown to advantage’. However, Matthew Arnold, on one of the rare instances when he presumes to embellish his source, asserts that the tâgnumâ is ‘used for peculiarly interesting and magnificent tableaux – the court of the Caliph, for example’.189 On either side of the tâgnumâ are other boxes, all decorated as richly as their owners’ means or taste allow:

On both sides of the reserved box, along the full length of its walls, there is nothing but boxes more or less richly furnished and ornate, following the taste and the means of the owners or the resources of the takiyeh, but throughout, the bricks and the skins disappear beneath splendid materials, beneath the most precious shawls. […] At one of the extremities of the parallelogram, several superimposed rows of balakhanehs [higher level floors] or real boxes, not temporary ones, but constituting part of the building, open their facades in worked wood and engravings, and all this is packed with people; at the other extremity there is what we would call a theatre: it is absolutely the arrangement of a European scene, except that there are no wings. Here people crowd together, seated on their heels.190

Precisely what Gobineau means when he refers to a space that a mid-nineteenth- century European would acknowledge as ‘a theatre’ – presumably he has a proscenium-arch stage in mind ‘except that it lacks wings/wing space’ – is not easily understood, at least not in this context.

188 Gobineau, p. 344. 189 Arnold, Matthew, pp. 255-6. 190 Gobineau, pp. 344-345.

71 Unfortunately, few nineteenth-century illustrations survive of these structures. We are more fortunate, however, in the case of the Takiyeh Dowlat, the Royal Theatre, which was built at the order of Shah Naseredin. The Shah was so impressed by London’s Royal Albert Hall when, on a tour to the West, he attended a concert there in 1873, that he ordered a similar monument be built adjacent to his Gulestan Palace in Tehran. It is a pity that, when the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ordered its demolition in 1948, no comprehensive photographic record of the building was made. It is the apogee of takiyeh architecture and ‘of great importance to the study of Taziyeh’.191

What we do have, however, is the contemporary evidence of S.G.W. [Samuel Green Wheeler] Benjamin, the first US ambassador to Persia, who served from February 1883. In this instance, however, his diplomatic record is of less significance than the fact that this Greek-born American – for whom taziyeh was ‘one of the most remarkable religious phenomena of the age’192 – was an author, poet and artist, and he has left us a detailed eyewitness description of the theatre, accompanied by a line drawing. His first impression was one of astonishment at the sheer size of the theatre, ‘an immense circular building as large as the amphitheatre of Verona, solidly constructed of brick’. Passing through a ‘great portal’ and ‘dark, vaulted vestibule’, he climbed a flight of stairs ‘adapted to the stride of giants’, reached ‘the first gallery, which led around the building’, and finally found himself in the box of the Zahîr-i- Doülêh, whose brick walls were ‘hung with cashmere shawls of price, and the choicest of rugs enriched the floor’.193 Looking out from this vantage-point over the ‘vast arena’ before him, ‘a sight met [his] gaze that was indeed extraordinary’:

The interior of the building is nearly two hundred feet in diameter and some eighty feet high.194 A domical frame of timbers, firmly spliced and braced with iron, springs from the walls, giving support to the awning that protects

191 Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 261. 192 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 365. 193 Ibid., pp. 382-383. 194 Arthur Arnold’s description of the exterior of the theatre is one of the few negative reactions to this impressive piece of architecture: ‘The front of th[e] building is a good specimen of modern Persian architecture, which in England we should recognize as the Rosherville or Cremorne style – the gewgaw, pretentious, vulgar, and ephemeral style, erected in those places of amusement, only to be seen at night, and to last for a season. The façade is shaped like a small transept of the Crystal Palace, and covered with florid, coarse decorations in plaster, with beadings of coarse-looking glass, bright blue, red, yellow, and green being plentifully laid upon the plaster wherever there is opportunity.’ (Arnold, Arthur, Vol. I, p. 206.)

72 the interior from the sunlight and the rain. From the centre of the dome a large chandelier was suspended, furnished with four electric burners – a recent innovation. A more oriental form of illuminating the building was seen in the prodigious number of lustres and candlesticks […] concentrated against the wall in immense glittering clusters. […] The arrangement of the boxes, or more strictly loggias, was peculiar. The walls nowhere indicated any serious attempt at decoration […].Yet the general effect was picturesquely grand […]. One side of the loggia of the Shah, boldly disregarding symmetry, raised the arch of its broad window to twice the dimensions of the neighboring loggias. Opposite again was a row of loggias associated together by a line of semi-Saracenic archivolts over the windows, which were completely concealed by a green lattice and framed with mouldings painted green and gold; these were appropriated to the wives of the Shah. Midway between these two divisions was still another group of latticed windows, and opposite to them in turn was a deep arched loggia resembling a reception-room, quite two stories in height, intended for a daughter of the Shah. […] As if intentionally to prevent any monotony from too symmetrical a design, the entrances to the floor or pit differed in width, the widest being some twenty-five feet; the arched roofs extended to a height of thirty and forty feet respectively. These vaulted passages, being of course pierced through the walls, gave a means for gauging the vast solidity of the structure, the walls being nearly fifty feet in thickness on the ground; this added wonderfully to the really grand effect of this stupendous structure. 195

An early twentieth-century photograph (see Figure 14 in Appendix II) showing one section of the Takiya-i-Humayum, with its triple tiers of arches and, to the right, the Royal loggia above a marble pulpit, illustrates something of the formal classical beauty which Benjamin so admired: ‘I could not avoid observing the masterly arrangement of the arches to produce strength and beauty alike’.196 Also shown on both this photograph and the drawing Benjamin publishes himself is a section of the timber- and iron-braced frame to which the removable awning, protection against inclement weather, is attached. It would appear, from a passing remark of the young British orientalist and Cambridge don, Edward Granville Browne, that he believes the function of the awning was as much religious as it was protection against inclement

195 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, pp. 384-385. 196 Ibid., p. 385.

73 weather. He does not explain how he attributes the function of the awning to religion: ‘The theatre is […] roofless, but covered during Muharram with an awning’.197 But perhaps the painting by Kamalolmolk (1849–1940)198 (see Figure 11 in the Appendix) gives the best impression of the overall magnificence of the space, and its awning – and of the central playing space and its awning – and conveys the striking difference between the opulence of the theatre’s decorations (lamps, mirrors, tapestries etc.) and the unadorned bareness of the central playing space. It is to eyewitness evidence of this space, the stage or sakou, and the conventional ways in which it is used by actors, that we must now turn our attention.

Eyewitness ‘scripts’ of taziyeh: Gobineau and Pelly

Our knowledge of the taziyeh stage in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the way in which meanings were generated on it come from two quite different sources. Up to this point in the present chapter we have relied on one of these exclusively, the descriptive eyewitness account. The other source is the published script, or rather scripts, for we have one taziyeh, The Marriage of Kasim, by Gobineau and an entire cycle, The Miracle Play of Hassan and Husain, by Sir Lewis Pelly.199 In light of our earlier assertion that taziyeh is an oral tradition and that no such things as an ‘authentic’ script could therefore have come down to us, Gobineau’s single play and Pelly’s cycle of 37 discrete scenes/plays might appear to be of only minimal relevance and our using them inappropriate. However, if we read carefully what the two authors have to say about the status of these texts, we shall see that they can be of considerable use.

Having discussed the drama at length, Gobineau decides that ‘that’s enough explanation; it needs to be shown’.200 In other words, he will try to recreate in words

197Browne, 1959, p. 603. 198 Mohammad Ghaffari Kashni, known as Kamalolmolk, was born in a talented family in Kashan in 1849. His interest in painting began in childhood and because of the position of his father’s uncle (Mirza Abol-Hassan Khan Ghafari, called Saniolmolk) in the Gajar royal court of Shah Nasereddin, also he welcomed to court, where within a short time he started to work as Naggash-Bashi, or ‘Master of Painters’. As a result of his talent, he was soon named Kamalolmolk, which means the ‘most valuable worthiness’ of the country’s art. Kamalolmolk’s works, from this early court period, were largely portraits of kings, princes and courtiers and pictures of government buildings. Of his many paintings from this period ‘The Reflection Pool of Sahebgheranieh palace, The Hall of Mirrors, Self Portrait and Takiyhe Doulat were his own personal favorites. He died a lonely death in August of 1940. Almost all his works are kept in Golestan museum in Tehran. 199 Pelly, 1879. 200 Gobineau, P. 353.

74 the experience of witnessing a taziyeh performance. And so saying, he proceeds to ‘paint a picture’: ‘The takiyeh is full right through until June …’ Having described the preliminaries, he writes: I’m going to show how the play is enacted here so that the reader can judge the importance that I accord to the taziyehs. It concerns a play entitled ‘Kassem’s Wedding’201 He provides some back-story, then sets the scene:

At the moment […] when the play begins […] the most mournful impression falls across the scene; for, I repeat, the bloodied body of Ali Akbar is lying there, in the angle of the sakou; his mother sits beside the body, dressed and veiled in black, and this terrible scene is not removed for a single moment during the entire duration of the action. […] At one of the extremities of the sakou is a throne on which is seated the Iman Hussein. Towards the centre, all the members of his family sit on the ground; Omm-Leyla alone [Hussein’s wife] holds herself apart in the opposite corner, bent over the body of Ali-Akbar.202

The music of the bugles, trumpets and drums ceases, the play begins and … Gobineau’s description gives way to dramatic dialogue, with speech headings and stage directions.

Pelly’s case is somewhat different. In terms of its impact upon an audience, ‘no play has ever surpassed the tragedy known in the Mussulaman world as that of Hasan and Husain’, he writes.203 And since it ‘recurred to [him] that in the West we possessed no complete translation of this singular drama’,204 he would set about providing one. He arranged for a Persian of his acquaintance ‘who had long been engaged as a teacher and prompter of actors’205 and ‘some of his dramatic friends’ to ‘collect and dictate all the scenes of the Hasan and Husain tragedy’.206 Five years after he quit the Persian Gulf, where he had been Political Resident from 1862 to 1873, he unearthed his ‘voluminous MS’ and engaged the scholar and translator Arthur Wollaston to edit and prepare it for publication. Since he could ‘claim no personal authority’, Wollaston limited his contribution to providing introductory remarks to various scenes and explaining in footnotes various allusions inaccessible to the Westerner. In other words, Pelly’s text, openly acknowledged in its title page to have been ‘collected from

201 Ibid., p. 356. 202 Ibid., pp. 357-358. 203 Pelly, I, preface, p. iii. 204 Ibid., I, preface, p. iv. 205 Ibid., I, preface, p. iv. 206 Ibid., I, preface, p. iv.

75 oral tradition’, is essentially the work of people who had intimate knowledge of and contact with the theatre and who had seen performances of taziyeh, namely Pelly’s Persian teacher/prompter acquaintance, and his ‘dramatic friends’, under the supervision of Pelly himself. I believe, therefore, that, while we cannot assert that in either case (Gobineau’s or Pelly’s) their English translations were made directly from ‘authentic’ Persian originals, it is quite legitimate to regard them as eyewitness accounts in dramatic form and that, for example, the stage directions they contain are as useful as descriptions of taziyeh spectators and an indication of contemporary stage practice.

Fortunately, we have Pelly’s version of the same taziyeh that Gobineau chose to use, The Marriage of Kasim, and we are in a position to compare two ‘performance texts’, two responses to the same event in the Hussein saga, albeit years apart, differently presented and witnessed in very different circumstances. Of the two, Gobineau is the more anxious to convey to his readers the impressions created by performance, so I shall concentrate closely on him.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Gobineau’s stage directions is that their purpose seems, in the main, to be to make clear who is being addressd at any particular moment in the action. Indeed, of his 86 stage directions, no fewer than 39 serve this purpose, and read, for example, ‘speaking to himself’, ‘to the Imam Houssein’ or ‘addressing the audience’. Clearly, this is an important aspect of performance and one with which Gobineau believes a reader (as opposed to a spectator) needs help, since the whole question of the relationship of the actor to himself, his role, his fellow players and his audience will be central to this thesis. Suffice it simply to note it here and to pass on to what Gobineau’s text tells us about the realistic and/or conventional uses the actors made of the stage.

A long stage direction midway through the drama is particularly eloquent:

One sees the musicians enter the takiyeh, playing the flute and tambourine; grooms lead richly harnessed horses, covered in embroidered cloths. Ghasim mounts one of the horses and is led with ceremony by the women and the children, with the exception of Omm-Leyla. People throw flowers over him. Behind him walk the musicians, playing funeral tunes and leading a litter draped in black, which is intended for Ali-Akbar.

76 Here the scene is supposed to change. We are now in the desert, outside the imams’ tents, between them and the Syrian troops. Fanfare and drums, trumpets and horns. General Yazyid, Ibn-Sayd, and Shimr appear.207

Preceded by musicians, richly caparisoned horses are led into the theatre and, presumably, up to the stage, where Kasim mounts one of them. He is then led ceremoniously away to be married. Where he goes is not specified, but we may suppose it to be around the space between the stage and the audience, rather than out of the theatre-building, since Kasim returns to the action very quickly, to speak to Hussein ‘on his throne’.208 As Gobineau’s stage direction makes clear, even though there is no suggestion of any physical change in the stage, the action moves now to somewhere in the desert, outside the imams’ tents, and, during Kasim’s absence from the stage, a brief scene is played out between Ibn-Sayd, the general in charge of Yazid’ troops, and the detested general, Shimr. At the end of this scene, ‘Shemr leaves [and] we find ourselves in the precinct of the tents’. It is interesting to note that Houssein participates in the scene prior to Kasim’s departure, that he is addressed in the short scene between Ibn-Sayd and Shimr, and that he opens the following scene, when Kasim returns. Moreover, although the Ibn-Sayd-Shimr scene is said to be somewhere other than where the previous scene was located, Ibn-Sayd can hear the cries of Kasim’s attendant: ‘It would seem that it’s a wedding! We hear the sound of hands clapping together!’.209 In other words, the stage has both changed and not changed its identity. The performance space is neutral and the notion of location is seen to be totally fluid. It is up to the spectator to invest the space with identity.

Elsewhere Gobineau writes: ‘This is what is properly called the theatre and from all sides, from all corners of the immense space, one sees it in its entirety’.210 As Gobineau’s words imply, taziyeh is a theatrical form in which the stage and the auditorium are one, in which the role of the spectator – who cannot but be visible and of whom other spectators are obliged to be constantly aware – is as significant as that of the player. He goes on:

207 Gobineau, p. 377. 208 Ibid., p. 379. 209 Ibid., p. 378. 210 Gobineau, p. 343.

77 It is hardly a question of décor in the sense that we [i.e. nineteenth-century Europeans who have grown used to the scenic, proscenium-arch stage] understand it. The narration informs the spectators that they are in a camp, in a field, in a room […]; it’s up to them to use their imagination in order to satisfy themselves.211

We appear to be in a stage world not dissimilar to that of Shakespeare’s Rosalind, who looks at the bare Elizabethan stage onto which she – a young apprentice male, of course! – steps and says: ‘Well, this is the forest of Arden’ (AYLI, 2.4). To the extent that they feel the need to do so – and this is what Gobineau means by ‘in order to satisfy themselves’– the taziyeh audience identifies the neutral stage as a particular place. Or places, as (Gobineau again) points out: ‘It even happens that on the sakou several very distant locations are brought together’.212 Again, we may point to the Shakespearean stage for a clearly parallel convention: in 2.2 of King Lear, Kent is put into the stocks ‘before Gloucester’s castle’ (as editors from the eighteenth-century onwards specify). He falls asleep. Enter Edgar, in a ‘wood’ according to Kenneth (Muir’s Arden edition), where, to soliloquies, he throws off his clothes and becomes a Bedlam beggar. As he leaves, Lear arrives and addresses the waking Kent. For the duration of Edgar’s soliloquy, the stage represents, for the spectator more concerned with place itself than what is happening in that place, two totally independent locations simultaneously. But for the Shakespearean actor, as for the actors in taziyeh, it is the event that matters. The simultaneous juxtaposition of independent locales is not unusual: ‘This shocks no-one; theatrical convention is pushed to its most extreme limits’.213

But it may not be wise to extend the parallel with the stage of King Lear and its conventions too far. That there is a degree of similarity is clear, but lack of evidence regarding the use of elements of setting on the Elizabethan stage – precisely where, when and, in particular, how the items in the list of Philip Henslowe214 used, for example – suggests we limit ourselves to a discussion of the evidence regarding taziyeh. Suffice it to say that, with regard to the usage of properties, the Elizabethan and Iranian stages share a further point of similarity, namely the blatant juxtaposition of the ‘real’ and the ‘conventional’.

211 Ibid, p.343. 212 Ibid. p. 343. 213 Gobineau. p. 343. 214 Henslowe, Philip, 2002, Henslowe’s Dairy, R. A.Foakes (editor), Cambridge University Press, UK.

78 The key to both the fact and function of stage properties, the way they are used by taziyeh actors and the way these are understood and interpreted by spectators, is neatly summarized by Gobineau: ‘The public show the same flexibility of spirit and the same rich imagination as our children when, playing at being lords and ladies, they make houses out of chairs.’215 [See Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, III.12] ‘If the decorations are lacking,’ he continues, ‘all the other accessories, everything that has a direct and immediate connection with the action, is rigorously provided’.216 A few pages later he gives a vivid example of what he means, stressing that ‘real’, as opposed to specially-made ‘stage’ properties are employed – borrowed, indeed, from the best sources – in order to give the performance the necessary authenticity:

In one taziyeh the court of Yazid is presented. There, with greater credibility, the organizers of the performance give themselves over with enthusiasm to displaying all possible splendour and magnificence. The rich families of the area contribute, giving whatever they have of the most beauty. The sakou is completely covered with rich rugs; a vast table is placed in the centre, as is the custom at important receptions of the most powerful lords, and it disappears beneath porcelain, silver trays, enameled vases, crystal filled with sweets and jams. On the tagnuma in this theatre, seated on splendid fabrics from Syria, from Persia, from Terkistan, from Europe and from India […] there rises up, like a glittering pyramid, the entire court of Yezid.217

The reactions in the 1880s of S.G.W. Benjamin, who was something of a theatre-goer, having ‘seen some of the most distinguished actors of the age’ in his native America, are relevant here. Used to late nineteenth-century scenic realism, he is initially inclined to mock: ‘One could scarcely repress a smile at the chairs overlaid with beaten gold which were brought from the royal treasury, and the sofa and the uncouth beds […] to represent the tents’.218 But he is subsequently forced to admit that realism is not the only performance mode capable of inducing effective and affecting theatre:

So interested had I become in the extraordinary character of all that was going on before me, that I forgot there was no scenery, and actually seemed

215 Ibid., p. 344. 216 Ibid., p. 344. 217 Ibid., p. 347. 218 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 390.

79 to myself to be gazing upon actual events as they once occurred on the banks of the Euphrates. […] 219 [T]wo figures shrouded in the cerements of the tomb conversing in sepulchral accents [at night]. A very difficult scene […] to represent without the aid of scenery; but notwithstanding, the effect was solemn and impressive.220

Not every eyewitness betrays the same ‘flexibility of spirit (‘souplesse d’esprit’, to use Gobineau’s expression), preparedness to submit to the power of illusion and imagination, as Benjamin. Edward Granville Browne, in 1887–88 for example, finds the ‘mise-en-scène and costumes’ of the taziyeh he saw ‘good’, but thought ‘the effect […] spoiled in some measure by the introduction of a number of the Shah’s carriages [lent to the actors for the occasion], with positions barbarously dressed in a half- European uniform, in the middle of the piece. This absurd piece of ostentation seemed to me typical of Kajar taste’.221 His lack of ‘mental flexibility’ and a demand for scenic literalism find the juxtaposition of an ancient tale told with modern properties unacceptable.

In the production Gobineau is describing here, Les Noces de Kassem (Kassim’s Wedding), one other property, an ‘arm chair’ – it is referred to later, perhaps more appropriately, as a ‘throne’222 – has a particular function that is both internal and external to the drama being played out. Noting that the Hussein family never leave the stage, except to go and fight, or to die, in order that the audience have an image of their terrible plight constantly before their eyes, he says of the throne, set to one side (‘à l’écart’):

There is always an arm chair in the scene, where the imam Hussein sits as well as the special heroes of taziyeh; no one else sits there. It is a way of commending a character to the particular respect of the public.223

If the ‘Hussein throne’ is not specific to one particular taziyeh, but used at every performance – and Gobineau seems to imply that in the mid-nineteenth century that

219 Ibid., p. 392. 220 Ibid., p. 395. 221 Browne, 1959, p. 604. 222 Gobineau, p. 358. 223 Ibid., p. 395.

80 may have been the case224 – so as to draw special attention to the central figures of the entire saga, it is not the only accessory to be used universally. Cut straw is used in every performance, too, though in this case we are dealing with a quite different conventional usage. C.J. Wills explains the symbolism thus: ‘In sign of grief all [the actors] throw handfuls of cut straw over their heads, to express their woe (the cut straw is typical of dust and ashes)’.225 Gobineau expands on Wills’ explanation, and offers a graphic insight into how the actors handle and use the straw in performance, as well as its conventional function:

Another indispensable accessory in every taziyeh is a pile of hewn straw, with which the actors can fill their hands and carry a sufficient quantity, as needed, to the area of the sakou where they will recite their role. This straw represents the sand of the desert of Karbala and, at any moment, in the most particularly tragic moments, the women, young people and children of the Tent spread this hay or more accurately this sand over their heads, according to the ancient custom still in use, at the same time as they beat themselves violently with their hand on their right thigh. One knows, thus, when one sees an actor who is about to speak preparing in front of him a pile of straw that another calamity is about to happen or a desperate speech is to be made.226

Gobineau illustrates this point in his text of Kassim’s Wedding:

OMM LEYLA: Women, you who cry, in the name of the Prophet, bring here the nuptial litter of Ali-Akbar! Autumn has arrived, sorrow has destroyed me; my heart is turned to ash, my eyes drowned. All the flowers lift their heads above the ground, except my flower … she bows her head. L’IMAM HUSSEIN: (standing up and advancing towards the cadaver: the women and the children cover their heads with sand.) The power of sorrow again overwhelms my soul. The trampled hopes of Ali-Akbar return to my memory!227

In his discussion of the ‘complex affiliations of significance’ in taziyeh, Andrzej Wirth characterizes the ‘throwing [of] straw upon one’s head to signify sorrow’ as a ‘symbolic sign’.228 Forough concurs, adding a detail of particular significance to the

224 Is this what Benjamin is hinting at when he says, in 1882–3, that ‘during most of the performance [… Hussein] sat with head bent, wrapped in melancholy reflections on the approaching and inevitable doom’? (Ibid., pp. 390-1.) 225 Wills, p. 214. 226 Gobineau, p. 349. 227 Ibid., p. 375-376. 228 See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 35.

81 thrust of this project: ‘[T]he heap of chopped straw in a corner of the stage, [used] to represent the dust of the desert of Kerbela […] was strewn by the actors over the heads of audience and actors alike229 at moments of tragic tension’.230 In other words, at certain ‘moments of tragic tension’ the straw served to bring the actor and spectator together, and ‘physically’ unify them in grief.

For Wirth ‘an empty bowl or leather sack’ standing for ‘lack of water’ is a ‘stereotyped index sign’.231 He might have characterized the ‘large basin of water [used to] represent the river Euphrates’,232 in a similar way.233 It is perhaps more important to recognize the ‘bowl’, ‘basin’ or ‘sack’ as a multi-functional property, that can be ‘read’ differently according to the use to which it is put in the drama. As Forough explains, ‘To a European […] the presence on the stage of a copper basin full of water might indicate a literal representation of the river Euphrates, but to a Persian audience familiar with the story of the suffering of the women and children of the Imam from the torments of thirst, it had a deeper significance.’234

Unlike traditional Chinese theatre, for example, where an actor might signal that he is on horseback by merely swinging his whip,235 taziyeh performance has, it appears, traditionally striven to use real animals. And, while an actor wearing a skin might represent an animal that is less easily trained, such as a lion, elephants (Tavernier, 1670), camels and horses (Sheil, 1856 & Francklin, 1787; Morier and Francklin, 1808–16) have regularly featured in the spectacle. Sometimes, as Benjamin reports, these might be ‘milk-white Arabian steeds from the royal stables, superbly caparisoned’.236 And the camels might, as E.G. Browne notes, bear characters in the drama: ‘[T]he captive women were brought in before [Shimr] mounted on bare-back camels’.237 However, the use to which these animals are put is, at least in part, conventional. As Gaffary has noted: ‘circling around the sakku on foot or horseback

229 My emphasis. 230 Forough, p. 27. 231 Wirth, in Chekowski (ed.), p. 35. 232 Gaffary, Farrokh, autumn 1984, ‘Evolution of Rituals and Theatre in Iran’, in Iranian Studies, Volume XVII, No. 4, p. 370. 233 Is it a basin that Francklin was referring to in 1787, when he said: ‘[A]mong these [he is speaking of ‘effigies carried in procession through different neighborhoods’] they have one representing the river Euphrates.’ Francklin, 1976, p. 248: [I 234 Forough, pp. 26-27. 235 Ibid, p. 30. 236 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 394. 237 Browne, p. 603.

82 means going from one place to another, a race around the sakku armed horsemen symbolizes a battle’.238 Though he does not cite him in this regard, Gaffary is probably relying on the following evidence, supplied by Benjamin:

Alee AcBâr mounted and started forth […]. Instantly from several quarters appeared a troop of the enemy on horseback and on foot, armed Arabs of the desert, who crowded after in fierce pursuit. It was wildly exciting to see this mad race around the arena, where thousands of women were crowded down to the very edge of the narrow lane which was thronged with fighting steeds and warriors. But no-one flinched; the horses were well-trained, and no accident resulted.239

What has been said about the fact and function of accessories applies also to costume. Once again, Gobineau provides the essential information, beginning with taziyeh’s overriding demand for theatrical effectiveness over historical authenticity in matters of dress and the need for a spectator’s imagination to make up for what might be seen as inadequacies:

[The actors] do not concern themselves for a moment with the truth of costume; apart from the fact that the male characters wear turbans, the spectators’ imagination recognizes sufficiently that they are wearing the clothing of Arab times. Similarly, female characters wear veils, as is done today in Baghdad and Damascus. What matters is that the fittings be as rich as possible, firstly to increase the pomp of the performance, an important point; secondly to show respect to the scared individuals shown in the play. The imams therefore wear cashmere robes, vast green turbans of silk or precious wool; the women are covered in embroidery, in necklaces, ear-rings. No-one asks if this is in fact how the family of the Prophet would dress, for whom austerity and poverty were the most notable virtues; but on this point it is enough to satisfy the ideal of a nation which had nothing about her of Arabian restraint.240

As Gobineau hints in his reference to the imams in green silk, an important aspect of conventionality with regard to the costume is the use of colour-coding to signify a character’s moral orientation: green and white for the virtuous and red for the

238 Gaffary, p. 370. 239 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 394. 240 Gobineau, p. 346.

83 villainous. ‘Hossein […] was draped in massive robes of green and cashmere inwrought with gold’, wrote Benjamin, ‘his head was covered with a large Arabian turban’. His brother Abbass’, the American continues, ‘wore a Saracenic coat-of-mail of wire links, terminating in a white tunic. His head was protected by a grand helmet of olden time, graced with plumes’241 – and, to illustrate his point, he includes an engraving of Mirza Gholam Hossein as Abbas (see Figure 10 in the Appendix). It is C. J. Wills who, describing the entry of Hussein ‘on a priceless steed […], clad in dark green turban and green flowing robes’, explains that the colour green ‘is sacred to the Prophet and his descendants’.242 The villainous Shimr, by contrast, wears a red outfit, comprising a coat of mail and a helmet decorated with swan feathers.243 According to Chelkowski, the supporters of Yazid might wear sunglasses to indicate that they are villains.244 Wills also notes that ‘the Angel Gabriel, the messenger of God […] is merely a bearded man, hooded, veiled and gloved. For in Persia angels, prophets, saints and women in the drama are merely seen as veiled figures.’245 Virtuous women wear long black shirts, which cover their feet; another back cloth covers their heads. These scarves are so large that they also cover their hands. With the third pieces of cloth they cover their faces up to their eyes, in such a manner that only their eyes remain uncovered. Villainous women have the same but in red. Children wear a long black shirt and cover their heads with black veils. Angels cover their faces with a very thin white or blue cloth, which indicates they are not seen.246

In 1883–5, when Benjamin admitted that he ‘could barely repress a smile at the chairs overlaid with beaten gold, which were brought from the royal treasury, and the sofa and the uncouth beds covered with canopies to represent the tents’,247 he was merely acknowledging his nineteenth-century Westerner’s ‘natural’ demand for plausibility and realism. Yet it is the same Benjamin who, a few short lines later, writes this:

It was not things but men that riveted the rapt attention of the vast audience; not material objects, but the achievements and utterances of soul gazing down the vistas of time from the shining pinnacles of moral grandeur. […] So

241 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, pp. 390-391. 242 Wills, p. 210. 243 Mostowfi, Abdoulah, 1371/1992, Zavar, Tehran, Vol. I, p. 289. 244 Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 22. 245 Wills, p. 210. 246 Mostowfi, I, p. 289. 247 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 390.

84 interested had I become in the extraordinary character of all that was going on before me, that I forgot there was no scenery, and actually seemed to myself to be gazing upon actual events as they once occurred on the banks of the Euphrates.248

Elements of décor, furniture, properties and costumes – indeed, horses and camels, too – may have been real, may have functioned conventionally, but all these are merely supports to the central figure of the actor, and exist in terms of and for the sake of the actor. Other chapters in this thesis consider in detail the role of the actor and the complex nature of his relationship with his character, his fellow actors, their characters and also – vitally – the members of his audience. Here, however, it is worth noting that a duality and multifunctionality not dissimilar to that to which we have already drawn attention – the co-existence of time past, present and future; of the stage as everywhere and nowhere; of setting and properties as both actual, metaphorical and symbolic – can also be seen in the actor himself. The mere fact that in Persian what we call the ‘actor playing Hussein’ is termed ‘Hussein khan’ – literally, ‘he who reads the part of Hussein’ – suggests that Gobineau’s analysis of the taziyeh actor, while of considerable interest, is nonetheless misguided, since it is based on the false assumption’ that ‘identification’ and ‘empathetic trace’ are a ‘necessary condition for performing’. For Gobineau, spellbound by the high significance of what he is doing, the taziyeh actor loses himself and becomes the character he is portraying:

Since the actor is […] shot through with the significance of the act that he accomplishes, and respect for his character whom he plays with all his heart, certain unusual effects follow. He is under the spell; it is so strong and so total that one almost sees Yazid himself […] It frequently happens also that, under the complete conviction of the character that they have assumed, the actors identify visibly with their characters and […] one cannot say that they act; they are whom they portray with such truth, a transport so complete, a self-forgetting so entire, that they reach a reality almost sublime, almost frightening, and develop in the soul of the spectators/listeners […] those passions which have always seemed to me intensely ridiculous to look for in the written plays of our authors of tragedies; terror, admiration, pity. Nothing is

248 Ibid., pp. 390-392.

85 affected, nothing is false, nothing is conventional; it is entirely natural; it is the facts which speak.249

For Gobineau, the Western notion of mimesis is clearly the ideal means of generating the Aristotelian emotions of pity and terror. For him, phrases such as ‘such truth, a transport so complete, a self-forgetting so entire’, which describe the actor and his role as one seamlessly subsumed into his character, are terms of the highest praise. When he describes a taziyeh actor as ‘being what he represents’ – ‘We see Yazid himself’, he writes – one wonders whether Gobineau is not seeing what he wanted to see rather than what is there before him, mid-nineteenth-century Western European actors who had already studied their Stanislavski, rather than ‘readers of roles’ (‘executants’) (Ghaffary), or ‘role carriers’ (Wirth), who operated independently of their character. All these terms indicate implicitly that there exists a distance between the actor and the character he is presenting.

Lewis Pelly and other eyewitness accounts

Although the observations of eyewitnesses in the second half of the nineteenth centry, such as Lewis Pelly, add little to those of earlier writers we have already cited, it is nontheless useful, for the sake of spelling out the available evidence comprehensively, to reproduce and analyse them. Pelly writes in 1859:

From the palace to the bazaar there was wailing and beating of breasts and bursts of impassioned grief from scores of houses wheresoever a noble, or the merchants, or others were giving a tazia.250

The English doctor Wills gives a very lively account of the influx of men and women to a vast tent in front of the palace of the Zil-e-Sultan at Isfahan, where he witnessed a performance between 1866 and 1881:

All is ready; the young Prince gives the order for the doors to be thrown open to the women, and himself takes his place at the window to enjoy the scene. In they pour, literally in thousands; the wealthier ladies merely send their servants to take and keep their places, just as the footmen used to do in bygone days at our theatres. Such a screaming and quarrelling; but the

249 Gobineau, p. 348. 250 Pelly, Preface, I, p. iii.

86 Prince’s carpet-spreaders, hulking varlets, each armed with a big stick, good- naturedly get the ladies into their places. There they squat in rows, which are kept symmetrical by the ropes we have described; the rows of women forming a huge sea of dark blue, with their white opaque veils drawn tightly down over each face. There may be five or six thousand women present. And not another door is opened, and all the space to the right, and in front of, or behind the stage, is filled with a seething mob of men. These all stand; they soon pack tight as herrings in a barrel. It is with difficulty that the space around the stage is kept clear, but the vast crowd is orderly and good- humoured. The Prince’s own people and his friends now crowd to the windows.

Very quickly, the prologue, chanted by a band of priests, had whipped the audience into ‘a frenzy of grief, : ‘Lashed now to a frenzy of grief, the men beating their breasts, the women wailing, and many of them also beating their breasts’. The audience is now appropriately prepared to confront the dramatic events of the first instalment of the tragedy. As the actor playing the murderer Shimr makes his entrance, riding one of the governor’s favourite horses, ‘the men curse, the women spit at him, so excited are they’. And as the hero Houssein rides in, ‘the audience all beat on their breasts. […] “Houssein,” they scream with a wild yell of welcome. “Oh, Houssein! Woe for Houssein!” they shout, and at the second syllable of the name, every beast is struck with savage fervour’. The procession of performers marches three times round the stage ‘amidst shouts, yells, and cries of sympathy and woe, and the audience now being lashed up to the proper pitch of enthusiansm, all the thousands present are excited to a frenzy of tears’.251

To this general picture the American Benjamin, whose exposure to taziyeh was in the royal amphitheatre in Tehran a few years later, is able to add the occasional detail. Among the ‘dense, compact mass of women uniformly dressed in blue-black mantles’ not a face was to be seen, ‘the only vent for sight being a small lattice of beautifully worked lace directly before the eyes’. There were very few men in the arena, Benjamin notes, but ‘what few men were there stood behind the compact army of women. Most of the men present were in the loggias. When the pit was full and others

251 Wills, pp. 207-210.

87 tried to wedge their way in, the ushers and guards drove them out with unmerciful violence’.252

Benjamin gives a particularly good description of the opening scenes of the taziyeh performance that he witnessed:

Superb in the representation of lamentation and affliction was the scene [in which] the young Alee Acbar, son of the dead Hussan, heroically resolved to go forth and fight his way to river, and bring water for the sufferers in the camp. Clad in armor, the youthful hero submitted himself as a sacrifice, for he never expected to return. Magnificent were the pathetic tones in which he sang as it were his own requiem; the words rang forth like a trumpet to the farthest nook of the vast building, and the response came in united wailings from the thousands gathered there. Beginning in a low murmur like the sigh of a coming gale, the strange sound arose and fell like the weird music of the south wind in the rigging of a ship careening in a dark night on the swelling surges of an Atlantic storm. For several moments sobs and sighs, and now and again a half-suppressed shriek, swept from one side of the building to the other. Strong men wept: there was not a dry eye in the loggia where I was seated […]. Foreigners have said sometimes that much of this lamentation must be merely conventional, and as artificial as the weeping and screaming of hired mourners at oriental funerals. But I cannot agree with them.253

What the travelers’ accounts do not deal with is the social, political, philosophical and artistical cultural and historical background to taziyeh. This is indispensable to full and ‘proper’ understanding of this phenomenon and I will come to it in the next chapter under the title Sources and Origins.

252 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, pp. 386-387. 253 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, pp. 393-394.

88

CHAPTER TWO

Taziyeh’s sources and origins

Dance in mystic houses Dance in mystic houses

Dancers in the mystic houses. [From Dervishes Dance in the Moulana Tomb]

The ancient roots of taziyeh

Taziyeh has two strong ancient roots: Iranian mysticism and mourning ceremonies. These two re-emerged and developed in the tenth century, or the third century of Iran being under Arab occupation.1

Both of these phenomena re-emerged in parallel, as the beginning of revolutionary social movements against occupiers and their religious rules. These movements

1 Arab occupation in 641 marked a new era in Iranian history in which the country moved from an ancient Iranian empire to the Middle Ages ruled by non-Iranian nomadic occupiers. It took nine centuries (641-1501) before the Iranian plateau was brought once again under Iranian rulers. During these nine centuries of occupation, Iranians endured violation, terror, aggression, bloodshed, ravage and devastation. The sequences of events of this period were as follows: In 641 Iran was occupied by Arabs. They ruled Iran for six centuries, first, under the Umayyad (661-750), who ruled from Damascus, and second under the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) who moved to Baghdad as the capital. For Iranians the Arab conquest meant a decisive break with the past. The burning of libraries and wiping out of all the written manuscripts were just some of the occupiers’ actions against conquered countries. The Arabs’ religion, Islam, suppressed the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism. The occupiers’ language, Arabic, was substituted for Iranian as the cultural and administrative language. During this time, one of the greatest migrations of Iranians began. Millions of Iranians fled to India. They formed a large community and kept their language as well as their Iranian ancient religion, Zoroastrianism. They are called Parsies: the people who talk Farsi. After a revival of the Iranian language, a large number of Arabic words remained in Iranian and Arabic script was permanently substituted for Iranian handwriting. Although there were some local Iranian dynasties that ruled in some parts of Iran from ninth century onward, none of them had the power to bring the Iranian plateau under their control. These dynasties were: Tahirids in Khurasan (820-873), Samanids in Khurasan and Transoxiana (819-1005), Ghaznavids in Khurasan, Afghanistan and northern India (977-913), and Saffarid in Seistan (867-913) which had its origin in popular revolt, and Buwayhids (Buyids) (945-1055) in Gilan, which usurped all political power from Abbasid Caliphs. In 1038 the Seljuk, a Turk-Muslim, seized Baghdad and swept across Iran and created an empire that stretched from the Jaxartes River ( Syr Darya ) to the Mediterranean. Togril I (d.1063) from the Saljuk dynasty proclaimed himself Sultan at Nishapur in 1038 and espoused strict Sunni orthodoxy. He entered Baghdad in 1055 and terminated Buyid power. In 1220 and 1221 Iran was razed by the Mongols. Gengis (Chinghiz) Khan’s (the world conqueror) guides were Muslim merchants from Transoxiana. These years witnessed one of the worst catastrophes of Iranian history. Bukhara, Samarkand, Hrerat, Tus, and Nishapur were razed to the ground and whole populations were slaughtered. Mongols blinded all the population of Kerman, and in Abargu made hundreds of minarets throughout the city from the decapitated heads of people. Hulagu Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson, crossed the Oxus in 1256. In 1258 he besieged Baghdad. The last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad was executed by being kicked to death. Hulagu made Iran his base and reached the Mediterranean. The injuries Iran suffered went deeper under social and political restrictions in the name of Yasa of Genghis Khan or the Mongol law which existed side by side with the strict social restrictions of Islamic law. Heavy Mongol taxes increased the pressure. Hulagu founded the Il- Khanid dynasty and their rulers ruled over Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus, and Anatolia from their capital in north-western Iran. Between 1381 and 1404, Iran was ravaged by the repeated invasions of Timur [Timur lame], who claimed descent from Genghis Khan. He demolished Baghdad in 1393. In 1402 he captured the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid at Ankara and conquered Syria. Timur’s empire was replaced successively by two federations of nomadic Turkoman tribes after his death in 1405. In 1501, after nine centuries occupation, Safavids, a revolutionary dervish’ movement, finally brought Iran under a unified control and established an Iranian dynasty. (See: Mosahab, G., 1966-1977, The Iranian Encyclopaedia, Amire Kabir, 2 volums., Tehran.)

90 sought communication and unification in order to change the oppressive situation and challenge the occupiers’ established order. The annual mourning ceremony, with its roots in ancient world rituals in Mesopotamia and later Iranian mythology, united people through their gathering together to memorialize and mourn their heroes who were unjustly murdered. The organized mourning ceremony in the tenth century consisted of the religious procession, which delivered a new concept of the historical event that took place in the desert of Karbala in 680 AD. Mysticism, with its deep roots in Mithraism2 and its connection with the ancient Iranian era, was reshaped again in mystic houses. In these houses mystic participants sat in a circle, played music, sang in unison, danced together, experienced unification and acted as one, which was the ultimate outcome of each gathering. These gatherings and their performances in mystic houses were in opposition to the occupiers’ official religious law and were extremely hazardous for the participants.

These kinds of gatherings and proceedings were serious and dangerous reactions against the religious hard-line occupiers who opposed all such activities. This mystic tradition has remained the same ever since. The use of words such as ‘love’, ‘wine’, ‘intoxication’, ‘love and lover’, ‘madness’, ‘being one with God’, and ‘loving God’ were a part of this revolt against the religious hard-line of the Arab occupiers and their followers. For example ‘loving God’ was considered blasphemy, because by loving God/the creator, the believer denied God as the Creator in the first place and was comparing him/herself with God, thereby bringing God to his/her level as a human rather than as a spiritual being, untouchable and forever invisible.

These two phenomena – mysticism and mourning ceremonies – came together on the stage, over twelve centuries, and formed taziyeh performances in the nineteenth century, creating a strong body of theatre with a complex interwoven form and technique. Taziyeh aimed to unite the actors and spectators as one, a move which could not only bridge the gap between the actor and spectator, but was also capable of breaking down any barriers in the theatre. In these theatres, Iranian mystic monotheistic philosophical ideas and vision created the complex set of taziyeh

2 Mithra (literally sun/love/God), this Iranian god, was the creator of humans and their saver from dark forces (darkness), while at the same time he played the role of the mediator between God and human- existence. Mithraism was accepted by Greek soldiers and spread to all the Roman Empire from 330 B.C. during Iran’s occupation by Alexander and played an important role in forming Christianity and Christ’s character. (See Mosahab Encyclopedia, 1995, under the title of Mehr/mithra.)

91 technique/system/form. In parallel with the influence of mysticism, taziyeh adopted from the mourning ceremony theatrical/dramatic elements such as the desert, thirst, death, killing, struggle, fighting, and finally characters. All were used as allegorical elements to illustrate and to connect with contemporary life.

In order to understand the characteristics of this theatre, and the form and concept of its performances, it is necessary to examine these two roots and their historical and cultural background. This chapter firstly looks carefully at the emergence of Iranian mysticism, its vision and motivation. Secondly, the ideas and philosophical point of view of the mystics are discussed, drawing on the vision and life of the tenth century Iranian mystic, Hallaj. A discussion of Faridoddin Attar, the twelfth century mystic, and his Sufi fable The Conference of the Birds, completes the analysis of Hallaj’s point of view. The chapter then examines the annual mourning ceremony, discussing the motivation behind it, its vision and background, and finally the process of its development, according to historical accounts, up to the nineteenth century.

The next section of the chapter focuses specifically on Hussein, the central allegorical character of taziyeh performances, frequently compared either to Jesus Christ or to various ‘dying and rising’ gods of non-Christian religions. Hussein will be considered here as a mythological and mystic figure, a distinctly Iranian phenomenon. The chapter examines the development and formation of this character in the process of the evolution of taziyeh.

The chapter then explores the concept of God or Truth (in the terminology of the mystic) and love as the essence of mysticism in Iranian patterns of belief which affected taziyeh performances strongly. A discussion of Hussein and his ancient Iranian roots in mythology conclude the chapter.

Mysticism

Following the ancient era and Mithraism, mysticism once again emerged and developed in Iranian culture during the turbulent era of the tenth century, under the Arab occupation. In fact it emerged from a need for social change. Bringing human

92 beings together in love in order to strive for freedom through unity3 was central to Iranian mystics. Mysticism represented consolation and refuge for a desperate people in search of a heightened sense of release, ineffable joy, and peace under the severe social restrictions of the occupiers. In theory, mysticism considers humans responsible for the possibility of bringing about change. Humans, like all other beings, are seen as parts of the Truth/God/Pure Light/Divine or Absolute Love as the origin of existence. Therefore, their act is the act of the Truth. Through this theory, mystics subtly transferred the role of God, as a symbol of power, determination, justice and creativity, to human beings.

Mysticism involved two dimensions: firstly, the individual and secondly, the social or collective. Each dimension in turn involved certain principles. The individual dimension relied on changing the person as a part of society. The aim was to get to the depths of the self, in order to open up and transcend it, and find what was hidden within. In the school of mysticism, in order to reach the highest stage of development or to reach the depths of the self, the seeker4 must pass through seven phases.5

The development of the second mystic dimension unites the self with the other/others and can only be achieved when the seven phases of individual progress have been attained. The development of the second dimension unites the self/other/others with Absolute Truth/ God/ Love. As we will examine in Chapters Three and Four, the essence of the development of these two dimensions is what shapes the taziyeh performance in order to bridge the gap between an individual’s unconscious and conscious on the one hand, while on the other it leads them to unite with others.

‘I am God’ or unification of contradiction

When tenth century Iranian mystic Hallaj shouted out ‘I am God!’ in the bazaars of Baghdad, in his words he bridged the gap between himself and God, and ultimately the creator/God and created/human, the two contradictory elements transformed into one another and became one. Through these words, Hallaj materialized the essence of

3 The meaning of the word ‘freedom’ in Iranian mysticism has gradually changed over centuries from ‘social freedom’ to ‘individual freedom’ or being free from self. 4 In the school of Persian mysticism, murid, disciple, follower or devotee is called ‘the seeker’. 5 Seven (as well as nine, twelve, twenty one, and forty) is one of the mystic, sacred and perfect numbers in Persian mythologies. For example, seven days which complete a week, seven skies, seven levels of hell, as well as seven heavens, seven vices which commonly give rise to numerous other sins (pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth).

93 mysticism that is the unification of contradictories and in fact, he made manifest the dialectical relationship between phenomena. Thus Hallaj developed a more complex system of the mystics’ philosophical ideas.6 However, Hallaj was accused of blasphemy and was tried and sentenced to torture and death. Before being hanged, he was whipped, and then his hands, feet and tongue were amputated. He was on the gallows for one whole week at the main city gate in Baghdad. After one week his head was amputated and his body was burned. His ashes were scattered in the Euphrates and his head was displayed on the main Baghdad tower for many months.7

Two centuries later, in order to express the same concepts as Hallaj, Attar created the legendary story The Conference of the Birds (discussed below) in which he indeed said: You, yourself are the very same leader for whom you are looking. You are the

6With Hallaj began a wholly new phase in monist theory, which continued to use the language of love, but in a more allegorical sense than the earlier Sufis. Particularly, his emphatic expression of full identification with God was a new phase that had never been used by others. However, he probably remained a love mystic, always longing for a union that was only occasionally attained, as he says: ’Between me and thee lingers an ‘it is I’ that torments me. Ah, of Thy grace, take this ‘I’ from between us. I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I. We are two Spirits dwelling in one body’ (Nicholson, R. A., 1939, Sufism in Iran, Cambridge, p. 218). After Hallaj, the greatest Islamic theologian was Ghzali (d.1111), a learned teacher of law and doctrine, who abandoned his chair to spend eleven years as a wandering Sufi. With Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240) the movement toward monism became more pronounced than ever and culminated in Jalaloldin Rumi. Ibn al-Arabi Bezels of Wisdom concludes with a dithyramb on spiritualised sexual love as providing access to the perfect love of God: ‘The greatest union is that between man and woman, corresponding as it does to the turning of God toward the one He has created in His own image, to make him His vice regent, so that He might behold himself in him If he [man] knew the truth, he would know Whom it is he is enjoying and Who it is Who is the enjoyer; then he would be perfected’ (Farina, John (ed.), 1980, ‘The Bezels of Wisdom’, in The Classics of Western Spirituality , New York, pp. 275-276.) Here the undisputed master is Jalalodin Rumi (d. 1273). He himself was influenced by others (such as Attar, and Ibn al Arabi’s disciple in Konya, al-Qunawi, and especially his strange mentor, Shamse Tabrizi), yet sang, with a voice uniquely his own, of the longing for the Beloved: ‘I am not the kingdom of Iraquain, nor of the country of Khorasn. I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of hell. My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless; ‘ Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put duality away, I have seen that the two words are one: one I seek, one I know, one I see, one I call, He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward.’ (Rumi, Jalal al-Din, 1898, Divane Shmse Tabriz, R. A. Nicholson (trans.), Cambridge, p. 125.) Persian poets after Rumi expressed a similar synthesis of monist reality and erotic longing, none with more force and evocative power than Abd al-Rahman Jami (d. 1492): ‘Beware! Say not, ‘He is All Beautiful, And we His lovers? Thou art but the glass. And He the face confronting it, which casts Its image on the mirror, He alone Is manifest, and thou in truth art hid. Pure love, like Beauty, coming but from him. Reveals itself in thee.’ (Browne, E.G., 1926, A Year Amongst the Persians, Cambridge, p. 138.) 7 See Nourbakhsh, Javad, 1373/1993, Hallaj, The Martyr of Love, Moalef. According to The Biography of the Great Sufis, Hallaj could walk on the seas singing and dancing in a state of ecstasy and delight, and at a party he resurrected the cooked birds from the meal. This is the story which was used in taziyeh. (See Attar, Farid al Din, 1325/1945, Tazkarat al Owliah [Biography of the Great Sufis], edited by Shabestari, Binolharamain, Tehran). Many episodes of taziyeh were inspired by Hallaj’s life.

94 one that you are searching. You are all: Leader, God and Other/others. He used ‘leader’ to equate with the word of ‘God’ and the ‘birds’ to signify ‘humans’ so that he could deliver his message without attracting accusations of blasphemy.

According to Hallaj’s concept, God, human and victim, on the one hand, and his followers, hearers, killers, witnesses, on the other, were one. Hallaj’s fate, ironically, seemed to deliver the opposite message of ‘unity’. Yet Attar delivered Hallaj’s message once again in a different way: Hallaj remained himself as one single truth. He claimed a multi-role which, centuries later, was conveyed to taziyeh actors and spectators. It was during this time that all borders in the theatre were demolished and actors and spectators, actuality and allegory, reality and fantasy, and fact and fiction were united. This concept was delivered and developed on the stage of taziyeh theatre as its form and technique, nine hundred years later. These aspects will be dealt with in detail in the next chapter.

The Conference of the Birds

The Conference of the Birds, a poem of 4600 couplets, is a mystic allegory and Sufi fable that clearly illustrates the concept of unity in Iranian mysticism. In this story, the concept has been portrayed in the simplest way, in order that it could be understood by the common people, as the poet himself proclaimed.8 The story starts with an assembly of all the birds of the earth, searching for a leader. Unable to find any bird good enough to assume this responsibility, at the suggestion of the Hoopoe9 they set out on a pilgrimage to the court of the Thirty-birds [Simorgh],10 which is on the peak of the Ka,11 a mountain at the end of the world. In spite of the Hoopoe reminding the birds of the difficulties of the journey, thousands of them join the enterprise. On the way to Ka, many make excuses or raise difficulties for not continuing the journey. The Hoopoe encourages them and answers their queries by narrating and illuminating

8 Fridoddin Attar was born in 1120. See Attar, Fridoddin, 1347/1968, Mantegh al Tir [The Conference of the Birds], Amire Kabir, Tehran. 9 The hoopoe, Solomon’s bird, or talking bird in Iranian culture, is the wisest bird. S/he is called Solomon’s bird because according to Iranian legends s/he was the messenger of Solomon. According to these legends the hoopoe talked to Solomon about Sheba and her beauty for the first time and took Solomon’s message to her to come and visit him, which eventually led to their marriage. 10 ‘Simorgh’ [Thirty-birds] in Iranian mythology is a bird similar to the Phoenix that lives for several hundred years before burning itself and then rises, born again, from its ashes. 11 ’Ka’ in Iranian mythology is a mountain at the end of the world. The title of Robert Wilson’s work ‘Overture to Ka Mountain’ which was performed in Iran at the Shiraz international festival may have some association with Ka Mountain in Iranian mythology.

95 numerous stories. Nonetheless many leave the group by stopping on the way or returning home. The remaining birds confront unexpected hardships as they pursue their journey. These ordeals constitute seven phases of progress, or valleys of search: Love, Knowledge, Independence, Unification, Amazement, Destitution and, finally, Annihilation. Many die, many give up, many return home again.12 Eventually, thirty birds, purged of all self and purified by their trials, reach the court of the Thirty-birds [Simorgh]. In the Thirty-birds’ palace they find no birds but themselves. They themselves are the same ‘Thirty birds’ who have suffered and have endured that very long journey to reach Him/Her.

The name of the bird that lives in the Ka Mountain consists of two words: thirty and birds. Thirty is one of the mystic, sacred and perfect numbers in Persian mythology, referring to time, life and existence. Thirty is the number of days in a month; twelve months make a year completed: with this repetition, the earth completes its circle around the sun once more and nature revives again. Use of thirty as the number of the birds who reach the Ka Mountain is one of the tricks Attar uses in the story of The Conference of the Birds to clarify his ideas.

The message of The Conference of the Birds appears to be very simple. Divine or pure light, God or Absolute Truth, are inside and a part of you. In order to reach it, one must suffer greatly. The journey to the inner world through which one can be born as an essential man/woman is long, tough and perilous, accompanied by the difficulties of stripping ourselves back to our human essence, of transcending our solitude. What must be done first is to walk out of yourself, to take off your mask and expose yourself. Doing so will make you able to return to yourself, and see yourself properly. After reaching this point another crucial step can be taken towards the desired objective. That next step is the possibility of joining the other/others that is/are in the same position as you. At this point you can be united with them and it is at this time that you can enjoy unity and be proclaimed as one.

This journey, which can take you to the extraordinarily intimate layers of the inner self, is a journey from you-with-a-mask to you-without-a-mask, from you and your actual self, to you and your inner world, the knowing and the unknowing, conscious

12 In the original story the birds pass through seven cities, which are the allegory of the seven phases of progress.

96 and unconscious, between the surface of reality and the very deepest interior reality. The journey is simply a search. If you take the steps of this journey you will find that to search is then to find. ‘You are Absolute Truth’; ‘you are God’.13

In other words, the mystic teachings suggest we all are a part of one God/Love/Absolute Truth. The reality is indeed where God – Love, Pure Light or Absolute Truth as one – exists. To attain union with others we must discover our origin/Truth/God. In order to discover our origin, we must drop away or throw down our social masks and show our real face, which can be done through an inner journey, via the unconscious. Then we will be able to join the other/others who have reached the same point and have already become the essential man/woman. In the process of this discovery and unification, we also discover the on-going dialectical relationship between phenomena.

As this exposition suggests, in the mystic point of view ‘everything and everyone is one and the one is everything and everyone’ and ‘all existence is from one single origin’.14 In other words, each single human, animal, or object is a different part or a different ray of a single Truth. Although the unification with others is a unique experience in itself, it is still no more than another step towards understanding the joyfulness of uniting with the Truth or Origin. With unification we will be able to look at the world/existence/life through the eyes of God. Therefore, ‘if you do not truly give up yourself, you will never reach the world of unity and detachment’.15 ‘Only when the drop has submitted to the river and ultimately the ocean can it forget its ‘drop-ness’. When the drop finally merges with the ocean, it sees through the eyes of the ocean that it is the ocean’.16

13 For a study of Islamic mysticism see Schimmel, Annemarie, 1973, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, N. C.; Nicholson, R. A., 1939, Legacy of Islam, London, and also 1911, 2/1936, The Kashf al - Maahjub: The oldest Persian Treaties on Sufism, London; Birge, J. K., 1937, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, Hartford, Conn. London; Smith, Margaret, 1976, The Way of the Mystics: and The Early Christian Mystics and the Rise of the Sufis, London. 14 See Nurbakhsh, Javad, 1996, Discourses on the Sufi Path. Khaniqahi Nimatullahi publications, USA, p. 92. We can find the same concept in H.P.Owen. He writes: ‘God is everything and everything is God […] the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature.’(Owen, H. P., 1971, Concepts of Deity, London, Macmillan, p. 74) And ‘every existing entity is, only one Being; and that all other forms of reality are either modes (or appearances) of it or identical with it.’ (p. 65.) similarly ‘everything that exists constitutes a ‘unity’. (Macintyre, Alasdair, 1971, Pantheism’, in Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards,, Macmillan and Free Press, New York, p. 34.) 15 Nurbakhsh, 1996, P.110. 16 Ibid., P. 30.

97 In The Conference of the Birds, Attar uses an allegorical story about the birds to illustrate his idea about unification or being one with others. His idea, which is in fact practiced in taziyeh theatre, is to create an atmosphere in which everything and everyone experiences unique moments of transferring into and uniting with others and becoming one, through a process of on-going discovery and unification that is the essence of mysticism. In other words, The Conference of the Birds illustrates the discovery and unity in a fable, while taziyeh puts it into practice in real life/theatre.

The events of Karbala

The other significant phenomenon which emerged side-by-side with the mystic movement was mourning ceremonies. As will be argued in the following discussion, these mourning ceremonies used an event which occurred in Karbala in 680 AD as a justification and explanation for this distinctive form of public gathering, which began to occur from the tenth century. The event and the stories surrounding it were largely used as the significant allegorical elements in the taziyeh performances. This event in the tenth century, indeed, demonstrated and corresponded to the Iranian social/political situation which suffered from the occupation’s cruelty, brutality, tyranny, oppression and fanaticism. In the nineteenth century when taziyeh theatre was formed and performed on the stages, this event and stories surrounding it, as the allegorical elements, played a crucial role and gave taziyeh a complicated structure through a dialectical relation between past/event/ story/character and present/contemporary life and actor/spectator.17

With these elements, not only were the two roots of Iranian mysticism and mourning ceremony united in taziyeh performances, but mystical philosophy and mourning rituals contributed towards the development of the taziyeh as a highly complex theatrical form.

17 By allegorical and dialectic I am referring to Walter Benjamin’s conceptuation. Allegory refers to the fact that two or more opposing views are presented between which the relation can be dialectical as well as oppositional. (See Benjamin, Walter, 1979, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans., John Osborne, Verso, London & New York.) As Langford argues ‘by appearing to say one thing (on the literal level), while in fact saying something quite different (on a figural level). They are also dialectical because they have the capacity to sustain a complex relationship between conflicting temporality.’ (See Langford, 2006, no page no. available)

98 Annual mourning ceremonies

In 680, forty-eight years after the death of Muhammad (632 AD) and twenty years after the assassination of Ali (Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law), Ali’s son, Hussein set out with his entire family and children and a small group of his followers toward Kufa, a city in lower Mesopotamia, in order to challenge the tyrannical rule of the caliphate Yazid. 18 In the north of Kufa, on the sun-baked plain of Karbala, in present day Iraq, they were ambushed, surrounded and easily overwhelmed by Yazid’s army. Hussein refused to capitulate by paying homage to Caliph Yazid and refused to return to Mecca. Cut off from the water of the Euphrates, parched with thirst, Hussein, his family and followers survived for ten days in the blazing desert. Finally, Hussein and almost all his followers and the males of his family, except his son Zienolabedin, who was sick in bed, perished in the fight that occurred on the tenth day of the month of Muharram. ‘They were cut into pieces by the arrows and swords of the opposing troops. Then, fire was set to their camp and the bodies were trampled by the hoofs of the horses’.19 Hussein’s severed head, and the women and remaining children, who were all female, were taken as captives to Yazid’s court in Damascus.20

The siege began on the first day of the Muslim month of Muharram, in the year 680, and came to an end on the tenth day, called Ashura. Karbala, the name of the place where the event happened, means ‘trouble and affliction’, and it is said to be the word that Hussein used when he understood they had been cut off from water.21 Thereafter the desert was called Karbala.

In the year 963 AD, in the Ashura, the day of the event in Karbala, Sultan (king) Moezoldowlah,22 an Iranian dynasty who ruled in Baghdad, officially ordered

18 Caliph is the Anglicised version of Arabian Khalifa, the title formerly used by Muslim rulers as the supreme head and ruling spirit or the leader of the Muslim community in the succession of Muhammad. Caliphate is the position, reign or territory of a caliph. 19 Biruni, Abu’al - Rayhan Muhammad al, 1876, The Chronology of the Ancient Nations, London. 20 See Mosahab, G., 1966–1977, The Iranian Encyclopaedia, Tehran, 2 Vol.; Arnold, 1913-38, 2/1960. 21 See Kashifi e Sabzavari, Mollah Hussein Vaez, 1341/1962, Rawzt al Shuhada [The Garden of the Martyrs], Haj Mohamad Reza Ramazani (ed.), Eslamia, Tehran, and Mahjub, Mohamad Jafare (ed.) 1350/1971, Fotovat Namaye Sultani, Bonyade Farhang -e Iran, Tehran. 22Buyids (Buywayhids) (945–1055) dynasty was one of the Iranian local dynasties which emerged from Gilan (north of Iran) during the Arab occupation. Buyids usurped the political power from the Abbasid caliphs in 945 and ruled over the western part of Iran from their capital, Baghdad. Buytids dynasty was defeated by the first Seljuk Turks Sultan, Togril I (d.1063). Togril I entered Baghdad in 1055 and terminated Buyid period. Sultan Moezodowlah was one of the Buyid princes who came to power in 324 A.H./A.D. 935.

99 mourning ceremonies for the members of the family of the Prophet’s grandson, who were killed in Karbala in the year 680. This order is considered to be the first public community mourning ceremonies for Hussein and his family and followers, two hundred and eighty years after their death.

The popularization of the mourning ceremonies for Hussein was, in fact, a serious movement against the Arab Caliphates who were still strongly in power. Ibn Khathir (d.774), a well-known Arab historian, gives a description of these mourning ceremonies and their order. This description is possibly the earliest reference to these events.23 Ibn Khathir, as we will read in the following quote, is opposed to these mourning ceremonies and wishes ‘God’s disgrace’ on this Iranian local dynasty who ‘ordered’ them. As he mentions, these people, the Iranians, who were against Arab power or the Caliphate were in ‘large numbers’ and their power was increasing. Another important point that can be seen from this quote is the way in which women are told to mourn the actions which is obviously against Arab traditions. Another notable point is that the women are ordered to wear coarse cloth. We do not have enough information about this Iranian Sultan and his relation to Iranian mysticism, but it may be significant to note that ‘coarse woolen hair cloth’ was the cloth which Sufis and their followers wore. Uncovered, unveiled faces and the disheveled hair of women in the ceremony remind us of a wall paintng from ancient Iran in which the mourning ceremony for Siyavush, a mythical figure in ancient Iran, is illustrated. We return to it in a moment:

On the tenth of Muharraam of this year (A.H.352) Mu’izz, al–Dawlah ibn Buwayh, may God disgrace him, ordered that the markets be closed, and that the women should wear coarse woollen hair cloth, and that they should go into the markets with their faces uncovered, unveiled and their hair dishevelled, beating their faces and wailing over Hussein ibn Abi Talib. The people of the Sunna could not prevent this spectacle because of the Shi’a’s large numbers and their increasing power (zuhur), and because the Sultan was on their side.24

23 Some of Ibn Kathir’s material is based on earlier references by Ibn al - Athir and other historians. 24 Ibn Kathir, al, 1358 A.H., Al-Bidaya wa al – Nihaya [Treasure of Shaygaan], Matba’ a al - S’ada, Cairo, XI, 243. (Quoted by Mazzaoui, Michel M., ‘Shiism and Ashura in South Lebanon’. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 231.)

100 This mourning ceremony was serious propaganda used by an Iranian Sultan as he tried, on the one hand, to establish himself as the leader of the political opposition to the existing Arab Caliphate, and on the other, to draw a parallel with the Iranian political situation under the occupation of a Sunnite/Arab power by referring to the stories relating to that event and to the oppression of the characters. The intention was to identify the Iranians allegorically with the historical characters and unite Iranians against the Arabs and their Caliphate. However, politically this aim could not be achieved easily, although it did establish a serious movement which could not be stopped.

One year later, Ibn Khathir, in his description of the second mourning ceremony in 964, reported:

On the tenth of Muharram of this year [A.H.353], the Shi’a community (ar– rafidah) celebrated the mourning (‘aza’) of Hussein as they did the year before. The Shi’ites and the Sunnites fought violently among each other on this day, and property was looted.25

Tenth century annual mourning ceremonies, indeed, were not created overnight by the orders of an Iranian Sultan. If so, the ceremonies would not have had such a deep impact on the society. It was the fire under the ashes that provided two strong motivations for the ceremonies: firstly, they represented a return to ancient roots and ritual, still in the collective memory of the masses, which could not be performed for two centuries due to Arab occupation; and secondly, they indicated a social movement against the occupiers.

Indeed, Iran was a wounded society that had lost its identity, culture, civilisation, language, religion and history as a result of colonisation by Arab imperialism. It was a society that needed unification for revival. Thus, this mourning ceremony, followed by the formation of processions, acted as both pretext and impulse for Iranian revival, revolt, revenge and even ridicule.

The mourning ceremonies, the recollection of the event at Karbala and the fate of Hussein, his family and friends, which was appropriated by the people, side by side with the mystic movement and philosophy, all now began to play a crucial, ongoing

25 Ibid., XI, 253 (Quoted by Ibid. p. 232).

101 role in Iranian society in general, and in creating taziyeh performances in particular, across the next twelve centuries. The Iranians, shaken by three centuries of Arab occupation,26 had found a means of reasserting their national identity. Tenth-century Iranian society identified with this event, which was very relevant to their situation, and opened up their deepest and innermost collective unconscious to give it sudden attention after three hundred years of silence against Arab occupation and the Arab’s absolute domination of all aspects of Iranians’ lives.

This order and its revolutionary movement can be well understood when we remember that the descendants of the rulers who were responsible for the martyrdom of the grandson of the prophet and his family in Karbala were still in power as the Caliphs of the Islamic world, a world that included Iran. The mourning ceremonies, as a form of action against the occupiers, were largely welcomed by the public and became a regularly observed custom, in which the tragic fates of the prophet’s grandson and his family on the one hand, and that of the Iranians as an oppressed and lost nation on the other, ran parallel to each other to meet with Iranian mysticism and end up as the Shiite sects of Islam in the sixteenth century.

From mourning ceremonies and the emergence of Iranian mysticism to taziyeh

The evolution from the first mourning ceremonies in 963 to taziyeh dramas in the nineteenth century took place over the course of nine centuries, and can be traced

26 Iran was occupied by Omar (r.634–44), the father-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and the second Muslim Caliph, in A.D. 641. In a decade of determined leadership which included collecting and compiling the sayings of Muhammad into verses in a book called Coran [also Koran, Goran: readable], Omar spread Islam by conquest into the Byzantine lands of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, and into the Sassanian, Iranian Empire, established the principals of Islamic law and administration in the conquered areas. During the occupation of other countries, one of the distinctive operations was burning books and libraries. Destroying the Nishaboor Library with thousands of books and resources was just one example. Zoroaster’s [Zarathustra] holy book (Avesta) was one of these ancient sources written on seventy thousand cows skins that were destroyed. A very small part of this book was rewritten years later by Zoroastrians [Zarathustarians] who were a small community still in Iran and India. Millions of Indian Zoroastrians [Parsies] fled during the Arab occupation and migrated to the neighbouring Eastern country, India. Abu Lu Lu Firuz, an Iranian slave, assassinated Omar in A.D. 644. In A.D. 656 the caliphate included the whole Arabian Peninsula, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Mesopotamia, some part of Armenia and Iran. The hatred for the Arab occupiers was so deep that until the Islamic revolution in 1979 in some parts of Iran, one day in each year people made statues of Omar from wood and cloth and burned them in the streets, while dancing and chanting dirty poems about him. This day was called the Feast Day of Burning or Slaying of the Caliph Omar [Omar Suzan or Omar Koshun]. In this sense, Iranian politicians have used this Iranian-Shiite anti-Arab (anti-Sunnite) emotion for inciting nationalistic sentiments against their enemies such as the Ottoman Empire (whose religion was Sonnet), in different periods.

102 from historical references and the notes of travelers. What follows is a summary of that evolution.

On Ashura 973, ten years after the first mourning ceremonies, the Sunnis of Baghdad tried to compete with the popularity of the mourning ceremonies for the grandson of the Prophet. They organized a procession to commemorate The Battle of the Camel and to defend the Prophet’s son-in-law (Ali). Ibn Kathir described a great riot between the two factions that year and also made reference to what can be considered a curious theatrical performance, the presentation of some real characters preceding the procession. The procession ended with many being killed:27

In this year on Ashura, the despicable innovation was celebrated according to the custom of the Shi’a (rafid). A great riot broke out in Baghdad between the Sunnites and the Shi‘ites (rafidah): both factions being small of mind or are totally mindless, and far from level-headed. For a group of the Sunnites placed a woman [on a horse/camel?] calling her A’ishah, while one of them took the name of Talhah and another that of az Zubayr , and set out to fight the followers of Ali. As a result of that large numbers of both factions were killed.28

The mystics and the movements that followed them gathered initially in the mystic houses. They developed into revolutionary movements who undertook armed action

27 The mourning ceremonies for Hussein associated with the Buyid period in the tenth century were spread to Egypt by Shiites Fatimids. They declared the period of Ashura as days of sorrow and grief. They recited dirges in their mourning rites and poets recited elegies written in commemoration of the oppression and martyrdom of Hussein amidst the wailing and keening of the crowd. In the thirteenth century, mourning ceremonies were taken to India by Iranians and are still performed in Lucknow, Calcutta, Bombay, Madrass and Hyderabad. These ceremonies are accompanied by processions. (Jafri, Syed Husain Ali, ‘Muharram Ceremonies in India’ in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, and Moharam in two Cities Lucknow and Delhi, 1966, as well as Pelly.) Pelly, in his preface to his book Miracle Play of Hassan and Hussein, Volume 1, talks about his experiences in India. In south Lebanon with its centre in the hilly town of Nabatiyah mourning ceremonies are performed, imported from Iran in the ninetieth and twentieth centuries. (See Michel M. Mazzaoui, ‘Shiism and Ashura in South Lebnon’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979) Strangely, none of these mourning ceremonies in different periods and communities led to any sort of theatrical form as happened in Iran. The word taziyeh in India refers to a reproduction of the tomb of Hussein that is carried in Muharram processions. They are generally made of wood, metal, ivory, paper and other pieces of artwork and handicraft with different designs and sizes. Some are small and some are five to six meters high. All such taziyeh are buried at the termination of the processions or on the observance of forty days after the Ashura or the martyrdom day. In Iran all the reproductions of the tomb of Hussein that are carried in Muharram processions are kept throughout the year for pilgrimages and, just once a year, are brought out to carry in Muharram processions. Most of these tombs are huge and heavy and need dozens of people to carry them on their shoulders. 28 Ibn Kathir, .Al- Bidaya wa al – Nihaya, XI, 275 (quoted by Mazzaoui, Michel M. in Chekowski (ed.), 1979, p. 232).

103 against occupiers, particularly in the fourteenth century, and in different Iranian provinces. These armed mystic movements included the Sarbedaran, a group whose name means ‘our heads are on the gallows’or ‘we are ready to die on the gallows’. The Sarbedaran knew that they would be killed and their heads displayed by the occupiers, yet they still took up arms against the Arabs in Khorasan and Kerman, as did the Marashiyeh in Mazendaran and Gilan, and the Horufiyeh in Azarbayejan. The last and successful armed movement of mystics and their followers was the movement which became the Iranian Safavid dynasty (1502-1722).29 At the beginning this dynasty changed the official religion of Iran from the Sunnite to the Shiite sect of Islam.30 They ruled Iran for three hundred years.31

Although this significant and important movement worked towards a united Iran, the paradox is that, as soon as the Shiite replaced the Sunnite sect in the sixteenth century, dance, music, singing, mystic houses gatherings and mystic philosophy were officially replaced by mourning ceremonies and religious laws and religious story tellers.

Under the newly official Shiite religion, and with the support of the official rulers, ‘Karbala story-telling’, based on the events at Karbala, quickly developed and became a popular business with thousands of professionals. A significant change occurred when a book written by Mollah Hussein Vaiz-e Kashefi-e Sabzavari,32 called The Garden of the Martyrs, and based on stories of Karbala, gave its name to these story- tellers. They were called ‘The Garden of the Martyrs–Tellers’ or ‘Garden Tellers’ [Rawza Khani] for short. The Garden of the Martyrs [Rowzt al Shuhada] was written in the first year of the Safavid dynasty’s rule. It is the most significant account of the

29 From this date, Iran remains the only Shiite state in the Islamic world. The differences between Iran and the Ottoman Empire and Arabs played a crucial role in changing the official religion of Iran. The aim of the founder of Safavid dynasty in this regard was creating a united Iran against Turks in the north and west and Arabs in the south that had Sunnite states. In addition the aim of the Safavid founders was to separate Iran from other Arab countries in the south and west. 30 See Algar, Hamid, 1974, ‘Some Observations on Religion in Safavid Persia’, Studies on Isfahan, Iranian Studies, Vol. VII, Winter, Spring; also, Mazzaoui, Michel, 1972, The Origions of the Safavids: Shiism, Sufism and the Ghulat, Wiesbaden; Nasr, Hussein, 1346/1967, Religion in Safavid Iran, Nima,Tehran. 31 See Tabary, Ehsan, 1969, Barkhi Barrasiha dar baraye Jahanbiniha wa Jonbeshhaye Ejtemayee dar Iran,[Some Researches about Ideas and Social Movements in Iran], Iran, Tehran, p. 319-330, Also Arberry, 1953; Sykes, Percy, 1951, A History of Persia, Third Edition, Macmillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin’s Street, London; and Wilber, Donald N., 1979, Iran, Past and Present, Eighth Edition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. 32 See Kashifi e Sabzavari, Mollah Hussein Vaiz, 1356/1977, Rawzt al Shuhada [The Garden of the Martyrs] Tehran.

104 tragic events, stories and sufferings of Karbala, which quickly became the principal reference for Karbala story-tellers, even though much of its material is unverified. Thousands of these story-tellers began to exercise their profession all over the country: in the streets, private houses and wealthy mansions, they told the story of the sufferings of Karbala in touching words and sympathetic style. These performances became almost a ritual among the rich, especially during the months of Muharram and Safar, when family and friends were invited. Not only were the spectators free to participate, but they were also served light refreshments and sometimes a meal. At the same time, in public ceremonies, characters continued to be presented in costumed processions, mock battles and tableaux and played their roles without using words. Taziyeh had come into being.

In the meantime, another form of story-telling appeared, in which a story was told by a narrator who illustrated the scenes by means of a painting. These paintings, which depicted episodes of Karbala or related stories, were a vast oil canvas, and showed different scenes in different parts of the tableau. They were covered with a curtain, and, as the storyteller progressed through the stories, he drew back the curtain from the specific scene, revealing and explaining it to his audience.

Secular storytelling in tea houses in Iran is still a popular profession, specifically in small cities and villages, and it seems to have been greatly influenced by these religious storytellers. These contemporary secular storytellers sometimes change their costumes according to the characters, and carry some props, such as a stick representing the sword in the play of the ancient myths. They may also suddenly stop telling the story and open themselves up to their listeners/spectators to share their feelings about the characters or even the story they are telling. In these moments they speak to their spectators directly not as a character but as a human – as themselves. In all these cases, the storytellers are in different worlds simultaneously: the actual world or in real life, as themselves, and in the characters’ fictional worlds. In other words they travel between the world of the characters and themselves.

During the annual mourning ceremonies, many stories were created. The events were developed, elaborated, modified and illustrated in very precise ways, according to mass experiences, illusions, and wishes. In this way, thousands of stories and traditions were retold, without any references to historical sources. Stories within

105 stories were passed on and interpreted. Together with other legends, myths and traditions, they were progressively developed into a dimension beyond their original forms through the complex and sophisticated form of taziyeh theatre. The stories, indeed, narrated the contemporary reality and portrayed popular desire, through illustrating culture, traditions, history, allegorical legends and ancient rituals. In addition to these, new fictional accounts were created even for the grandson of Muhammad, the Prophet, the main character of taziyeh, who was given an Iranian identity.

According to one of these legends, Shahr Banu, the daughter of Yazd-Gerd the Third, the last Iranian king of the Sassanid dynasty deposed by the Arabs, was taken captive during the beginning of the occupation and married to Hussein. Accordingly, all the next nine Imams (pure and innocent leaders) that Shiites believe in (including the last or the twelfth one, who is absent and will come back to build a just world before judgment day) are carrying the blood of the overthrown Iranian dynasty as well as that of the Prophet, and therefore have Iranian identity. Even the title ‘Shah’ means ‘king’ which is the title of the Iranian dynasty used for Hussein in such ceremonies as ‘Shah Hussein’ (King Hussein)33. All the Imams who succeed Hussein, therefore, can represent the prophet on the one hand, and the divine right of the king on the other – on the mother’s side from Sassanids and on the father’s side from Ali, cousin and son- in-law of the prophet Muhammad.34 ‘This Shar-Banu held a high place in the hearts of her countrymen’.35 In one of the taziyeh plays The Flight of Shar-Banu from the Plain of Karbala, which was created later, national feeling and the hatred of the Iranians towards the Caliph can be seen clearly.

In this taziyeh, all the male members of Hussein’s family have already been killed. The women and children have to flee; otherwise they will be captured by the soldiers who are looking for them everywhere. Shahrbanu, one of Hussein’s wives, is among them. She decides to go back to her country, Iran. When she first came to Medina, a

33 The Spanish priest Antonio de Gouvea in 1011 A.H./A.D. 1602–3 wrote of his observation in Shiraz: ‘During the ten days of Muharram, a procession of people shouting ‘ shah Hussein. Alas Hussein! ‘Roam the lanes and chant dirges...’ (See Basktash, Mayel, ‘Taziyeh and its Philosophy’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 104). 34 Shiites’ belief in twelve imams as Muhammad’s relatives’ lawful heirs, therefore, originated in the ancient Iranian Kingdom belief in which any new King inherited his kingdom from his father or a close previous relative through a divine right. Sunnites believe in elected successors after Mohammad’s death and they consider the events of Karbala as a small protest against the officials seeking power. 35 Forough, 1952, p. 25.

106 city in Arabia, as a slave she was a young girl, and now she has to go back to her country as a sad old woman. She has lost one of her sons and is going to leave the other one who is sick in bed with fever, the condition which saved his life. She finds her husband’s horse and finally, the horse helps her to flee. Hussein’s horse takes her out of the scene.

SHAHR BANU: But when at last I reached Madina’s town A whole world’s sorrow seemed to weigh me down. One cried, ‘This girl a serving girl shall be!’ Another ‘Nay, she was of high degree!’ The women thronged the roofs; the mosques, the men: O mother! Me they bore to Omar then, Who spoke a word that caused me pain untold? ‘These hopeless wretches shall as slaves be sold!’ But Ali then appeared upon the scene, And cried, ‘be silent, fool and coward mean! This gentlewoman, traitor, void of grace! Shall not stand naked in the market-place.’ Light of mine eyes! After much treatment dire’ They gave me to Husayn [Hussein], thy noble sire, Who did advise poor me, to spare me pain, That after him I should not here remain. Should I remain, enslaved, in fashion base, I should be driven through the market-place. Now mother dear, Imam and sovereign mine, Into thy hand my option I resign. Bid me fare forth, my bosom filled with pain, Or bid me tarry, and I will remain. […] SHAHR BANU: born of the race of Yazdigird, the King, From Nushirwan origin I trace. What kind fortune naught but joy did bring, In Ray’s proud city was my home and place. There in my father’s palace, one at night’ In sleep come to me Fatima, ‘the Bright’.

107 ‘Oh! Shahr-Banu’- thus the vision cried- ‘I give thee to Husayn [Hussein] to be his bride.’ Said I, ‘Behold, Mada’in is my home, And how shall I to far Madina roam? Impossible!’ but Fatima cried, ‘Nay, Husayn shall hither come in war’s array, And bear thee hence, a prisoner of war, From this Mada’in to Madina far’ Where jointed in wedilock with Husayn, my boy, Thou shalt bear children who will be my joy. For nine Imams to thee shall owe their birth, The like of whome hath not been seen in earth.36

By the seventeenth century, the conflict between the mourners and opposing sects in the procession was replaced by a competition between different groups of mourners in the same sect.37 In this later period, mourning processions used various fanatical pretexts for hostility. Each group appeared to the other as its imagined enemy, and real battles were fought, with people being injured and even killed.38 They participated in a drama, which was partly real and partly fantasy. Regardless of different political powers, these conflicts have remained ever since.

In the seventeenth century, Pietro Della Valle, an Italian traveler who was in Isfahan in 1618 for a few years, wrote about these conflicts:

During the Muharram period, processions are brought out of everywhere for the mourning ceremonies. Some of the men hold clubs and are always ready to engage in fights with other processions, not just for right of way, but also out of plain pugnaciousness, so that they can participate, so to speak, in the mourning for Hussein. They believe that if a person is killed on the day in such a fight he will go straight to heaven. In the city square and in the main intersections, large numbers of mounted troops of the nobility are prepared to intervene and separate the processions. Despite all this, while watching mounted on a horse, I myself saw that these measures were ineffectual and

36 Pelly, 1878, vol. 2, scene XXVI. pp. 136-150. 37 The famous bloody riots in the Karkha quarter of Baghdad continued until after the Buyid period. 38 See Arjomand, Said Amir, 1984, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Social Change in Shiite Iran from the Beginning to 1890, London; Jefri, Sayed Husain, M., 1979, Origins and Early Development of Shia Islam, Longman, London.

108 some of the people rioted in front of the royal palace. There was fighting in other streets with the result that many returned home battered and wounded. In the battle, which I observed, I noticed that some of those who were nearest to the house of the king would carry their trays and standard and other paraphernalia inside the palace whenever they were attacked in order to protect them from damage and pilferage, because during the fighting it is the custom to carry off these article as plunder from the opponents, and their loss would be a matter of great shame and dishonour to the procession. In 1028 A.H.[A.D.1618] Shah Abbas watched from a porch on the front of Ali Qapu. Since he did not want fighting to occur he ordered that the processions pass in an orderly fashion, one after another.39

In 1602, two centuries before taziyeh had completely evolved into its full theatrical form, Antonio de Gouvea, a Spanish priest, wrote about the ceremonies he witnessed as he was passing through the crowded streets in Shiraz, scenes involving processions of biers, riderless horses, prisoners, women and children with heads and faces wounded and mounted on camels:

In front of the mourning processions camels are seen draped in green cloth upon which women and children are riding. The heads and faces of the women and children are bruised and wounded as though by arrows and they appear to be weeping and wailing. Then a company of armed men passed, shooting their guns into the air. After them came coffins, followed by the governor of the city [Allahverdi Khan] and other notables of the government. All entered the great mosque of Shiraz. There a mulla mounted the pulpit and recited eulogies, and all wept [...].40

Sixteen years later, in 1618, Pietro Della Valle, writing about the ceremonies he observed in Isfahan, drew attention to further scenes that were incorporated and paraded, accompanied by the music of cymbals and flutes:

With the arrival of Muharram, the day of the martyrdom of Hussein, large processions appear from all directions and people from all sections of Isfahan are carrying flags and standards. A variety of weapons and many turbans on the horses accompany the processions. In addition to this there are several camels accompanying them, upon which boxes are transported. In each of

39 Della Valle, Pietro, quoted by Baktash. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 104. 40 Gouvea, Antonio de, quoted by Baktash. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 105.

109 these there are three or four children representing the captured children of the martyr Hussein. Besides these, every procession carries biers wrapped with black velvet and upon which a single turban, usually green, and a sword are placed. In the same fashion a variety of weapons and other articles is placed upon the numerous trays carried by some of the people on their heads. They jump about to the music of cymbals and flutes, and whirl about. In this way the trays too spin around, creating a marvellous scene. Around the tray- bearers there are men carrying clubs [...].41

Auliya Chelebi, the Ottoman traveler who came to Tabriz in 1640, left a record that significantly shows the final phases of the evolution of taziyeh – a development from street procession to dramatic scenes performed in specially designed places. Chelebi provides a vivid first-person description which accompanies the scenes of the tragedy. Although the final evolution of the theatre is still two centuries away, his notes serve to contextualize the development of the theatrical form:

On the tenth [of Muharram] each year the nobles and notables and all the people of the city, great and little, erect tents and mourn the martyrs of Karbala on the polo ground of Tabriz. In this period, water is provided to the people in crystal cups, and some of the nobles and important personages hang flasks around their necks and give water to the people for the sake of Imam Hussein. The Khan or Beglerbegi of Tabriz is seated in his embroidered tent with a group of the notables and nobles of Tabriz in attendance, and they read a maqtal [story of murder] about Imam Hussein. Many devotees of Hussein are seated, listening attentively with humility and submissiveness. When the reader of the book reaches the part describing the manner in which the accursed Shemr [Shimr] killed the oppressed Imam Hussein, at that very moment, they bring out to the field from the pavilion of the Martyrs of Ashura mock representations of the bodies of the dead children of the Iman. Upon seeing this spectacle shouts and screams and wailing of ‘Alas Hussein’ mount from the people to the heavens and all the spectators weep and wail. Hundreds of Hussein’s devotees beat and wound their heads, faces, and bodies with swords and knives. For the life of Imam Hussein they make their blood flow. The green grassy field becomes bloodied and looks like a field of

41 Della Valle, Pietro, quoted by Baktash. See Chelkowsli (ed.), 1979, p. 105.

110 poppies. Then the mock dead are carried from the field and the reading of the maqtal of Imam Hussein is completed.42

The next stage of development was the introduction of words, written on different loose sheets and spoken by hired actors.43

Taziyeh reached its peak in the nineteenth century, by which time hundreds of professional groups existed, each with their own versions of particular episodes or stories developed according to peculiar talents and creativity. However, their different performances shared the feature of being developed on stage on the basis of the participation of the audience. Even the characters were shaped according to the desire of the people and the representation’s goal of making the people a unique body.

The allegorical character of Hussein

Like other mythic figures that exist as projections of human desires and aspirations, Hussein, the main allegorical character of taziyeh performances, has a complex and multidimensional character: he is heroic and timid, hopeful and bewildered, sympathetic and complaining, compassionate and willful. These qualities create a real, flesh and blood figure who confronts reality, even during its most brutal situations. For all his heroic qualities, he still retains all the weaknesses and frailties of ‘lesser’ mortals, all their skepticism, nostalgia and anguish. Indeed, he is a human being first and a hero second. He knows full well the dark forces of injustice that beleaguer his family and friends, depriving them of a normal life. Loved by the people, Hussein is very much a man of the people, who are able to see themselves reflected in him on stage, without a social mask. In other words, they see themselves as they are, not as they are required to be by convention, etiquette or the law. Like them, Hussein is the victim of injustice, and becomes therefore an allegorical figure of resistance.

Hussein and Christian/non-Christian myths

Hussein has often been compared to the figure of Jesus, or resurrection figures in other mythologies. For example, we can refer to Ivar J. Lassy, in his essay The Muharram Mysteries among the Azerbaiian Turks of Caucasia, in which he gives a

42 Chekkebi, Auliya, quoted by Baktash. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 106. 43 Baizaii, Bahram, p. 116.

111 detailed description of the muharran ceremonies in Azarbaijan and searches for their roots in the ancient world.44 William O. Beeman in his essay ‘Cultural Dimensions of Performance Convention in Iranian Taziyeh’ 45 refers to the complex of practices surrounding the commemoration of the death of Hussein in yet other historical- religious terms. He astutely notes that the taziyeh and other Muharram practices are similar to rituals marking the death of Christ, Dionesius, Osiris and many other figures in Indo-European and Semitic tradition. The theme of birth and renewal in ritual practice is virtually universal, carrying with it the message of the renewal of fertility and productivity of the world’s flora and fauna. This cosmological interpretation, it seems, cannot be excluded as on one of the ritual roots of taziyeh performance.46 Enrico Fulchignoni in his essay ‘Quelques Considérations Comparatives entre les Rituels du Ta’ziyeh Iranian et les “Spectacle de la Passion” du Moyen Age Chrétien en Occident’47, tries to explain the same idea, but through the similarities between the stages of taziyeh and European passion plays in the Middle Ages. While parallels and similarities among these figures are undeniable, to understand their differences a number of factors should be closely studied.

The representation of ‘dying and rising’ gods, celebrated in springtime – the moment of rebirth in the natural cycle – may be understood as an allegorical response to man’s anxiety over death and his/her desire for revival and immortality. Like the seasons, the ‘dying and rising’ gods always returned. These deities imagined by primitive societies are what one might call static, in so far as they operate in the same manner as do the planets and the natural seasons, in an endlessly repetitive cycle. The ‘dying and rising’ gods are passive figures, allegorical representations of the cycle of nature. Like the seasons or the planets in their orbits, they belong to a process of endless repetition, and therefore are unable to give expression to the world order as a process of evolution, growth, development or change. As this primitive thinking gave way to more sophisticated ways of looking at the world, the ‘dying and rising’ gods were replaced by other, frequently monotheistic, systems of belief. And yet, whether belief was invested in a single deity or a whole pantheon of gods, the concept of immortality remained constant.

44 Lassy, Ivar J., 1916, The Muharram Mysteries among the Azerbaijan Turks of Caucasia, Helsingfors, Lilius and Hertzberg, pp. 283-84. 45 See Chekowski (ed.), 1979. 46 Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, P. 30. 47 Ibid. pp. 131-136.

112 The Christian God, together with His son, Jesus, is one such successor to the ‘dying and rising’ gods of the ancient world. An allegorical emblem of a mortal and non- materialistic world, Christ came into the world to save sinners, a sacrifice for the salvation of men: ‘for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.48 Jesus is one aspect of that undivided trinity that constitutes the central doctrine of the Christian religion, lived on earth in human form as a man. However, I would contend that only in his last moments, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he contemplates the pain and suffering that lie ahead, and in his final terrifying moments on the cross, as he faces death, does he reveal himself to be a true human being. Carrying the sins of the whole world, he cries out to his Father: Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani? (My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?).49 Ironically, He, whose divine purpose was to save mankind, is obliged to die alone and abandoned.

In the view of the ancient world the human being has an entirely passive role. S/he is a mere plaything of the gods. Nor can it be said that in the Christian world view human beings have an entirely active and independent role. Unlike the atheist existentialists, whose only certainties are contingencies, the Christian knows that life has order and meaning: s/he relies on, has faith in the Savior and s/he will be saved. By contrast, according to Iranian mystic philosophy the role of human being is boundless. There is no savior,the human being is absolutely responsible. So it is the same with taziyeh characters.

Like so many elements of taziyeh, the character of Hussein is allegorical and a reflection of the people’s wishes. He echoes the cry of the oppressed for help. He stands for a people who try to evolve and to change their destiny, not through the intervention of a saviour-figure, but by means of their own efforts and the implementation of their own free will. Hussein reflects a contemporary reality which over centuries has been enriched and from one single historical event been developed into a complex series of dramatic events.

In the Christian world view, indeed, human beings are what I earlier called ‘static’, creatures of a fallen world that need a saviour to intervene on their behalf, lost sheep

48 Matthew, 1976, American Bible Society, 27:46. 49 Matthew 27. 45-56. By referring to this moment, it is interesting to note that it is only suffering and death which give Jesus a human character!

113 in need of a shepherd. In the world view embodied in the taziyeh stage, the figures of Hussein and his family are human beings who are active figures, solely responsible for making their own life-choices and shaping their own destinies. In the philosophy of the world of taziyeh theatre there is no opposition between good and evil, and therefore no possibility for humans to choose a good as opposed to an evil path. It is the deeds they do that matter. Unlike the fallen world of the Christian, the stage world of Hussein’s life is innocent and pure: evil tyrants have infected it and filled it with pain and suffering. But it is a world that can be changed, if human beings revolt against its injustices.

The theatrical Hussein stands for that spirit of revolt and the possibility of social changes and political reforms. His own struggle may be seen as the beginning of this process of reform. There is no question of him having been brought into the world to save sinners. He fights against the dark forces and accepts death as a bitter reality. His manner of living and of dying set an example, and in dying, he hands over to those who follow the responsibility for carrying on the fight. This is what happens at the conclusion of performances: the spectator is invited to continue the fight and complete in life the ‘exemplary’ action begun on the stage. It is in this sense that Hussein is an allegorical figure. He is a theatrical demonstration of the philosophy that humans alone, without divine assistance, can bring order out of the chaos of an unjust world. This explains why the world of taziyeh performance has an irregular, unsettled and, in certain respects dreamlike quality, like the mental landscape of the unconscious, and dominated by forces of oppression, injustice and cruelty.

Unlike Christ, whose resurrection gave him and those who believe in him everlasting life, Hussein’s stage death is conclusive. Like other non-Christian heroes, he does not rise again.

If his death can be called martyrdom, it is because the cause for which he dies is that of the possibility of bringing order to a Godless world. But the process of change is never-ending: it is the struggle that is eternal.

In taziyeh, God – in the orthodox Christian sense – does not exist. This is not to imply that there is no God. On the contrary, it is a God derived from Iranian mysticism, and it is to the meaning of God in this context that we must now turn.

114 Love/Absolute Truth/ God

The God in Iranian mysticism is not the powerful God of the fanatics. Nor is he the God used by those in power to justify their right to govern and to make of people’s lives a misery, limit their freedoms and prosecute them for harmless activities such as playing music and dancing. The God of mysticism is called the Truth and the Truth is absolute Love. As Jalalodin Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian mystic, expresses in his poetry:

From beyond the stars And void of space Transcendent, pure, Of unimaginable beauty with you The essence of love. * Through your loving Existence and nonexistence merge. All opposites unite. All that is profane Becomes sacred again.50 * Although I may try to describe Love When I experience it I am speechless. Although I may try to write about Love I am rendered helpless; My pen breaks and the paper slips away

50 Rumi, 1998, The Love Poems of Rumi, edited by Deepak Chopra, translated by Deepak Chopra and Fereydoun Kia, Rider, Random House, London, pp. 18-19. See also: Rumi, 1991, Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion, Poetry and Teaching Stories of Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, Brattleboro, Vt., Threshold Books; Rumi, Celaleddin, 1992, Crazy as We Are: Selected Rubais from Divan-i Kabir, introduction and translation by Dr. Nevit O. Ergin, Prescott, Ariz., Hohm Press; Rumi, 1993, Birdsong: Fifty-three Short Poem, translated by Coleman Barks, Athens Ga., Maypop; Rumi, 1993, Love is a Stranger: Selected Lyric Poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Kabir Edmund Helminski, Brattleboro, Vt., Threshold Books; Rumi, 1994, Say I Am You: Poetry Interspersed with Stories of Rumi and Shams, translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks, Athens, Ga., Maypop; Rumi, 1994, The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi, by Andrew Harvey, Berkeley, Calf., Frog, Ltd; Rumi, 1995, The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, Harper Collins, New York; Rumi, 1997, Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved, translations by Jonathan Star, Jeremy P. Tarcher/ Putnam, New York; and Rumi, 1898, Divane Shamse Tabriz, R. A. Nicholson (trans.), Cambridge.

115 At the ineffable place Where Lover, Loving and Loved are one.51

Love, or another form of unification of contradiction

As previously discussed, in Iranian mysticism Absolute Love is the origin of both the world and the human beings who inhabit it. Both are a part of that Love and, at the same time, independent of it. This independence is illustrated in Rumi’s ‘Song of the Reed’, and we shall turn to this poem presently. The long and painful journey undertaken by all the birds of the world in search of their ideal leader in Attar’s allegorical poem, The Conference of the Birds, is an illustration of the difficulty of confronting the unknown, revealing the unconscious, tracing one’s true origins and reaching self-fulfillment in a continuous process of finding and being united.

The first step towards the discovery of Truth is the need to love the Truth. In order to love the Truth we need to experience a true love. Loving someone, and being at one with that person, gives us the chance to abandon our obsession with material possessions and to reject our ambitions in order to devote ourselves entirely to the other person: ‘If you do not truly give up yourself, you will never reach the world of unity and detachment’.52 In other words, loving another individual provides us with the opportunity of taking the crucial first step towards an escape from the trap of the self towards uniting with others. In this way, love is transformation of one into another, or being born into each other. Therefore, we can be united, not only with one another, but also, subsequently, we can continue the process of transforming into others that is a collective love. Only when we experience collective love and are united with others, can we hope to attain and know that Truth, or Absolute Love. In other words, in this manner, we are transformed once again into eternal existence. In Iranian mysticism, God, Love or Absolute Truth is emblematized as the sun, or the ocean, and human beings are seen as either rays of the sun or as drops of water in the ocean. Reunited with their source, they not only become as timeless as the sun or the ocean, but will also see the world from a different perspective:53

Only love and lover

51 Rumi, 1998, The Love Poems of Rumi, p. 50. 52 Nurbakhsh, 1996, p. 110. 53 See Harvey, Andrew, 1988, Love’s Fire, Re-Creation of Rumi, Meeramma Publication, and Ithaca, New York, USA.

116 Can resurrect beyond time.54

‘The Sheikh of San’an’, one of the allegorical stories in The Conference of the Birds, may help us to understand this process. The anecdote is one of many told by the Hoopoe as preparation for the birds’ departure on their journey:

San’an was once the first man of his time. Whatever praise can be expressed in rhyme Belonged to him: for fifty years this Sheikh Kept Mecca’s holy place, and for his sake Four hundred pupils entered learning’s way. He mortified his body night and day, Knew theory, practice, mysteries of great age, And fifty times had made the Pilgrimage. He fasted, prayed, observed all sacred laws- Astonished saints and clerics thronged his doors. He split religious hairs in argument; His breath revived the sick and impotent. He knew the people’s hearts in joy and grief And was their living symbol of Belief. Though conscious of his credit in their sight, A strange dream troubled him, night after night; Mecca was left behind; he lived in Rome, The temple where he worshipped was his home, And to an idol he bowed down his head. ‘Alas!’ he cried, when he awoke in dread, ‘Like Joseph I am in a well of need And have no notion when I shall be freed. But every man meets problems on the Way. And I shall conquer if I watch and pray. If I can shift this rock my path is clear; If not, then I must wait and suffer here.55

54 Rumi, Jalauddin, 1981, The Ruins of the Heart, selected lyric poetry, translated by Edmund Helminski, Threshold Books, Putney, third edition, p. 30. 55 Attar, pp. 57-58.

117 The Sheikh, who cannot rid himself of his dream, finally decides to leave Mecca and go with his disciples to Rome, in order to discover what the dream might signify. He stops on route near a Christian monastery, where he sees a girl appear at a window:

She turns and her dark veil is removed. In beauty’s mansion she was like a sun That never set – indeed the spoils she won Were headed by the sun himself, whose face Was pale with jealousy and sour disgrace. The man about whose heart her ringlets curled; Became a Christian and renounced the world; The man who saw her lips and knew defeat Embraced the earth before her bonny feet; And as the breeze passed through her musky hair The man of Rome watched wondering in despair. Her eyes spoke promises to those in love’ Their fine brows arched coquettishly above - Those bows sent glancing messages that seemed To offer everything her lovers dreamed. The pupils of her eyes grew wide and smiled, And countless souls were glad to be beguiled; The face beneath her curls glowed like soft fire; Her honeyed lips provoked the world’s desire; But those who thought to feast there found her eyes Held pointed daggers to protect the prize, And since she kept her counsel no one knew- Despite the claims of some – what she would do. Her mouth was tiny as a needle’s eye, Her breath as quickening as Jesus’ sigh; Her chin was dipped with silver well In which a thousand drowning Josephs fell; A glistering jewel secured her hair in place, Which like a veil obscured her lovely face.56

56 Ibid, pp. 58-59.

118 The moment the veil is removed, a fire flashes through the old man’s body and his passion for the girl throws him into confusion. Unable to resist her, he decides to stay on and try to see her again. His disciples urge him to leave, but he cannot and, day after day, night after sleepless night, in tears he watches the window. In fatigue and misery he falls ill. The girl appears, and asks him what he is doing. When he tells her, she laughs at him. Then, seeing how insistent the man is, she asks that he do four things, as proof that he deserves her: burn the Koran, drink wine, forsake his beliefs and bow down to graven images. He does as she asks, whereupon his disciples, fearing for his sanity, abandon him. The girl tells him he is not rich enough for her, who is not cheaply won: ‘My price is high’, she says, ‘and to have me you must bring gold and silver.’ He begs her to allow him to serve her in whatever way she pleases. She agrees, and asks him to be her swineherd for one year. Meanwhile, the old man’s disciples have returned home and one day, in answer to an enquiry from a wise man about the Sheikh, they break down and tell their story. The wise man rebukes them for abandoning the Sheikh:

‘O criminal!’ he cried. ‘O frailer than Weak women in your faith - when does a man Need faithful friends but in adversity? You should be there, not prattling here to me. Is this devoted love? Shame on you all’ Fair-weather friends who run when great men fall. He put on Christian garments – so should you; He took their faith – what else had you to do?57

The disciples return and discover the Sheikh, who is about to leave the monastery: he has changed and is now at a new stage and has finally experienced love. Purified, the Sheikh is his former self again. The disciples, too, experiencing another transformation, have come to an understanding of love, and they return with their master to Mecca.

Quite independently, the girl also experiences love. She dreams one night that the Sheikh has left her, leaps from her bed, only to discover that he has indeed disappeared. Pained by her great loss, she wanders the desert endlessly in search of

57 Ibid, p. 70.

119 the Sheikh: another transformation of the unconscious to conscious and a response to her hidden wish. The Sheikh senses that the girl is looking for him, and sends his disciples to see if they can find her. They do. They bring her back and, as the bedraggled, weeping figure falls at his feet, begging him to forgive her, she dies: the Sheikh and the girl have transformed into one another and have been united.58

In this tale everything is transforming from one thing or aspect into another, its opposite. The Sheikh’s needs and wishes, hidden in his unconscious, are disclosed to him in his dreams. This is the first unification of the contradiction between the unconscious and conscious. Seeking to fulfil his needs, he finds the girl. But unification with and transformation into one another ─ he and she ─ is a long and bitter process. Finally they are transformed into each other, and through her death the girl is united with him. The girl in this tale, has a double significance: not only is she, of course, herself, but she also stands allegorically for the ‘new’ personality of the Sheikh, who, having freed himself through uniting with her, has been transformed by their mutual love and is now capable of going on towards the process of a collective love or another transformation.

Another significant element in this story is the dialectical relationship between the three elements of the Sheikh, girl and disciples: not only does Love affect each one, but the Love of each affects the others. They affect each other in three different ways and, consequently, although the fundamental concept of love remains the same, they offer the reader contrasting ways of understanding this relationship. In the next chapter we will see how this kind of relationship is developed and creates the basis of all the theatrical elements of taziyeh performances through reformation of one element as another and unification of contradictions of the different elements in the theatre

When we finally attain Absolute Love, we are, in the words of Rumi, everything and, at the same time, nothing: another dimension of the unification of contradictions:

What shall I do, O Muslim? I do not recognize myself … I am neither Christian nor Jew, Nor Magian, nor Muslim.

58 See Attar, Faridud-Din, 1984, The Conference of the Birds, Translated with an Introduction by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis, Penguin Books, London, England, pp. 57-75.

120 I am not of the East, not the West, Not of the land, nor the sea. I am not from nature’s mine, Nor from the circling stars. I am neither of earth nor water, Neither of the wind nor fire. I am not of the empyrean, Nor of the dust on this carpet. I am not of the deep, nor from behind. I am not of India nor China, Not of Bulgaria, nor Saqsin; I am not of the kingdom of Iraqain, Nor of the land of Khorasan. I am not of this world nor the next, Not of heaven, nor of purgatory. My place is the placeless, My trace is the traceless. It is not the body nor is it the soul, For I belong to the soul of my love. I have put duality away And seen the two worlds as one. One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call. […] Intoxicated with the cup of Love, Two worlds slip from my hands. I am occupied with nothing But fun and carousing.59

As the drop of water is both part of, yet independent from, the ocean to which it belongs so this relates to our human condition. In order to illustrate the idea of separation and unification from one’s origin or dependence and independence from one’s source, we must refer to ‘The Song of the Reed’, the opening couplets of Rumi’s celebrated poem, Mathnavi:

59 Rumi, 1981, P. 22.

121 Pay heed to the grievances of the reed Of what divisive separations breed From the reedbed cut away just like a weed My music people curse, warm and heed Sliced to pieces my bosom and heart bleed While I tell this tale of desire and need. Whoever fell away from the source Will weep and toil until returned to course Of grievances I sang to every crowd Befriended both the humble and the proud Each formed conjecture in their own mind As though to my secrets they were blind My secrets are buried within my grief Yet to the eye and ear, that’s no relief Body and soul both unveiled in trust Yet sight of soul for body is not a must. The flowing air in this reed is fire Extinct, if with passion won’t inspire Fire of love is set upon the reed Passion of love this wine will gladly feed Reed is match for he who love denied Our secrets unveiled, betrayed, defined. Who has borne deadly opium like the reed? Of loving to betterment guide and lead? Of the bloody path, will tell many a tale Of lover’s love, even beyond the veil. None but the fool can hold wisdom dear Who will care for the tongue if not ear? … Cut the chain my son, and release the pain Silver rope and golden thread, must refrain If you try to fit the ocean in a jug How small will be your drinking mug? … Body of dust from love ascends to the skies

122 The dancing mountain thus begins to rise … All is beloved, the lover is the veil Alive is beloved, the lover in death wail Fearless love will courageously dare Like a bird that’s in flight without a care … Seek the love that cannot be confined Reflection in the mirror is object defined. Do you know why the mirror never lies? Because keeping a clean face is its prize. Friends, listen to the tale of this reed For it is the story of our life, indeed!60

It is this concept – God-Love-Truth as a unity and contradiction – which is seen to lie at the very heart and origin of taziyeh theatre. It not only gives shape to the dramaturgy and mise-en-scène of taziyeh in all its aspects, but can also be seen to be reflected in the interrelationships between actor, dramatic character and spectator.

From the point of view of the mystic, the stage or the allegorical figure of Hussein is a lover/seeker after truth, who has experienced individual love and who, through loving others, is prepared to encounter Truth or Absolute Love. He is a character who, in various brutal episodes that constitute the taziyeh plays, charts the painful journey he must undergo towards this process of the unification of contradictions. In the taziyeh of The Rescue by Hussein of Sultan Ghiyas from the Jaws of a Lion Sultan Ghiyis is out in the hunting field and finds himself in danger of being killed by a lion. He wishes and finally meets Hussein in his wandering form. The Sultan asks about Hussein’s terrible suffering. The answer is clear: ‘In the mater of love, it is not seemly to say much’:

GHIYAS: […] thou sheddest tears like spring clouds. Thou bearest dagger- wounds on thy body, more than a thousand scars in number. Thy stature should not be a mark for wounds of swords and arrows. The head of the king of kings is not the place for the edge of sword. Inform Ghiyas of this matter,

60 Rumi, Mathnawi, translated by Shahriar Shahriari, (See web address: http://www.shahriari.com/last accessed June 2006)

123 O my lord, that he may be nightingale in the garden and a moth in the assembly [….] GHIYAS: why, O lord, art thou so sorrowful? Why dost thou groan so, and why let thy tears fall like rain? Tell me why thou art so pale and unhappy, and why dost thou carry thy shroud about thy person?61 THE IMAM: The less thou knowest of my condition the better, O Ghiyas! In the matter of love, it is not seemly to say much.62

Hussein’s journey, and that of his companions, is very similar to the journey of self- discovery undertaken by the birds of the world in The Conference of the Birds.63 As Rumi writes, the attainment of this ultimate Love is only possible when we have shaken ourselves free of our selves and become united with love:

Die! Die! Die in this love! If you die in this love

Your soul will be renewed Die! Die! Don’t fear the death

Of that which is known If you die to the temporal You will become timeless Die! Die! Die to the deathless And you will be eternal Die! Die! And come out of this cloud You will be the effulgent moon Die! Die! Die to the din and the noise

61 Wearing a shroud refers to abandoning possessions and rejecting ambitions. 62 Pelly, vol. II, p. 54. 63 From this point of view, the destiny of lovers such as Romeo and Juliet or Cleopatra, whose stories end in death and look tragic from an ordinary point of view, is a complete journey to unification or being united with each other as one. They left single lives behind and were united with love as well. This is the highest level of existence. They are not themselves any more. They are absolute Love.

124 Of mundane concerns In the silence of love You will find the spark of life.64

So, Hussein makes his perilous journey of ten days of suffering from thirst, from his wounds, from the loss of his loved ones, decapitation and finally the trampling of his body beneath the hooves of soldiers’ horses. Along with Hussein, his companions share his fate. This scenario has clear resonances with that of the Sheikh in The Story of the Sheikh of San’an and The Conference of the Birds.

It is important to note that these characters – particularly Hussein as both seeker after truth and the hero of the people – offer to both their fellow actors and the spectator with whom they participate in the narrative the opportunity of sharing their experience.

At its most intense, this is an experience which can touch the deepest layers of the historical unconscious of both actors and spectators alike. At such a moment something unique takes place: the barriers separating actors, spectators and characters are broken down and observers and participants become one. In this regard, even we can identify with the self-flagellation of participants themselves, en masse, in the mourning ceremonies, by repeating words, through musical rhythm, which developed during and after the Safavid dynasty. This is the metamorphosis of the same whirling around in mystic dancing, accompanied by live music and singing, conducted in mystic houses. This is denying the self in order to join with others and ultimately unite with God/Truth/Absolute Love. Indeed, this collective act can be considered as a different version of reaching Ka Mountain through release from the self/physical body, a way of meeting Simorgh, according to Attar’s story. This is the point which Halaj reached when he shouted out in the market places: ‘I am God.’

The ancient roots of Hussein and Iranian ancient character

Another important matter which is essential to the development of taziyeh is the ancient characters, their faiths and characteristics that the allegorical figure of Hussein and the event of Karbala were substituted with. Through this interchange, the ancient

64 Rumi, 1998, The Love Poems of Rumi, p. 38.

125 world, allegorical legends and mythological stories, found a new life blood and were absorved to a new form.

Mourning ceremonies were also a part of these very ancient Iranian rituals. They originated in Mesopotamia and lived in the masses’ collective unconscious, finding a parallel in the Karbala events, on the one hand, and Hussein and his character, on the other.

An important link can be observed between the annual mourning festivals in ancient Iran (before the Arab occupation) and the ceremonies that emerged after the ninth century as a reaction against the Arab occupiers. These later festivals were harshly restricted by the Arab occupiers. They were kept, as was mentioned, in the collective unconscious and historical memory of the Iranians for centuries, since all Iranian books and libraries were burned by the Arab occupiers. In these ancient festivals, not only can we trace the similar annual mourning ceremonies, but we can also find the crucial similarity between these characters and the characters in taziyeh theatre, formed in the nineteenth century. Some of these similarities will now be traced.

S.G.W. Benjamin’s suggestion in his book Persia and Persian is worthy of attention. He writes:

Merely as a matter of hypothesis, I venture to suggest that possibly the Persians may have borrowed the idea of such annual commemoration from a practice which seems to have obtained ages before of celebrating the slaughter of Smerdis, the Magian, by King Darius, the annual celebration being called by the Greeks the Magophonia (slay of the Magi).65

Despite Benjamin’s assertion, the celebration of the slaughter of the Magi66 does not seem to be related to any mourning ceremony, as it is the celebration of a victory. It is celebrated by the victor and is far from sympathizing with the victim. Taking advantage of King Darius’ absence from the country, Smerdis, the Magi, announced that the King had died in war and proclaimed himself monarch. During the short period in which he ruled the country, Smerdis, with a revolutionary program, undertook many reforms against feudal lands and the kingdom of the Zoroastrian

65 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 376. 66 For background on the Magi and their influence on Zoroastrians see: Sykes, Persy, 1951, The History of Persia, third edition, in two Vol., Macmillan and co., London, p.111.

126 clergies (who supported the feudals), and in favour of the poor farmers and citizens. His reform was crushed by Darius. Smerdis was arrested and in 522 B.C. he and all his followers were killed. Many people who had defended him and his program were massacred. All his reforms were cancelled and the regime of the feudal and Zoroastrian clergies was restored. Smerdis’ defeat was considered an important victory for the political establishment, and therefore, was celebrated every following year by order of King:

The Persians observe this day with one accord, and keep it more strictly than any other in the year. It is then that they hold the great festival which they call the Magophonia. No magus may show himself abroad during the whole time that the feast lasts, but all must remain at home the entire day. 67

Herodotus explains the historical event behind this festival:

Darius, the young head of the house of the Achaemenidae, by right of his birth took the lead. Gomates was slain, and a general massacre struck terror into the magi and their adherents. The Arian religion was restored; the temples were rebuilt; and the annual festival of the Magophonia was instituted to deter the magian priests from ever again repeating their bold adventure.68

This ceremony, as Baizaii suggests, can be considered a festival that created some of the ancient dramatic movements which disappeared after the Arabs conquered Iran, and that, centuries later, appeared in folkloric form as The King for One Day or One Day King. They can still be seen in outlying villages in Iran. The drama has one character that rides a donkey and goes around proclaiming himself the King. Spectators follow him and comply with his orders. At the end of the day, he is beaten by the spectators and is forced to run away.69

Despite this folk theatre that has nothing to do with the mourning ceremonies, as Ehsan Yarshater mentions in his account Taziyeh and Pre-islamic Mourning Rites in

67 Herodotus, 1880, History of Herodotus, edited by George Rawlinson, 4th edition, London, book three, in volume II, pp. 475-476. Also see Ctesias, 1947, La Perse, L’Inde, Les Sommaires de Photus (Ctesias’s Persica, with the Summaries of Photius), translated and edited by R. Henry, Brussels. About this festival Ctesias writes: ‘On celebre chez les Perses une solennité, la Magophonie, a l’anniversairede l’assasinât du mage Sphendates’. p. 24. 68 Ibid., Appendix to book III, p. 553. Also Forough, p. 4 and footnotes to part I, p. 32. 69 Baizaii, Bahram, 1344/1965-66, pp. 24-5.

127 Iran,70 we can examine two well-known tragedies in the Iranian tradition, the Memorial of Zarer, which has survived from Sasanid times (224-651) and is of Parthian (238-171 BC) origin, and the Tragedy of Siyavush, from the Iranian mythological period.

The tragedy of Zarer must have been sung by poets and musicians in the court of the Parthians for centuries before it was written down. This tragedy focuses on the figure of Zarer, who is a dedicated defender of the faith. Vishtasp, the holy king of the Zoroastrians, is threatened by Arjasb, king of the Chionites, who objected to the King’s conversion to the religion of Zoroaster. Vishtasp is confronted by the army. Zarer volunteers to go into the battle and is killed by Arjasb’s brother.71

There are two aspects of this tragedy, which have a parallel in taziyeh. Firstly, the entire outcome of the event is known to Zarer and his family, as in taziyeh, and, secondly, Zarer’s death is followed by a moving lamentation by his young son who, despite his age, fights and avenges his father’s murder. The devoted warriors, inspired by this faith, face a large army, and are killed. Bitter lamentation by singers and musicians is what followed from this event for centuries.

In the case of The Tragedy of Siyavush, the eponymous hero is a young and innocent prince who finds refuge in Turan in order to escape from the deep long-lasting bitterness of his father’s wife. At first the king of Turan receives him as an honoured guest and Siyavush marries the king’s daughter. False charges are then brought against the young prince, and he is condemned to death by decapitation, his head falling into a gold basin. His infant son, Kay Khosrow, is hidden and eventually brought to Iran, where he succeeds to the throne.72

In recording this tragedy, Islamic historians have ignored its religious and cultic aspects. In The History of Bukhara Narshakhi writes:

70 Yarshater, Ehsan, ‘Taziyeh and Pre-Islamic Mourning Rites in Iran’. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, pp. 88-94. 71 See Ayatekar-e Zariran [The Memorial of Zerer], 1975, Bash, Tehran, Iran. 72 Sykes, 1951, p.137.

128 The people of Bukhara have many a lament on the slaying of Siyavush, which is known in all regions, and the minstrels have made them into songs, which they chant, and the singers call them ‘the weeping of the magi’.73

The connection between Siyavush and mourning rites can also be found in other sources. For instance, Tha’alebi reports that when the news of the event reached the Iranian court, profound grief seized the country and ‘Rustam and the generals set to mourning, or rather stood up bare-footed and bare headed for seven days’.74 Tha’alebi adds that ‘the first man who wore black in mourning was Shadus, son of Gudarz, who did so when Siyavush was killed’.75

In addition to these sources, as Yarshter mentions, a wall painting76 found in Panjikent, a Sogdian city 68 kilometres east of Samarkand (in what is now Afghanistan) and dating 300 B.C., shows the funeral bier of a young prince, ‘whose death is mourned by both mortals and gods’.77 The Prince has been identified as Siyavush.78

Siyavush’s myth reflects all the specifics of Hussein, the central figure in taziyeh. Like Hussein, he is able to predict everything that will happen to him. What he says to his young wife, after a dream, is the statement that might be made by one of the characters in taziyeh:

They will strike off this innocent head of mine, and will place my crown in my heart’s blood. I shall find neither bier, nor shroud, nor grave. Nor would anyone shed tears for me in the assembly. Like an exile shall I lie in the dust,

73 Narshakhi, 1972, Tarikh-e Bokhara [The History of Bokhara], Mudarres Razavi (ed.),Tehran, Iran, p. 24. (Quoted by Yarshater, Ehsan, in ‘Taziyeh and Pre-Islamic Mourning Rites. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 90). At the end of this quote there is another paragraph, which has been ignored by previously mentioned Yarshater, and that is: ‘This song has been chanted for three thousand years’. Even if ‘three thousand years’ is an exaggeration by the writer, it shows its ancient background. For a full quote see: Baizaii, Bahram, 1344/1965, p. 23. Baizaii gives details of the original book published in Paris: Narshakhi, 1892, Tarikhe Bokhara [the History of Bokhtara], Chefere, Paris, pp. 21, 22. 74 Tha’alibi, 1900, Kitab al Ghurar, Zotenberg, Paris, p. 213. (Quoted by Yarshater. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 91). 75 Ibid., I, 604. 76 This wall painting was copied by Bahram Baizaii from: Mongait, A., 1959, Archaeology in the U.S.S.R., Moscow. As Baizaii quotes, this wall painting has been copied from the original by W.S. Gremyachenskaya. See Baizaii, 1965, p. 22. 77 Azarpay, G., 1975, Iranian Divinities in Sogdian Painting, Monumentum H.S.Nyberg, Acta, Iranica I, 20. (Quoted by Yarshater. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 91.). See also Baizaii, p. 22. 78 The identification was made first by A. Y. Yakubovskii and A. I. Terenozhkin. See Frumkin, G., 1970, Archaeology in Soviet Central Asia in the Hbuch. d. Or. Leiden and Koln, pp. 72 and Azarpay, p. 20. (Quoted by Yarshter. See Chelkowski (ed.), p. 91.)

129 with my head severed by [a] sword from my body. And you, Farangis, will be carried off by the king’s men, humiliated, bareheaded and without cover … 79

What happens to Siyavush and his body, after being decapitated, corresponds to Hussein’s fate. This is just another example of the possible root of taziyeh. Between all these characters there is a link, which can only be traced in the heart of the people, not in history: all the Iranian sources were destroyed after the Arab invasion, and therefore no Iranian historian can help trace the journey of historical memory and collective unconscious. For example, in Narshakhi’s words:

The people of Bukhara have many a lament on the slaying of Siyavush, which is known in all regions, and the minstrels have made them into songs which they chant, and the singers call them ‘The Weeping of the Magi’.80

It seems strange to use the expression of ‘The Weeping of the Magi’ in relation to the mourning for Siyavush, as there is no historical connection between these two characters. As examined previously, the revolutionary Smerdis, the magi, was massacred with his followers by King Darius, and the day of their slaughter was celebrated annually by the officials. As the written history only refers to the Kings and officials, figures such as the revolutionary Smerdis can only survive in the hearts of the people. It is what we learn from the tragedy of Zarer, which must have been sung for centuries by poets and musicians before it was written down. However, the connection between Siyavush and Smerdis, as well as Zarer in the people’s collective memory can be as close as the connection between these three and Hussein. All were murdered because they were fighting for justice or in an oppressed manner, at least from the point of view of the people. This connection is so deep that we may even find its equivalent between these characters and Mesopotamian gods, especially the youthful god Tammuz81, and in Anatolian or Egyptian myths such as Osiris as Ivar

79 Ferdowsi, Aboughasim, 1934-35, Shah-namah, Burukhim (ed.), Tehran, p. 652. (Qouted by Yarshter. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 92.) 80 Narshakhi, p. 24. 81 Tammuz belongs to the category of ‘dying and rising gods’. This category generally applies to a group of young male deities who represent their annual death and resurrection. They were male figures of fertility and in some areas the drama of their lives was associated with mother or virgin goddesses. They represent the seasoned cycle of vegetation. Adonis: with the Semitic origin, Aliyan Baal, Attis, the figure of the king-god of Babylon: Marduk, Osiris, and finally Tammuz/Dumuzi can be mentioned in this regard. Their commemoration was conducted every year with mourning ceremonies and presenting their lives and death in a form of narration or drama. There was a wailing and lamentation, for instance, for the deity Tammuz during the summer. The hymns for this goddess go back to the second millennium.

130 Lassy points out. These characters, it is said, were all killed in an unjust situation. Lassy writes:

Hussein, the martyr, is by no means an isolated figure in the world of mythology and popular belief. He and the festivals devoted to him seem to have their counterparts in Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, and other deities of ancient civilizations and in corresponding cults of these deities […] Muharram festival of the present time form a survival or an historical heritage of the great festivals which many thousand years ago were celebrated in honour of the above-mentioned divine beings. The character of these Mysteries has no doubt changed much in the course of centuries, and externally they have assumed a somewhat different shape. In essence, however, they appear to have preserved the characteristic traits of the Mysteries’ of Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, etc., which had a commemorative and mourning object as well, and besides served purposes connected with the seasons and the progress of vegetation […] We may count with the possibility that not only certain important details of the Muharram Mysteries of the present time may be explained by, but that they themselves will prove likely to throw new light upon certain obscure points of, the old religions of the Mediterranean and the Persian Orients.82

Having reviewed in this chapter the origins and sources of taziyeh, I turn in the next chapter to a discussion of the techniques of taziyeh performances. Chapter Three will show how interdependent the philosophy and techniques of taziyeh are. The material from Chapters One and Two will be brought together in a discussion of taziyeh’s physical techniques, conventions, principles and dramatic aspects. Chapter Three will also discuss the role of the Master, that powerful element in taziyeh performances who creates the intense relationship between stage and auditorium, in order to break down all the barriers and bridge all the gaps between actors and spectators.

Sometimes the figure of this goddess interacted with others. For example, the figure of Tammuz interacted with that of Adonis in Asia Minor. It is likely that the mourning for Tammuz is followed by rejoicing, which demonstrated his return to life by his lover Ishtar. (See Frazer, J. G., 1936, The Golden Bough, 12 vols., Macmillan, London; and Gaster, Theodor H, 1977, Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East, New York.) 82 Lassy, Ivar, 1916, The Muharram Mysteries Among the Azerbeijan Turks of Caucasia, an academic dissertation, Helsingfors, Lilius & Hertzberg, limited, pp. 283-284.

131 CHAPTER THREE When the observer becomes a performer: techniques of taziyeh performance

Two scenes of a taziyeh performance in a small village of Bakhshyeh, Haris in Iran [pictures by Khanali Siami]

Introduction

Chapter One demonstrated the nature of taziyeh as a type of theatre as it has existed for over two centuries, while Chapter Two examined the sources and origins of taziyeh. This chapter moves on to a detailed analytical discussion of taziyeh performance and brings the two previous chapters together.

As previously examined, the tazieyh stage is never hermetically sealed off from the spectator. There is constant awareness on the part of both actor and audience of the presence of the other. Indeed, at times performers are observers, and observers, performers. The experience is always shared. There is no question here of realism or illusionism as, say, Stanislavski might have understood those terms.

However, to state categorically that the taziyeh stage is never sealed off hermetically from the spectator would be going too far. After all, Gobineau, who was perfectly aware that he was not watching nineteenth-century European realism and felt invited to lose himself in the performance, said: ‘Since the actor is […] shot through with the significance of the act that he accomplishes, and respects for his character whom he plays with all his heart, certain unusual effects follow. He is under the spell; it is so strong and so total that one almost sees Yazid himself […].’1

Then, again, there is the story, perhaps apocryphal, told by Wirth, of the village gendarme in the role of the lion in a taziyeh drama. Suddenly, in mid-performance and on all fours on the stage, he spots his superior, his captain, sitting watching from a box – and immediately lifts his lion’s paw to his temple and salutes him!2 The important point here is that these two worlds, the self-sufficient stage-world and the open world in which there is no fourth wall, and the responses of both Gobineau and the actor playing the lion, co-exist in taziyeh. The object of this chapter is to examine the complex relationship between them, between the role/s of the actor and the role/s of the spectator.

This discussion will be divided into six sections. The first section examines the actor and aspects of his situation, including the way in which he is chosen, his ability, his wages and his private job. The second section discusses the characters and the way in

1 Gobineau, p. 348. 2 See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 38.

133 which characters are recognized by the spectator. The third section looks at acting. This section examines the Iranian mystical point of view, the manner in which the concept of the unity of time and place is used, and the way that objects, the dead and animals are treated. Love, as an important expression in Iranian mystical philosophy, is also analyzed in this third section. Following this, the role of love in acting and the way in which it helps bridge the gap between the actor and spectator, the role of coded signs, and the way in which the dialectical relationship between the actor and spectator is established will be discussed.

In the fourth section, the taziyeh manuscripts’ writers, their background and finally popular comedy of Siyeh Bazi will be explained. The style, form and concept of taziyeh manuscripts will form the main part of this discussion.

In order to provide a clear idea about the form and concepts that have been discussed, the play The Rescue by Hussein of Sultan Ghiyas from the Jaws of a Lion, translated by Pelly, will be closely analyzed. On the basis of more examples, I offer a categorization of the different kinds of communication which can be established between the actor, character and spectator.

The fifth section of this chapter deals with the text/manuscript on the stage. In this section, drawing on eyewitness accounts from the nineteenth century, it will be demonstrated how a text is treated in practice and how it is brought onto the stage by the master. We will experience, indeed, how actuality is used on the stage to awaken the actor/spectator in order to change the present. The final section of the chapter is devoted to the most important figure in all taziyeh theatres, the master. As will be explained in this section, the taziyeh master fills a role somewhat broader than the director, without whom a taziyeh play, as it is performed on the stage, cannot exist. What constitutes the climax of taziyeh performances will also be defined in the section.

I. The Actor

Choosing the actor

In the play Abbas, the Indian, which is clearly suggested or written by a master, Abbas, the Indian, to prove his ability to act on the stage says:

134 ABASS, THE INDIAN: my voice is good. I know how to play fighting. I can read the manuscript very well.3

Through this dialogue we discover what the taziyeh master believed were the initial requirements in taziyeh acting: a good voice, the ability to move well and to be able to read the manuscript well. Two more factors need to be added: an actor needed to have a talent for learning; and finally, to resemble closely the physical image spectators might have of the character(s) that they play.

Training

There is no significant evidence of taziyeh actors’ training and the way that they were trained in the past, although it has been said that they undertook lifelong experience and training.4 What is understood, according to contemporary taziyeh actors and directors, is that they were chosen by the masters through family relationships or because of their parents’ interest in encouraging their children to join a taziyeh group. However, there were still actors who, certainly at a young age and according to their talent and interest in acting, could join taziyeh troupes and were accepted by the master. In this case their acting was dependent on their talent and their efforts to learn through practical experience and working with others. It seems that, once again according to contemporary actors, acting was mostly a family business, which was carried on by interested children. In this case, acting was handed down from, possibly, their fathers or one of the close family members who played before them. It should be remembered that in traditional Iranian culture, normally a child could not leave their family easily and join a group where its members were not recognized by the child’s parents. As a convention, when a child first joined the group they were taken onto the stage to perform a child character, one of Hussein’s children for instance. As they grew up, and with regard to their age, they played the roles of boys and girls, such as Roghiyeh (one of Hussein’s small daughters who died of thirst on the plain of Karbala). Later on, as young adults, they represent young characters (e.g. Ghasim, Hussein’s nephew, who at the time was sixteen years old and married Hussein’s daughter in Karbala before being killed).

3 Number 3 of Enrico Cerullis’ Collection. See Rossi, Ettore - Bombaci, Alessio, 1961, Elenco Di Drammi Religiosi Persiani, Citta Del Vaticano, Bibioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 4 Wills, 1886, P. 212.

135 As an actor matured to the next stage, the time came to play male characters such as the role of Shimr, Yazid, Gabriel, or even Hussein, which were more serious, and thus required skills and experience. This is the process that has been noted by some taziyeh eyewitnesses such as Wills in 1886.5

In the twentieth century, the same process of acting in the taziyeh group has continued. Mustafa Arabzadeh is one of the best known contemporary actors in Tehran. He plays the main and central character of a popular comedy called Siyah Bazi (literally: Playing the Black). Siyah Bazi is a form of live popular comedy performed in theatres (further discussed later in this chapter). Arabzadeh started performing as a taziyeh actor in the role of the child. Then he joined the Siyah Bazi group for the rest of his life while still playing in a taziyeh group. He talks about the process of starting to act. His experience is neither more nor less than that of the traditional taziyeh actor over the centuries. Of his first experience in taziyeh acting, Arabzadeh says:

I started playing as an actor in taziyeh dramas when I was still a ten-year-old child. I remember that I started with playing the role of Sakineh (the daughter of Hussein). Then I played the child of Moslim – he was the same age as me when he was killed with his brother in the prison of Koofeh. Then the role of the child of Zinab was given to me to play. The next phase was playing (young) Abdola. […] After that I played Ali Akbar, then Zinab (daughter of Hussein), and then Abbas (Hussein’s brother). By this time I was eighteen (years old).6

In fact Arabzadeh was learning acting as he was growing up. Then he joined the Siyah Bazi group, first as a singer and entertainer and finally as the main character, the Black:

[…] I was still young when I started working in a smash repair workshop. […] There was another guy working with me, whose name was Ali Mesri. He was a singer in a Siyah Bazi group. One day when I was singing a song to myself, he heard my voice and found it good for singing in the theatre group. I was twenty-three at that time. He invited me to meet the group. I was crazy to play as an actor. In those days, taziyeh acting was not a permanent job.

5 Wills, p. 212. 6 Shahriari, 1998, p. 130.

136 You could not make enough money as well. Abdol Ali Garah was the master of the Siyah Bazi group. He heard my singing and accepted me into his group.7

Despite finding a job in a Siyah Bazi group Arabzadeh still kept playing in taziyeh. For him, possibly such as most other taziyeh actors through the centuries, it is a family job, which they inherited:

[…] I still play in taziyeh groups as well. This is our fathers’ and our families’ job. My father, Syed Jamal Mousavi, was a taziyeh player. My uncle was a taziyeh player. Still I am invited to play in taziyeh groups during the month of Muharram.8

In the nineteenth century the villages in some parts of Iran were famous for producing actors. The actors of Tabriz, a city in the north-western part of Iran, for instance, come from the villages around Kazvin, another city near Tehran in central Iran. Writing in 1886 Wilson describes Kazvin as a city where: ‘[the] inhabitants have for generations made the acting of passion play a profession’.9

The masters choose their actors according to the actors’ abilities and accept them into the groups. If they are young when they are accepted, they go through a long process of practical learning with the masters. They travel with the others and stay with them in the takiyeh theatres and are taught gradually over the years. An interesting point we learn from Siyah Bazi actors who act in a taziyeh group as well is that people interested in acting but who cannot be accepted into the group join them as porters or staff carriers. Each group depending on its size, traditionally, has one or two people who travel with the group, helping them carry stage props, prepare the scenes and finally, collect the props and costumes after each performance. During their work, they try to show their talent, hoping to be given short and simple scenes to play at the beginning, so that they might gradually be accepted and be offered long and complex characters.

7 Ibid, p. 94. 8 Ibid, pp. 130-131. 9 Wilson, p. 190.

137 Hussein Yusefi, one of the old well-known actors as ‘the Black player’ in Siyah Bazi, speaks about the more than sixty-eight years he played on the stage of Siyah Bazi as a single character:10

Playing on the stage needs passion and enthusiasm as well as ability and talent. This is in addition to loving it and working hard to learn from it. For example, you may meet someone, in everyday life who can impress you deeply according to his way of speech and choice of words. I mean, you find him excellent in improvisation. The listener may say to himself: ‘Did you notice how he was talking? How touching! I wonder where he brings his words and so many points from.’ This is what I am trying to say about the talent and ability that an actor needs to have before starting to act. These are just the first conditions for being an actor. Then it is the time to start going through the process of hard learning through experience.11

Amidst the pages of the nineteenth-century taziyeh eyewitness’ reports, many scenes can be found which clearly suggest the excellence and skilfulness of the actors. For instance, in one of the taziyeh which Benjamin witnesses, there is a scene in which soldiers are fighting on their horses, in amongst the crowd of spectators. This scene concludes without any serious trouble:

10 Siyah Bazi, theatrically, in many aspects are similar to taziyeh, formerly called ‘Taghlid’ (imitation), ‘Ru-howzi’ (the play on the basin), or ‘Tamash’ (spectacle). These plays used to be called Ru-howzi, because for decades they were performed on the basins or water tanks located in the middle of the courtyards of Iranian houses covered with carpets during the performances. They were performed on occasions such as the ceremonies of a wedding, a new born baby and so on or just for entertainment. These plays are based mainly on farce, buffoonery, and dance, with two main characters: a servant/clown who is a Black, and a master usually a greedy traditional business man. The play is built on the clownish art of the Black character and his comical words and deeds and his relationship with his master. Laughter is created on the basis of the readiness of the Black to answer or retort and the power of repartee while he uses dirty words mainly sexy on the basis of improvisation. The Black, frequently, through ridiculing some high-ranking officials, generates laughter. (See Baizaii, pp. 166- 219) Most of the Siyeh Bazi performers were and still are illiterate, and the originality of their works are based on their experience and personality. No master is on the stage during the performance and the director usually plays the role of the Black. The main element in this theatre ― as in taziyeh ― is the distance between the actor and the character. When an actor finishes the job s/he can sit having tea or smoke a cigarette and participate in laugher according to what is going on the stage or simply wait for his/her turn. An actor often stops playing during the performance and shares the laughter with the audience for his or other character’s funny deeds or words. They may even respond to the spectators’ words, and then go back to their roles and continue playing. They perform these actions alternately and it is considered normal by the spectators so not only it does not disturb them, but makes the scenes more vivid. In these plays the spectators, in half a day or night, are amused by laughter. Some of the actors in these plays have been or still are taziyeh actors. Until the revolution of 1979, in these plays women’s characters and dancers were played by women. (See Shahriari, 1998) 11 Shahriari, 1998, p. 7.

138 It was wildly exciting to see this mad race around the arena, where thousands of women were crowded down to the very edge of the narrow lane, which was thronged with fighting steeds and warriors. But no one flinched; the horses were well trained, and no accident resulted.12

Despite Benjamin’s suggestion that it was the trained horses who were skilful, these kinds of scenes obviously demonstrate the skill of the riders who can manage and perform their roles, rather than the trained horses. In another performance Benjamin refers to ‘the most distinguished actors of the age’ in ‘a wonderful dramatic episode’. His words, once again provide an indication of the power and the skill of the actors in managing their characters.13

But the power of the actors went beyond mere physical actions as the characters on the stage. As is reported and suggested in the following quote, when the actors directed their power toward the auditorium, they could change laughter to the shedding of tears in two consecutive scenes:

Naser e-Din Shah very much liked the performance of The Marriage of Belghaise. It was performed in takiyeh Doulat at least twice a year and Naser e-Din Shah and the women of the house, from behind the curtain of their box, laughed so loud that they could be heard from and as far away as the bazaar. In the same day […] and immediately after that, the event of Karbala and The Marriage of Ghasim was performed; this performance created a lot of shedding tears and it showed, indeed, the extreme power of the actors’ skill, who could easily make people crying and then laughing for two or three hours.14

Resemblance to character

In the past, the choice of actors to play certain characters used to depend on people’s images of that particular character, and because make-up was not used in taziyeh theatre, the actor should be similar to the character that they were going to play. Actors were chosen, therefore, in the first instance, according to their physical suitability for a role. A few characters in taziyeh are so famous that it is especially important that masters cast actors who can physically represent the people’s image of

12 See Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 394. 13 Benjamin, p. 395. 14 Bi nam, 1965, Taziyeh or Shbih Khani, Etelaate Mahaneh, quoted in Baizaii, p. 162.

139 them. Hussein, for example, had to be played by a strong, handsome man with a short beard. And Abbas, Hussein’s brother, had to be tall, with broad shoulders and physically fit. Abdolaheh Mostoufi has a long list of the image people held for the characters that they wish to see on the stage.15

Female actors

Shiite religious authorities had a two-fold reaction against taziyeh performances in general. On the one hand they were against it because, by showing human figures, it went against their religious belief. On the other hand, because of the religious characters in taziyeh performance and the events which were derived from a religious incident, it was considered a religious ceremony and was therefore informally accepted.16 But in either case religious authorities could still be true to their belief by opposing women acting, and to all intents and purposes the acting of taziyeh remained essentially an all-male profession.17

Even from 1938, when a new attitude towards modernism emerged in Iran and women were able to join theatre troupes and play regularly in theatre, taziyeh has still remained exclusively a male domain. Consequently women have never appeared on the taziyeh stage.18

15 Mostoufi, Vol. I, p. 288-290. 16 From the 1979 revolution in which religious government came to power in Iran, taziyeh is only allowed to be performed under strict control of its concept and form. 17 Different ideas and discussion about taziyeh performance credibility, according to religious belief, is a complicated and ongoing debate between different religious scholars from the beginning and still is a fresh debate among the clergies. All of them have the same shared idea about the role of women in taziyeh. For the beginning of these discussions in the nineteenth century see Baktash, ‘Taziyeh and its Philosophy’, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, pp. 96-120. 18 In the middle of the Safavide period (1501-1722), women dancers appeared in singing and dancing groups which performed in wedding and other celebrating ceremonies. About women’s taziyeh Berezine writes: ‘All these takiyeh theatres are basically public and are open to whomever wishes to attend; but the very wealthy, secluded during the period of the fast, sometimes install a takiyeh in the lady’s apartments of their homes and only invite close friends to performances: in these cases, all the actors are women.’ (Berezine, 298-299, quoted by Calmard, 1974, p. 95. See also Baizaii, p. 160.) In the Safavide period, as Tavernier writes ‘the men do not perform dance. The dancers are the young girls who dance in the groups that belong to men’ (Tavernier, p. 916.). The Sherley brothers, who were in Iran during the Shah Abbas period in 1596, write about ten dancers dancing in a ceremony in the Shah’s court in Gazvin. (The Three Brothers; travels and adventures of Sir Anthony, Sir Robert and Sir Thomas Sherely in Persia, Russia, Turkey and Spain, London, 1825, p. 60.) Almost two centuries later as Khleghi writes we have men and women dancers. (Roholah Khaleghi, The Story of Iranian Music [Sargozashte Musighiyeh Iran], Safi ali Shah, Iran Tehran, PP. 465-486). In Qajar period (1796-1925) parallel by traditional dancers – comedians groups in which men’s dancers played women’s parts, women’s dancer groups emerged who performed in public. These groups in

140 Actor’s wages

In the margin of the taziyeh of The Disobedient Son, as it appears in the Litten collection19, there is a note of the amount paid to each member of the taziyeh group:

Busurg 4 Rls. Safar 5 Rls. Shal Foroush 8 Rls. Tabbal [the drum-player] 8 Rls. Safar 2 Rls. Ali Haji 4 Rls. Ali Shemr 1 Rls. Gafgaz 1.50 Rls. Barley (for the horse) 1Rls. Miscellaneous 2 Rls.

From this list it appears at first glance that the drum player received the highest reward, which was paid to him and to only one other actor, Shal Foroush. According to the hypothesis that the music in performances was usually played by a group of musicians and not only by one drum player, we can guess that the wage paid to the drum player would be shared amongst the group of musicians , who were led, traditionally, by the drum player. Shal Foroush literally means ‘the cloth-seller’, and can be a family name which may indicate his present job. Once again, from this list we can guess that he is the man who provided the costumes and other staff for the performance. Without these two highest wages, the rewards seem much closer to each other. But it is interesting that the minimum that is paid to a man ‘for the horse’ was

addition to women’s dances, performed male dances with male costumes. These dancers gradually added some sort of dialogue in their songs, and then the first form of traditional Iranian comedy, which was performed by women, emerged. When women publicly appeared on stage with men in the beginning of twentieth century, women’s groups disappeared. Women’s taziyeh as a reaction against all-male taziyeh, emerged surprisingly early, in the Fat Ali Shah Ghajar period (1797-1834) and was performed until the beginning of the twentieth century in the houses of the Shah and of aristocrats and their relatives. However, this never meant that women shared the stage or auditions with men: in women’s taziyeh, all the spectators as well as the actors were women. And the taziyeh plays which they staged were usually those in which the principal characters were women. Female taziyeh did not become generally popular. (See Baizaii, pp. 160-61.) From 1938, or the beginning of the new era in Iranian history towards modernism, woman appeared in theatre troupes. These women were non-Muslim. Gradually female actors, regardless of their religion, were publicly accepted. 19 Litten, Wilhelm, 1929, Das Drama in Persien, edited by Friedrich Rosen, de Gruyter, Leipzig, Berlin, manuscript number 10 of collection.

141 the same amount which was paid to one of the actors, who played the role of Shimr, Hussein’s killer, the most hateful character from the spectators’ point of view. As the list shows, the name of the character played by this actor was placed beside his name. Therefore he was called Ali Shemr (Shimr) in the list. Unfortunately, the list does not mention to which character the highest wage was paid. Curiously, as far as the actors are concerned these rewards seem not to be based on talent or workload; for instance, Shimr’s character is as important as Hussein’s, in the Hussein taziyeh. However, it is still not clear in which taziyeh performance, where and when these wages were paid to actors.

What was paid to the actors by the master was in addition to what they could also receive from the Shah or organizer of the performance in the form of a garment (a traditional gift in Iranian theatre), which might be of a considerable value if they had given a good performance. Benjamin, in his report, adds to his comments on the work of the actor who played the role of Abbas (Hussein’s brother) with ‘the admirable historic ability’ a mention of the present offered to him:

I was told that before leaving the building the Shah sent a costly garment to Mirza Gholam Hossien [Hussein], the actor who had presented Abbass [Abbas], in token of the royal appreciation of the admirable historic ability he had displayed on this occasion.20

Actors’ jobs outside the theatre

Despite the professionalism of taziyeh actors, their readiness to join the troupe for a performance throughout the year, and their availability to work in the busy time during two months of the year, Moharram and Safar, acting in the taziyeh has remained only a part–time occupation. Before and after these two busy months, some of the taziyeh actors join the comedy group, Siyah Bazi, although they are still available if a performance is arranged by the master. Some have their own private profession that usually has nothing to do with acting. Acting is a precarious trade: inadequate opportunities, not to mention a volatile political climate, make full-time performing virtually impossible. In a country usually under the control of dictatorships, taziyeh troupes, like all other theatre groups, tend to be the first social organisation to be closed down during periodic political turmoil.

20 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 397.

142 II. Character

Actor’s figure as character

Because of the large number of spectators and the size of takiyeh theatres or open spaces, which could accommodate at least thousands of spectators according to eyewitness accounts, the actor as the character is a figure who, in the first place, should be visible from a distance and should be recognized as the character.21 Takiyeh Doulat, for instance, could hold about twenty thousand spectators while its stage could accommodate several hundred actors, musicians and singers. Other takiyeh theatres, which followed the style of Takiyeh Doulat, could accommodate thousands of spectators. The temporary theatres, which might be located anywhere that could accommodate thousands of people – a large garden, public square or open space with a platform in the middle – were still on a large scale and meant that characters needed to be seen from a distance. Even private houses were not exceptional, where the people sat partly in the yard, partly on the balconies, partly at the windows and partly on the roof of the house or the roofs of other houses around the courtyard.22

In light of these demands, taziyeh characters can be recognized by five characteristics: the color of their costumes, their behaviors, their manner of talking, the tone of their voices and finally their playing space or location. Since the characters in taziyeh, despite their historical or fictional background are allegorical figures, their characteristics illustrate and put more emphasis on their allegorical roles. i. Color and ornaments

The first and most obvious sign that characters are presented and are recognized as a certain specific figure is the colour of their costumes or the colour codes which are represented on their costumes. Like the props, the colours of characters’ costumes are highly emblematic. The protagonists, or the sympathetic characters, are dressed in black, deep green and white. If they are wearing them, their turbans or shawls are also likely to be green. The antagonists, or the unsympathetic characters, are in red or

21 Oseley witnesses a drama in which ‘hundreds of women’ were presented (Ouseley, p. 166.), Lady Sheil witnesses ‘several thousands’ (Lady Sheil, p. 126.), Gobinou witnesses 20,000 (Gobineu, p. 176.), Matthew Arnold 4000 (Matthew Arnold (pp. 276-277), and Wills witnesses 5/6000 women (Wills, p. 207). 22 ‘The ‘house’ was completely filled, and there must have been several thousand persons present’ (Lady Sheil, 1849-1853, pp. 127-128.)

143 orange or else colors in the red range such as brown. The antagonists also tend to wear dazzling ornaments and jewellery. Baizaii notes that ‘Shimr’s character is especially significant with his raised sleeves and skirt and if he takes off his armor is red all over from the feather on his hat to his boot’.23 Green refers to the fertility of nature and life, white is light, purity and innocence, black is agony, sorrow and grief, and finally red refers to brutality.

Actors, representing female characters cover the lower part of their faces and below with a black veil, which hangs loose down to the waist. Their heads are also covered with a black shawl wrapped tightly above the eyebrows. Only their eyes are visible:24‘Zeinab, at the opening of the scene, appeared shrouded in a thick mantle and seated on the earth, bemoaning her fate […]’25

It is therefore, perhaps, a little strange that William Francklin should note, in connection with the play of The Marriage of Ghasim26, which requires several young boys to play female role that good-looking boys were especially chosen to play women’s parts. Perhaps his reference is to very young boys who were not required to be veiled.

Mostaufi gives interesting details about women’s, boys’, girls’, angels’ and finally demons’ costumes:

The women’s characters wore long black costumes (rarely flowered), with other long scarves, which cover their hands; other shawls covered their faces in such a manner that only their eyes could be seen. If the women characters were protagonists, they were covered in the same way but in red. Girls’ and boys’ characters had long Arabic costumes in black color but, their faces were uncovered. The angels wore cashmere costumes with crowns. For showing their invisibility, their faces were covered with very thin cloths in white or blue flowered. […] Demons’ costumes were colored and spotted. […] the women use bracelet and necklaces with part covering the breast and anklets.27

23 Baizaii, p. 154. 24 Ibid., pp. 121-122. 25 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, pp. 391-92. 26 Francklin, p. 249. 27 Mostaufi, vol. I, p. 289.

144 ii. Behaviour

Modes of behaviour clarify the distinction between the opposing factions: the sympathetic characters are gentle, cool, composed and undisturbed, while the unsympathetic are harsh, crude, rough, brutal and rude. iii. Way of talking and the tone of the voice

The allegorical role of characters can also be distinguished by their way of talking or their tone of voice. In this regard, another important factor in identifying the characters becomes evident. On the taziyeh stage, regardless of whether they play the roles of the virtuous/protagonists/sympathetic characters or villains/antagonists/un- sympathetic characters, the actors should have strong vocal ability. They often deliver their texts in an exaggerated, emphatic manner, or else work on the melody or rhythm of their speeches. In all cases they must distinguish their characters so that they can be identified by the spectators easily from great distances. For example Benjamin describes one Hussein character:

Magnificent were the pathetic tones in which he [Hussein] sang as it were his own requiem; the words rang forth like a trumpet to the farthest nook of the vast building...28

Unsympathetic characters or antagonists, those who play persecutors and villains, declaim or shout their dialogue in a violent, shrieking voice and express themselves in an ugly, tedious singsong tone. The roles of tyrants such as Shimr and Yazid offer the most scope for declamation. They may use verse or prose, whereas the virtuous usually speak exclusively in verse. Protagonists tend to speak in a lyrical voice, chanting their lines in an appropriate vocal tone to represent individual characters, as well as to convey specific feelings at particular moments, by which the necessary emotional atmosphere is created. In a sad or painful situation, for instance, slow melodies and rhythms are used, while in a happy atmosphere, the character changes his tone to a fast rhythm and reveals his emotion and his emotional situation to the spectators. Therefore, as the circumstances change the actor, by using different melodies, can express certain feelings, which establishes an inner communication with the spectators. In addition, the meter of the poetry, its melody and rhythm,

28 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 393.

145 announce the events which are going to happen to the character, as well as representing the new situations in which the characters will find themselves.29

Therefore, the actors who play the roles of protagonists are required to learn the complicated Iranian musical system, to be able to sing different modes, tones, melodies and rhythms, according to the character that they play. The actor also has to learn the Iranian metrical system of popular poetry which has been used in the manuscripts. In this regard, Elwell-Sutton has found thirty-eight different meters in the taziyeh metrical system in which the metrical system of popular poetry can be found.30

As well as representing specific feelings and emotions, the musical tone plays another important role in predicting the development of characters during the course of the action. A character may sing his text in a tone in order to signal that he is to undergo a change of heart. In the play of The Martyrdom of Hor, for example, Hor, as the head of one of the opposition armies fighting against Hussein, should be considered as an antagonist. Hor, after a hard struggle with his conscience, changes sides and joins the ranks of the virtuous. Thus from the outset, even though he will not go over to the opposition camp until the second scene of the play, he sings his lines/text in musical tone, in the same way as the sympathetic characters. iv. Playing space

The playing space is used in a conventional way, as a further means by which characters may be recognized. The centre of the stage is of particular significance and the protagonists are usually ‘blocked’ in that area. Should the action require them to move, they invariably return there, to the principal focal point of the dramatic action. This arrangement, in which the main characters hold the centre and are surrounded by their enemies, also has a deeper significance: it reflects the situation of Hussein and his family and friends at Karbala, surrounded by their enemies and cut off from water

29 In the Iranian musical system there are many different styles or music modes. The music mode, in Iranian language, is called dastgah [system]. As mentioned each dastgah creates a certain emotion. Thus each mode can create emotionally certain situations that are supposed to be created by certain moment or certain character. Hor, for example, sings in Iraq; Abbas, in Chehargah; prayer is sung in Kurdi. Iranian musicians acknowledge taziyeh as the preserver of Iranian music, in the religious situation where playing music in public had been prohibited after the Arabs’ occupation of Iran. (See Khaledi, pp. 145-155.) 30 Elwell-Sutton, L,P., ‘The Literary Source of the Taziyeh’ in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, pp. 167-181.

146 in the heat of the desert. This is the central event from which the other stories, indeed all the taziyeh dramas, spring.

Thus the centre acts as a principal impetus. As when a stone is thrown into the water, the main event creates concentric circles that weave and create ever-increasing circles around it. These circles spread out so far that they embrace the whole theatre and even its surroundings. For instance, during the performance the chorus starts from the centre and is responded to the actors and then spreads to the spectators. As the taziyeh drama ends, the theatre extends into the outside world and the spectators, now actors themselves, leave for other ‘stages’ to encounter new ‘audiences’.

Female and child characters

In a taziyeh performance, female characters are played by young actors and boys whose voices have not yet broken, and child characters are played by children the same age as the characters require.

Children are not only used to playing characters their own ages but they also play other characters such as the Jinns’31 and angel characters. Ouseley mentions the nine- or ten-year-old children on the stage who played the characters of the Jinns.32

In the taziyeh performance, women’s and children’s characters play a crucial role. They are everywhere and always present: singing, crying from sorrow after losing their friends and relatives, complaining of thirst, saying farewell to loved ones who are going to be killed, receiving the dead and finally sitting in mourning. They are, indeed, the permanent dramatic elements who, despite their emblematic roles as mother, sister, wife, daughter, and little children, play the role of providing a strong motivation for the male characters’ actions. In addition to all these roles, they are simultaneously responsible for creating the dramatic atmosphere in two temporal senses. On the one hand, they give depth and rich colour to the process of the drama, in the dramatic present time. On the other hand, they are left behind by the male characters (who are usually killed) to carry their pains, memories and experiences to the future. They are

31 Jinn (also djinn, genie, jen, and jinn) in Muslim mythology spirit with supernatural power which is able to appear in human and animal form. 32 See Ouseley, p. 169

147 the signs of the past, the conscious witnesses and therefore mourners of the present and the creators of the future who hand over their consciousness while they act on the stage as their present specific characters. They are the historical consciousness of the mass historical unconscious. In other words they are living memories and aware of the distant past beyond the conscious experiences of the present. They come alive in the present and carry this consciousness into the future. This is the revolutionary function of taziyeh and particularly women. It is only with their presence, indeed, that the drama can be carried from the past to the present and can leap forth from the present to the future through a dialectical relation between, Then and Now, which continuously and simultaneously roll back and forth. And finally women are also the spectators, not only the spectator/character/witness on the stage but the spectators who, instead of being in the auditorium, are on the stage as a part of the dramatic action. This is another dialectical function of the taziyeh actors in which the physical gap between the stage and the auditorium is bridged. All these functions, therefore, make the role of women and children more complicated than those of their male fellows.

Some of the roles of women’s and children’s characters may seem similar to the role of the chorus in ancient Greek drama.33 Indeed, they both share the same emblematic role but it can be noted that the role of women and children in taziyeh goes far beyond that simple role in ancient Greek drama. These multiple roles woven into the other characters and the whole drama make the roles of women and children in taziyeh much more complicated than that of the ancient Greek. In ancient Greek drama the development of characters reduced the role of the chorus so far that it eventually disappeared. But in taziyeh women’s characters play a crucial role without which the taziyeh would loose one of its most important elements.

33 The chorus was a crucial part of ancient Greek theatre. It accompanied the actors and was on the stage to narrate the story, give opinion of the plot, and keep the rhythm of the play through various details such as gestures, postures, movement, costumes, masks, stage presence, music and singing. (See:The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2005, 6th edition. Copyright © 2005, Columbia University Press.)

148 Doubling

Many roles in taziyeh are doubled and played by one actor. Wills suggests that many of the roles were doubled but he does not provide any examples.34 For instance, an actor might initially play the angel Gabriel and then join the Shimr army as a soldier. Abdolah Mostaufi writes:

In the professional groups, which performed their work all year around and in different parts of the country, the actor who played the role of Abbas, played Hor. The actor of Ghasim played the role of Yousef and the actor of Imam [Hussein] played the role of Prophet as well. On the other hand, in the opposing group, the one that played Shimr, could play Monghad Abn Marvah or even Hares. That one, who played Yazid, played Ebne Sad. But sometimes that they all were needed in one scene in which there was no choice but to have more players.35

As we notice, each actor could play in only one category. They become expert in playing certain roles.

III. Acting

Three factors are keys to understanding the complicated meaning and role of all the theatrical elements used on the stage of taziyeh theatre, including the elements such as character, actor, spectator, and objects, in establishing the dialectical communicative dialogue and creating the intense mutual relationship between the actor, spectator, character and other theatrical elements. All the theatrical elements in this method of theatre can be explained through these three notions, which give it a unique and complex structure:

1. Iranian mysticism: its mystical concepts, characteristics and point of view

2. the cultural meaning of codes, references and allegorical emblems

3. politics, which necessitated the substitution of codes, references, allegory and parallel

representations of actions.

34 Wills, p. 212. 35 Mostaufi, p. 290.

149 Although the two latter factors are notable and play an important role in creating the form of taziyeh theatre, Iranian mysticism, its mystical concepts, characteristics and point of view play a crucial and significant role in this regard. According to these mystical concepts, flexibility and simultaneity are two essential and momentous elements, and through them we can comprehend the timelessness and placelessness on the stage of taziyeh theatre.

The mystical point of view

As explained in Chapter Two, Iranian mysticism held concepts and notions according to which ‘everything and everyone is one and the one is everything and everyone’ and ‘all existence [is] from one single origin’.36 These mystical notions of flexibility and simultaneity shaped and developed into all the theatrical elements in taziyeh and their references to such elements as characters, objects, the dead, animals, time and place, on and beyond the stage.

This concept, indeed, has another characteristic, which refers to different dimensions of any single being: despite its individual and single character, in different conditions any being may demonstrate different actions/faces. These can be interpreted to be good or evil, according to the position of the observer. In other words, each being has a different face/character, which can even be contradictory to what is seen. This single face/character, indeed, is the reflection of that single One/God, where in different circumstances only some part/face/characteristic of it can be observed.

As far as the stage is concerned, the actors/spectators/objects present their different dimensions – as live phenomena and as one. They represent themselves as they can be seen objectively, and their roles flexibly go beyond their objective figure to simultaneously represent other dimensions allegorically as coded signs. This is the point at which flexibility and simultaneity, two crucial elements in taziyeh theatre, emerge and once again develop into two other very important elements of this method of theatre: time and place.

36 Nurbakhsh, 1996, p. 92.

150 Time and place

From the mystic perspective, human beings live in a no-time and no-place with no beginning and no end. Hence in taziyeh, the actors, and the characters, and ultimately the spectators can be in the real world, in a dream world, and at the same time, in the past, the present and the future. This is not to say that the plots make no reference to any specific timeframes. Rather, the past, present and future co-exist, without any one of these taking precedence over the others. This situation allows dialectical dialogue to be established between the actor, spectator and character, between actuality and fantasy, and fact and fiction. On this basis whatever can be imagined can happen on the stage, and an intense relationship between the spectator and actor can be built. The complex dynamic relationship between actors and spectators, which unites them as one, and their relationship with the characters, means that two independent, but intimately interrelated worlds are generated by the performance: an internal fictive play-world, set in the past, and an external community-world, set in the present. These two worlds co-exist and operate simultaneously which according to their dialectical relationship affect each other. This notion of simultaneity and flexibility and the dialectical relationship between its different dramatic elements constitutes the originality of these performances and sets it apart from other methods of performance. An acknowledgement of this notion is vital to a proper understanding of both the principles that inform the dramatic action and the theatrical techniques employed in its performances.

In a sense, it is misleading to speak of the past, present, and the future, indeed of any notion of unity of time. Specificity of place, or notions of unity of place cease to exist. Time and space are framed in such a way as to be read entirely flexibly: the theatrical performances range back and forth in time and place, to the extent that we might say that they are set then and now, everywhere and nowhere while these contradictory times and places develop and affect each other.

Therefore, all places are represented simultaneously on the stage37 and the actor/spectator can be in the past as the character and as him/herself, an actor/witness/spectator in the present, in real life. They can be in the theatre, on the stage as themselves or in a fictional world – the desert, in this place or that location –

37 See Wirth, in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p.33.

151 simultaneously. Place and the role of non-place in taziyeh creates the co-occurrence of personages far removed from each other spatially as well as temporally, allowing figures who historically belong to a different time to address each other.38

An actor can change places and go to different locations in a minute by traversing the stage or by turning around and coming back on the stage again to play himself in real time and place. The character can kill his victim in the battle field and mourn for his victim in the victim’s tent with the victim’s relatives and friends and at the same time join in singing as the actor and spectators. This flexibility and simultaneity of non- time and non-locality creates the ground on which the complex dialectical communication between the actor, spectator and character is established. It is exemplified in the taziyeh of The Marriage of Ghasim, for example, when during the wedding ceremony, sweets are offered to everyone – the spectators, actors, and characters – despite their positions on one side or another, as enemies who are going to fight and ultimately kill Ghasim.39 In a series of different stories that are essentially non-tragic or even implicitly comic, the mourners are replaced by companions, guests or the family and friends of the protagonists.

Time and place operate with absolute flexibility, and events involving different people at different times and in different places simultaneously and present, past and future are united.

The notion of timelessness and placelessness is reflected in a further more complex example: the non-time ground which allows the body of the dead and the live characters to take part in the stage dialogue and share the sorrow of a friend, or weep for other family members who have been massacred. No attempt is made to represent the dead character as a ghost or spirit: to all intents and purposes the dead and the living co-exist, and neither make-up nor costume will suggest otherwise. However, the theatrical context makes it clear that this character is dead and he is accepted as one of the dead.

38 Beeman noticed this notion of time. Ibid., p. 27. 39 Humayuni, Sadeq, 1979, ‘An Analysis of the taziyeh of Gasem’ in Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, P. 19.

152 Objects and symbolic meaning

On the basis of this notion of flexibility and simultaneity, objects, as theatrical elements, are also subject to different references and allegorical meanings. Thus, whatever is used on the stage of the taziyeh theatre carries an allegorical meaning in the dialectical dialogue between the actor and himself, the actor and other actors, the spectator and his/herself, the spectator and other spectators, and the actor and spectator. This dialogue goes beyond the objective status of the object.

Objects, the dead and animals

On the one hand, objects, the dead and animals are considered as objects, the dead and animals or whatever they objectively are. Yet on the other hand they act as live phenomena or characters. In this sense, everything is real, in terms of the shared emblematic code that frames the dialectic dialogue between the stage and the auditorium. Thus objects, the dead and animals can play flexible roles as:

• allegorical emblems of value within the shared code • live characters • themselves as they objectively are • facts or ideas.

This shared emblematic code relates to the actor-spectator’s dialogue, which can allude to different references. For example, a riderless horse can be the sign of the death of its rider; a character running to find a black shirt means a loved one has died, which can change a happy situation to a sad one; putting a white cloth on a character’s shoulders demonstrates his/her imminent death. In addition to all these, the same sort of emblematic representation may also apply casually. That is, any prop can be used allegorically, on an ad hoc basis, and this practice may extend to props which also carry embelmatic meaning. It can even extend to the stage, when the stage can be a city one moment, and then by turning the actor around it can change to a different city or country.

These flexible, emblematic values can go so far that a contradictory expression can be delivered. For example, a glass or a basin of water, beyond its objective and embelmatic meanings, can allegorically refer to the sea or a river, such as the

153 Euphrates; water refers to thirstiness or the thirst of the people in the desert in the middle of the day, and even life; Karbala refers to an objective fact, the desert, but at the same time it also refers to solitude, fatalism and death, in which human beings in general, and dramatic characters in particular, are trapped. A chair can be a chair at the same time as it can be a fence, a border, a city in the distance, a tree under whose shade one can rest and even a mountain that can be climbed. A stick can be a general stick, a sword or a tree which casts a shadow.

These embelmatic meanings can even involve human characters. The character of Hussein, for example, beyond his dramatic characteristics, represents bravery, and Shimr carries an embelmatic meaning of oppression, cruelty and tyranny, while Ghasim stands for innocence. All these references are not cultural but theatrical.

These transitions, flexibility and simultaneity of emblems are crucial factors, part of the very fabric of the performance, and a constant and inevitable factor in the ordering of a performance which might last half a day. In this plane not only can animals and birds speak, but the dead are considered as live characters while still being considered as dead.

The dead, the severed head

In The Taziyeh of Hussein, Hussein talks inside his tomb. In the play The Captives in the Court of Yazid, Hussein’s severed head is brought on a golden tray, to the court of Yazid and put on the table. At one point the head starts to speak. There is a hole in both the tray and table through which the head of a live actor appears (while he is hidden beneath the table), to replace the dummy head originally carried in.

Similarly a dead body or the dismembered head of a murdered man can talk, laugh, or even cry. In The Captive Woman, Hussein’s dismembered head talks40 with his little girl in the prison of Caliph Yazid in Damascus (in Syria). In one of the taziyeh plays about the stories of Halaj’s life, a cooked chicken flies off plates on a dinner table and out of the room.

40 In the taziyeh-comedy of The Stomach Ache of Yazid the head of Hussein also talks.

154 Animals

Animals, portrayed by actors in full animal skins or masks, are anthropomorphized and made to talk, dance, laugh, and weep. For example, in the taziyeh of The Desert of Karbala, a pigeon paints his wings with blood, a sign that indicates blood or death, and then flies to the remote city of Medina to tell Hussein’s family of his death. In addition, animals, as well as objects, are personified. Ali Akbar’s horse is called Oghab, or Eagle, and Hussein’s horse is called Zuljanah, which means ‘two sides’ implying that horse (and rider) are able to turn (and fight) on two (i.e. every) sides. Hussein’s sword, not inappropriately perhaps, is called ‘two edges’ and although it cannot speak Hussein has a monologue with it.

Ground/soil

The taziyeh principle of considering everything as a live element is extended to the ground/soil as a live phenomenon as well. In the taziyeh of The European Lady, for instance, the massacre of Karbala is already over. All that can be seen is a silent plain with dead bodies on tombs. The bodies, weapons still in their hands, are covered in wounds. To one side of the stage a high tomb stands alone. It is the tomb of Hussein, whose body is also seen, stretched out upon it. It is noteworthy that the image of the dead bodies, arrows still in them, lying on top of their tombs, is in itself a succinct example of the notion of simultaneity: at one and the same time the soldiers lie dead on the battlefield and (later) in their tombs. Two white doves hover over the tomb. A caravan enters with camels, soldiers, servants, and a young lady on horseback in European costume. She dismounts and orders her servants to pitch her tent, so that she may rest. Her servants start to pitch a tent, but wherever they drive a pole into the ground, blood springs up.

Love

As previously mentioned, love is a further important expression in Iranian mystical philosophy and an element which must be closely considered to understand taziyeh theatre. In the mystic point of view, love is captured in the expression ‘love draws the drop [human being] into the ocean [God/absolute love/truth]’.41 According to this

41 Nurbakhsh, 1996, P. 42.

155 concept, while everything is unification of consociation between him/her/itself and other/others, it still has an abstract identity/nature and reference to Love/God/Truth as the origin. This identity, love, is the only means through which a being can reach to his/her origin: God/Love/Truth. At the same time that god can only be identified by other/others: him/her/it/them.

Therefore only through the process of love can one draw a line between him/herself and Love/Truth/God and be released from oneness and become united with the other/beloved/others in the first place and then with God/Love/Truth. Through this experience or act one can cross all frontiers, and exceed all limitations between him/herself and God/Love/Truth. According to this concept, love is the life/existence and simultaneously the impulse of life. The paradox of mysticism is that on the one hand existence is different manifestations of God, and on the other hand humans – as a part of existence – suffer from being separated from the origin. This paradox creates the impulse of life through passivism, which is other aspect of unification of contradiction in mysticism.

On the stage of taziyeh, love is the only element through which the plague of a fatalistic situation becomes endurable and the theatre – with all its dramatic elements – and its concepts are united. Thus, in the performance, love, rooted in actor/spectator’s unconscious, is present in the air and is reflected on everything and everywhere and everyone. Everything and everyone is breathing in love. All – actors and spectators, and characters, enemies and friends – despite their different positions, are lovers. They wish to be lost in the other/others. The characters’ relations to other/others, despite their situations as father, mother, sister, children or friend, are shaped through loving each other. Consequently the actors display an antipathy towards hate, since hate may result in or lead to murdering other/others, which (according to mystic philosophy) is against human Godlike nature. This antipathy is reflected in taziyeh acting, which can be called self-alienation from the role. That is, in the most serious scenes, the actors who are playing the murderer’ characters, for instance, stop their actions as the characters to show their objections/consciousness towards dramatic actions which are against human nature/Godlike face and demonstrate their sympathy to the victims as the actors. They then go back to the roles they are acting, performing the jobs they are obliged to do. Actors change their

156 positions in an extremely flexible way as victor/murderer – their roles – by demonstrating their emotions/awareness as human beings through crying for their victims, for example, despite their present professional position as actors in the theatre and on the stage who are performing the roles. This gives the actor legitimacy to remain always on the stage as an actor/human being and show his own emotion in different scenes, regardless of the subject matter. This complex acting consequently imposes itself on the theatre and is accepted as a theatrical convention which fundamentally shapes a theatrical acting method. In the course of time this accepted convention in acting becomes the nature of the theatre, while gradually it is extended to the auditorium to create a complex web of complicated relations between the actors, spectators and characters, time (past, present and future) and the fictional and real world.

The actor

Unlike the Stanislavsky method, according to taziyeh convention and its practical method of acting on the stage, the actor presents a complicated and multifunctional role and remains in different positions simultaneously. First and foremost, the actor plays, presents or incarnates an allegorical character. Secondly, he represents a code/agent or abstract idea – bravery for instance as with Hussein, or villainy as with Shimr. Thirdly, he presents/expresses himself as the conscious observer. It is through this role that the actor watches himself and can judge his own situation as well as the other character/characters that are playing against him and react to both. Fourthly, he presents the mourner. And finally, as the actor’s most important role, he presents himself as a human being. Indeed, at certain moments the sentiments and attitude of the latter may not be in alignment with those of the former roles – and he may show this discrepancy.

For example, the actor may play the part of a virtuous character. In this case he may represent bravery or innocence as an abstract idea. Then, at the same time, he can be a spectator in the role that he is playing and observer of the dramatic events in which he – as the actor – and the character which he is playing are participating. In this situation, the actor is in the same position as the spectator. Further, he can be the mourner of the event, which belongs to an event in the past. Finally, and constantly, he can remain himself, in the present time and as an independent human being with

157 his own attitudes, point of view and values, who is able to convey his own emotion/ consciousness to members of the audience.

For example, the actor who is playing the tyrant is going to kill his victim. He may react to the oppression of his victim before killing him. He leaves his role, ceases momentarily to ‘be a tyrant’, physically turns away towards the audience, sympathizes with the spectators and shares his emotion and perspective on the events with them. Then he returns to his character, and continues his role as tyrant. The actor, as character, then, kills his victim, cuts off his head and shows it to the spectators – as if he and the man who had moments earlier cried bitterly for the fate of his victim were two entirely different people. Then once again, the actor may sing with the spectators and other actors and share their chest beating and sympathy for the victim, and so he remains, still, in the present/real time with various links to actual life. This allows him to chat with a friend during the performance, or show courtesy to a fellow who is seated among the spectators. During the performance, he may laugh, sit on the stage, have a cup of tea and smoke a cigarette when he is not acting and is waiting for his turn, or watching the show as a spectator. And all these behaviors do not create any confusion for other actors or spectators.

The actor, indeed, is reading himself and reacting towards different positions consciously. In other words, acting gives the actor the possibility to read himself freely.42 The crucial point which should be noted here is that what is called character in taziyeh always has a two fold part: fictional and allegorical simultaneously.

The actor–actor relationship

Occupying different positions, indeed, is a cycle in which actors, as humans, are in the centre. The gap between two actors is bridged when they – as characters – are in the same, or even opposite positions, yet they can communicate with each other as conscious witness and/or sympathizer of an event, for example, they can cry, laugh or sing together as a part of their consciousness to the situation. But the actors’ role still goes beyond the stage. They communicate simultaneously with the other part of the theatre: the spectators.

42 When Halaj said ‘I am God’ he did not put himself in God’s position to act as him. He was God.

158 Spectators

Unlike in a piece by Ibsen or Chekhov where the audience plays a relatively minor role, in taziyeh theatre the spectator is an absolutely indispensable and important part of the performance. Spectators play an even more complicated role as we observe from the actor’s position and they even complete a portion of the dramatic action in which they become actors and actors become spectators. Spectators, in this position, play five main roles: spectators are clearly both inside and outside the drama and in the present and the past simultaneously and form a dialectical relationship with these elements.

Firstly, spectators are on the plain of Karbala with the characters. In this role they may represent the forces surrounding Hussein and his followers or they can incarnate the mourners by expressing grief. In a series of different stories that are non-tragic or are implicitly comic, the mourners are replaced by companions and guests or the family and friends of the protagonists.

Secondly, they play the role of witnesses to the events of the past. Through this role spectators can judge the incident and react against it. In this role they may show reactions towards the killers and murderers through violent action – beating the enemy/enemies or throwing stones at them, for example.

Thirdly, they still present their role as conventional spectators in the present time who can show sympathy for or react toward the play being performed on the stage.43 Their sympathy/reaction signals their consciousness. The communication between these spectators who play multiple roles and oscillate between the past and the present simultaneously clarifies the complexity of taziyeh spectators’ situation. But either way the spectators’ role goes beyond themselves: they communicate simultaneously with the other side of the performance, the actor, and share their consciousness with him who is also playing similarly multiple roles.

Thus, according to taziyeh, in discussing the various roles played by and relationships established between actor and spectator, in which actors and spectators are continually

43Beeman noticed these roles in the spectators. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 26.

159 engaged throughout the entire performance, it is important to draw fundamental distinctions between the following:

(i) the actor as: (a) the actor himself, as a human being in present time (b) character, fictional/allegorical (c) code/agent or abstract idea (d) conscious witness to the event in the past. (ii) the spectator as: (a) human being (b) fictional/allegorical character (c) witness to the event in the past time.

It is through all these different roles that a multiple and complex web between actors and actors, actors and spectators, and spectators and spectators are created and dialectical exchange and communicative dialogue between them is established. Indeed, the dialectical relationship, the shared experience, conscious and mutual communication between participants, on the basis of their collective unconscious, create a unique intensity in the theatre which is achieved during the process of performance towards an individual and collective awakening in the climax of the play.

Actor–spectator

Benjamin offers the following description of the actor–spectator complexity:

Hossein was represented by an actor named Mullah Hossein who was draped in massive robes of green and cashmere inwrought with gold; his head covered with a large Arabian turban. During most of the performance of this day he sat with head bent, wrapped in melancholy reflections on the approaching and inevitable doom. His brother Abass [Abbas] – by another mother, the son of Alee [Ali] but not of Fatimeh – was presented by Mirza Ghoam Hossien, who wore a Saracenic coat-of-mail of wire links terminating in a white tunic. His head was protected by a grand helmet of olden time, graced with plumes. He was a handsome cast and finely shaped, presenting altogether an impressive impersonation of the romantic hero of whom we

160 read in the picturesque pages of oriental poesy. Shemr [Shimr], one of the leaders of the enemy, was attired in similar fashion.44

Now a trumpet gives warning of the entry of the main character:

Then there is a trumpet sounded, and last of all, on a priceless steed, comes the principal tragedian, clad in dark green turban and green flowing robes (this color is sacred to the prophet and his descendants). As […] [Hussein] appears, the audience all beat on their breasts. He waves his drawn scimitar. ‘Houssein’ they scream with a wild yell of welcome. ‘Oh, Houssein! Woe for Houssein!’ They shout, and at the second syllable of the name, every breast is struck with savage fervour.45

As we read that the actor ‘waves his drawn scimitar’, this is not just as the character but the actor as himself, as a human being who represents an abstract idea or code (bravery) through a fictional/allegorical character (Hussein) who he is going to play later. This is the moment at which the spectator and actor, both, as human beings, have dialogue and communication. The actor ‘waves his drawn scimitar’ and spectators ‘shout’ and beat on their breasts. This is a dialectical reaction or dialogue: action which causes reaction, and the reaction causes further action and this action – reaction as dialogue can go on forever if this mutual response continues. This dialogue creates a ground for the actor and spectator to communicate. This dialectical reaction even goes beyond the communicative dialogue between the actor and spectator and encompasses the experience of the character: in the scene quoted above, the spectator is watching the actor who is not still acting. The actor is going to play his character later in the next scene, but spectators shout ‘Hussein’. This is the same dimension through which spectators challenge themselves, while they play the role of character and at the same time, actor or spectator, simultaneously. This moment can be the moment when they both – actor and spectator – show the same conscious reaction against or in favor of a character or a situation.

At moments of extreme intensity, when the conflict on the stage reaches its climax, the actors may chant their parts in groups and the chorus is used to heighten the pathos of the situation. For example, when Hussein leaves his wives and children for

44 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 391. 45 Wills, p. 210.

161 the battlefield, from which it is certain he will never return, there is a responsive chorus involving all the participants. It is indeed the awareness which is shared:

Given that, in the earliest antiquity of Greek tragedy, the chorus suppressed all the characters of the drama to almost nothing, and that, following that, the chorus diminished in importance, gradually becoming completely subordinate to the individual narrators, then to the actors, in the same way Persian drama is grafted, almost imperceptibly at first, on the hymns chanted in the first 10 days of Modarram, in honour of the martys of the family of Ali … People who are not yet terribly old remember perfectly times when the taziyehs were limited to the appearance of one or other of these sacred characters who wept about their misfortunes and their suffering; little by little the number of these actors has grown.46

Spectator–actor

When an actor playing a tyrant, for example, is committed to do violence to Hussein or a member of his family, he (the actor as human being) bursts into tears as a signal of his consciousness to the situation and does what his role requires of him, tears streaming from his eyes:

[…] Almost always one sees Yazid (the usurping caliph) himself, the wretched Ibn-i-Sad’ (Yazid’s general), infamous Shemr ( Ibn-i-Sad lieutenant) at the moment they vent the cruelest insults against the Imams whom they are going to massacre, or against the women of the Imam’s family whom they are ill-using , burst into tears and repeat their parts with sobs.47

The spectators feel sympathy for both the actor as a human being and the character/victim. Indeed, they share the actors’ consciousness. Spectators, at this time play a complex role. On one hand they may stop playing the role of spectator and become a character and so sympathize with the character or the fictional/allegorical situation which has occurred in the past. On the other hand, they may share their personal consciousness/feelings/emotions with the actor, who is expressing his emotion/consciousness on the stage of the theatre at the present time or perhaps a little of both at once. But either way, spectators share the actor’s experience and emotion

46 Gobineau, p. 362. 47 Arnold, Matthew, p. 278.

162 without any surprise. This is when the Western observer expects the spectators to be ‘surprised’ and ‘displeased’ by this interruption to the acting and is surprised if the public ‘on the contrary’ accompany this action and go along with it. This is the reaction of Matthew Arnold, for instance:

The public is neither surprised nor displeased at this; on the contrary, it beats its breasts at the sight, throws up its arms towards heaven with invocations to God, and redoubles its groans.48

This situation may occur in different scenes. For example, when a character is saying farewell to his family to go to war and be killed. The character’s reaction towards his situation raises the spectators’ reaction and response. Thus a shared consciousness between the character and spectator is achieved.

This situation may happen again when the actor leaves the character’s role and reacts to the character’s situation and sings as the actor and not as the character. Other actors join him at first and finally the audience joins them, even to the point of singing along in chorus. This is one of the scenes which was witnessed and reported by Benjamin:

Suddenly on the solemn silence, like the thrill of a bird at night, came the voice of one of the children, low and solemn, then rising to a high, clear tone indescribably wild and thrillingly pathetic, – a tragic ode of remarkable effect and power. He who has once heard that strain can never forget the impression it made, although altogether different from the minor chords of European music. Other voices gradually joined in the chant, one by one, until a sublime choral elegy pealed over the arena with such an agony of sound that it actually seemed as if these actors in this theatre scene were giving expression to their own death-song.49

This communication or sharing of consciousness may be established even at the climax of a fight or at a moment of death to create an opposite reaction toward a tragic situation. The actor may leave his role and make a joke about his enemy and his brutality. A joke may turn the spectators’ tears to laughter and both sides – actors and spectators – share their emotions and consciousness of the situation. Spectators know that the actor has momentarily stopped acting and that he is joking in real life and as a

48 Ibid., p. 278. 49 Ibid., p. 389.

163 human being, and accordingly, the spectator reacts and shares the actor’s contemporary feeling and both sides may laugh at what was said.

This sharing of experience and emotion and the conscious dialectical relationship is not unique to tragedy. It also takes place in comic scenes. Here, once again spectator and actor respond – as human beings and independently, within their respective roles, as spectator and character – to a moment of parody by laughing. In the Taziyeh of Omar, for instance, when the character of a buffoon makes a fool of Omar and the spectators start laughing at his deed or his words, the actor steps out of his character and as an observer, shares with spectators his own feeling as a human being, and laughs at what he has said or what he has done as the character. Then, as buffoon/actor, he goes back to play his fictional role as a dramatic character and continues his role. The buffoon, in the same play, may leave his role and even talk about his feelings about his own deeds as a buffoon. And again he goes back to his role.

This shared experience, consciousness and mutual communication suggests the possibility that the performance bridges the gaps that may exist between the actor and the spectator or stage and auditorium. It establishes a dialectical relationship between the actor, spectator, and character in which the actor and spectator are both participants in the same dramatic event and also conscious external observers of it. This close, intense relationship between the actor and spectator is, indeed, the secret of people’s enthusiasm for participating in these performances. It should be mentioned that these shared feelings are accidental, spontaneous, and partly improvised and depend on the actors/spectators and performance situation. Moments such as these can constitute a climax in the performance:

Magnificent were the pathetic tones in which he sang as it were his own requiem; the words rang forth like a trumpet to the farthest nook of the vast building, and the response came in united wailings from the thousands gathered there. Beginning in a low murmur like the sigh of a coming gale, the strange sound arose and fell like the weird music of the south wind in the rigging of a ship careening in a dark night on the swelling surges of an Atlantic storm. For several moments sobs and sighs, and now and again a half-suppressed shriek, swept from one side of the building to the other. Strongmen wept; there was not a dry eye in the loggia where I was seated,

164 except my own; and I confess that I was not altogether unmoved by this impressive scene.50

This action may start from the spectators in the auditorium and extend to the stage and be responded to by actors.

The role of coded signs

The intense relationship between actor and spectator is also constructed through coded signs and dramatic elements such as allegorical emblems, cultural and dramatic references, and dramatic gestures and colors, which can be exchanged between the stage and auditorium.

Red, for example, can represent love, blood, war, anger, brutality; white can represent peace, death and eternity and green represents fertility, nature and life. In the realm of gestures, the placing of hands on the forehead represents deep sadness, thinking and wondering.

Even other dramatic elements such as dialogues, and shared conventions, subject matter (myths, legends), music, props, costume as well as the carrying of the playscript in the actors’ hands have an allegorical meaning. All these signs are used to establish the vital, intense dialectical relationship between actors and spectators.

The playscript, or papers of the text

When the actor carries the dialogue on paper in his hands this has an allegorical meaning. On the one hand, from the spectator’s point of view it emphasises the physical and objective presence of the actor as a human being, not as the dramatic character. On the other hand, it also places emphasis on keeping the actor at a distance from the character, stressing the actors and spectators as two live, present facts that can have a direct dialogue without an intermediary or mediator.51 In this position, the character as simultaneously fictional and allegorical elements plays the same role as a

50 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 393. 51 In these scripts every entry and exit is recorded with the greatest precision. The scripts that taziyeh actors carry on loose leaves only bear their own lines, their individual ‘part’. Only the master, who is always on the stage, carries a copy of the complete text, which includes an index of the first words of each part, enabling him to make quick reference to any actor’s role. Apart from taziyeh written in Farsi, there are also taziyeh plays written in Turkish, Azerbaijani, Arabic, and even Urdu. But those in languages other than Farsi lack originality and are almost echoes of the Iranian taziyeh.

165 coded sign, which is used to establish the communicative dialogue between the actor and spectator. 52

All these dramatic elements, conventions and cultural references that occur in the process of performance can be considered as coded signs, which are exchanged between the actor and spectator and play the role of an agent, mediator or shared language. In this regard these performances are ‘a carpet of codes’53 and ‘paradise for a semiologist’.54

This carpet of codes enables both actor and spectator to share their experience and emotions with each other, and to establish an intense dialogue. Thus a profound expression of shared emotion between the audience and performers (and both as human beings) occurs at certain moments and turns performers into observers and observers into performers as two equal sides of a single dialogue which are finally united as one. At these moments the complex interaction and interplay of reactions between the actor and spectator unifies the sense of public and private reality, and this sense fuses with the experience that is occurring on the stage.

In fact, these codes play the role of words in conditions where words cannot be heard because of the vast open performance site. Even in a closed theatre, these signs can carry a deeper meaning with profound roots in history and culture. These coded signs or allegorical language can always be used to establish dialogue between the performer and audience, regardless of the political or social situation.

For example, instead of a hero saying: ‘I am going to be killed’, a shroud and black shirt are used to convey the message: the master puts a shroud on the victim’s shoulders and the victim’s relatives look here and there, to find their black shirts which they take out and wear.

In fact, of course, actors and spectators know that they are in a theatre and that the event is enacted. But the black shirt, indeed, is an objective figure of death and gives a deeper meaning to death on the stage.

52 The professional actors know most of their dialogue by heart. However, it is part of the taziyeh convention that they keep the written dialogue in their hands and refer to it if necessary. Therefore the actors do not try to pretend that they know it even if they do, and no attempt is made to conceal the script. (See Baizaii, 1965-66, also Morier, 1812, p. 159.) 53 This expression is from Roland Barthes quoted by Wirth. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 34. 54 This expression is from Wirth. See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, P. 34.

166 So the point at which the characters find the black shirt, for instance, and take it out from a case, can create a critical moment through which communication between the actor and spectator is established.

This complex role can be explained as follows:

(i) The victim’s relatives or friends look for the black shirt. They find it and take it out. (ii) The character reacts to the black shirt. (iii) The actor receives two signals. The first is the reaction of the character towards the code. The second is the code itself, the black shirt. It is a signal of warning. The actor shares the character’s experience and reacts to the character’s reaction.

The spectators, aware that they are in the theatre and that the actor is playing a role, receive four signals: firstly the reaction of the actor toward the code; secondly, the code itself; thirdly, the reaction of the character toward the code; and finally the shared reactions of the actor and character.

The spectators receive these signals and react to the reaction of the actor. In other words, the spectators receive the signals and share the actor’s experience and react to the actor’s reaction. The actor’s action is essentially what prompts the spectator’s reaction. The reaction of the spectator at this moment is intense and strong. The imagination of the spectator always creates an event more powerful and affecting than can be portrayed in the performance: spectators might cry out, weep and shout. These are a signal of awareness of the situation. The actor shares this moment and reacts to the spectator’s reaction. He may cry out or weep.

The actor and spectator, both, share their experience together. This is the moment in which the cycle of consciousness is completed and intense dialogue between the actor and spectator has been instituted, tapping into the spectator’s own experiences of death.

The black shirt, for instance, is an objective figure and an allegorical emblem of death not only on the stage but in real life. In addition of Hussein as an allegorical figure he is the symbol of bravery, not in real life but on the stage. The black shirt has its origins in the actor/spectator’s culture and has a serious meaning in real life, while a

167 hero (Hussein, for instance) who is killed on the stage is just a fictional/allegorical character and his killing is a part of the play.

Yet, when the tragic event signified by the black shirt is enacted on the stage (for example the scene when the Abas, in The Taziyeh of Abas, goes to fight and is killed), the reaction of the spectator toward the scene is passive, even cool. In this case the spectator may even remain absolutely calm and show no reaction at all to the event on the stage. In such cases, the reaction of the actor is the same as that of the spectator.

IV. Text/manuscript

At this point it is appropriate to look at another complex element in taziyeh theatre – the text/manuscript – and examine its dramatic values.

To examine the values of taziyeh manuscripts from the point of view of stage director and mise en scène, as the only material which the masters have in their hands and can refer to, it is necessary to look at the taziyeh manuscripts more closely and find out what they offer to the masters. In this regard, some taziyeh manuscripts translated by Pelly in the nineteenth century will be discussed, and we will look at how the manuscripts present the complicated and complex form of taziyeh texts in general.

Before discussing the texts we need to look at some facts in taziyeh writing: authors, and the number of manuscripts.

Authors

The authors of taziyeh manuscripts are generally unknown. There are a few manuscripts which carry the name of their authors according to the language and the style of the poetry. It is perhaps more accurate to say that they have been written by multiple hands. An author or a poet, who can be the master, may have written the taziyeh manuscript in the first place. But manuscripts are subject to constant revision, adaptation and changes by masters and possibly by the actors, according to the time, place or circumstance of performance. They may also have been rewritten, rearranged and revised.

168 The number of manuscripts

Although hundreds of taziyeh manuscripts have been collected by Iranian scholars and Europeans such as Alexander Chodzko, (1828), Colonel Sir Lewis Pelly, (1859– 1862), Wilhem Litten, (1929) and Enrico Cerulli, (1950–1955), a large number of manuscripts are still uncollected and it is possible that thousands exist, held privately by various masters. The taziyeh manuscripts are kept in the collection called Jong (literally ‘collection’).

Writers and poets began writing about the events at Karbala from around 1501, when the Safavid Dynasty (1501–1722) was established in Iran and Shiite was proclaimed as the state religion, a time when the religious ceremonies of Muharram and the mourning rituals were supported by the government and officials. These efforts were the first step towards taziyeh manuscript writing. Among the poets, Mohtasham Kashani (1499–1586) should be mentioned. He wrote very powerful elegies through visual and emotional language. This is one example of his writing:

Again, what is this uprising among all creatures of the world, this mourning, lamentation, weeping, tragic song, this great Rebirth which reaches from earth to the Empyrean without the bowing of the final trump? Can the Sun have risen in the West, has this riot and confusion Penetrated every atom of the universe? It would be no metaphor To call this “Resurrection here-and -now’, this general and public arising named Moharram.55

55 Beny, Roloff, 1975, Persia, Bridge of Turquoise, Thames and Hudson, London, 1975, p. 195.

169 Over about two centuries poem writing was developed into more dramatic forms by poets such as Ga’ani (1807–53). In the following poetry, for example, we can observe this significant development. In this example some kind of dialogue, in the form of question and response, has replaced the usual explanatory form of poetry:

What rain down? Blood! Who? The Eye! How? Day and Night! Why? From grief! What grief? The grief of the Monarch of Karbala! What was his name? Hussein! Of whose race? Ali’s! Who was his mother? Fatima! Who was his grandsire? Mustafa! Who was it with him? He fell a martyr! Where? In the plain of Mariya! Karbala! When? On the tenth of Muharram! Secretly? No, in public! Was he slain by night? No, by day! At what time? At noontide!

170 Was his head served from the throat? No, from the nape of the neck! Was he slain unthirsty? No! Did none give him to drink? They did! Who? Shimr!56

Beside these poems, story writing about religious events in verses, which had begun to develop even before the Safavid dynasty, had a significant effect on taziyeh dramatic writing. Khavaran Nameh (The Story of the East – the stories and tales about Ali’s wars), for instance, was written by Ibn-e-Hassan in about 1426 – seventy-five years before the Safavid dynasty. And Hamleh Hidari (the Haydari Attack, which consists of the stories about Muhammad’s and Ali’s lives) was written by Bazel in the early sixteenth century. Both are worthy of mention. Among these writings, Ruzatul’Shohadah (Garden of Martyrs), written by Mullah Hussein Kashefi, about 1500 or the beginning of the Safavid dynasty, was significant. In his work, Kashefi used both prose and poetry and concentrated on the events of Karbala. In addition to these writing, the stories narrated by story tellers in tea houses, based on Iranian ancient mythology and using Iranian lyric traditions, as well stories by religious story tellers, had become popular after the Arabs conquered Iran, and these created an appropriate background for taziyeh manuscript writing.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, very much the Golden Age of taziyeh performance, taziyeh texts and dramatic dialogues consisted of a few disparate episodes with long monologues. These were more appropriate as text to be read by a narrator than as scripts to be performed by actors. While they could never be freed from the influence of epic literature, these became texts which, to a far greater extent than those of, say, Shakespeare, are blueprints for performance. Once actors and

56 Brown, Edward, G., 1956, A Literary History of Persia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, vol. IV, p. 180.

171 masters began to explore the possibilities of performance, taziyeh manuscripts gradually developed and grew into poetic texts with dramatic dialogues.57

But as far as the audience was concerned, language and dramatic dialogue was of minimal importance. As noted earlier, the acting in performance, codes and symbols communicated the meaning of the drama to the large number of spectators across vast distances.

It was not simply mere physical circumstances that constrained taziyeh performance, although it was one of the most important factors. On the one hand, there was a need to be highly visual, and in the process deliver deeper cultural meaning to the reader. On the other hand, the prevailing political climate was also a factor. Politically, the fewer words spoken, the less likely the chance of offending an autocracy that cruelly punished the expression of oppositional ideas. In taziyeh, for the audience verbal dialogue is virtually eliminated and has almost no role according to the spectators. It is replaced by dramatic actions, the codes, emblems and allegorical elements that are clearly understood by the audience. In spite of this, the verbal dialogue is used by the master and actors as a guideline to create their dramatic actions; and words, therefore, play the role of music, creating dramatic atmosphere, and giving colour to dramatic action. This musical mood can be noticed in the combination of verse and prose used by actors on the stage.

But despite these dramatic functions, manuscripts found their complex dramatic form, through the performances and over time. While the languages of taziyeh manuscripts are on the whole simple and free from Arabic words, they are full of suggestion, allusion, reference, imagery, metaphor, and allegory which lend colour and vitality to the verse.58 On the other hand, they can represent a complex form of writing: the form that in the first place, plays the role of a vehicle in which the stories, legends, narrations, allegories, dreams, fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, come together and become alive as one. It is the ground on which form and concept are deeply interwoven, and the text eventually once again provides a space and an opportunity

57 Despite the Siyah Bazi performances in which dialects are used most of the time for creating laughter, in the taziyeh dramas on the stage and consequently in the taziyeh manuscripts, on rare occasions are seen and if dialect is used, it is for different dramatic purposes. For example, if the character of a simple shepherd managed to be regarded as virtuous or good, then he may use the particular local dialect to give a good impression to local spectators. 58 As far as verse in taziyeh is concerned, it had thousands of years Iranian poetry as its background.

172 for actors to activate their own forgotten memories and experience, touch their historical unconscious and approach their innermost complicated character and express themseves.

Comedy, Gorize or digression

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, taziyeh sources and themes expanded from the exclusive emphasis on the tragedies of Karbala and martyrdom stories to encompass different historical subjects and even different comic themes. These themes, which were called Gorize or the digressions (literally ‘escape’), were performed by buffoons and their entertainment groups as a part of the main tragedies.

The majority of these themes, which were entirely comic and largely irrelevant thematically to the main story, were intended as relief from the heavy atmosphere of taziyeh tragedies. However, they frequently comment on aspects of the main story and mock the action of principal antagonists. Despite these comic interludes, which were sometimes performed before the main taziyeh, there was some taziyeh comedy to amuse the spectators. For example, the comic taziyeh of The Illness of Yazid is about Yazid who gets diarrhea and has to go to the toilet more and more, and the doctors’ treatments do not help him at all and cause the reverse result.59 In The Taziyeh of Omar his drunkenness and his funny behavior is ridiculed. Both comedies are reported by Wills.60 Other comedies include Salmon and Belghis, Khoruje Mokhtar, Yusef and Zulikha, Fatimah Zahra is Going to a Wedding, and Yahya the Son of Zkari.61 These comedies were performed in Takiyeh Doulat by Mirza Bagher Moeen al Baka,62 or other comedians such as Esmail Bazaz with a large group of buffoons and entertainers. Etemad Al Saltanah, who was an official member in the court of Ghajar, reports on one of these performances:

[…] last night in Takiyeh Doulat the taziyeh of ‘The House of Solomon’ was performed and the ambassadors of England and Italy with their members were present and watched it. After this performance, Esmail Bazaz the well known buffoon, with about two hundred other buffoons and entertainers with the false white beards and various Iranian and European costumes came in

59 Wills, p. 212. 60 Wills, pp. 218-222 61 It is the same story as written by Oscar Wilde under the title of Salome. 62 See Baktash, and Ghafary, 1350/1971.

173 Takiyeh and did the dirty acts. Taziyeh performance had been worse than any European comedy.63

The following report of the performance of The Marriage of Belghaise played in the takiyeh theatre was critical because the performance made women laugh and their laughter was heard from outside their boxes. According to the critics’ religious belief, not only women’s laughter but their voices should not be heard by strangers!

Last night, in Takiyeh Doulat, the taziyeh of Hazrat Fatima in the Marriage Party [The Marriage of Belghaise] was performed. The actors have made it too disappointing. Last night’s performance was especially disgusting. The actors were yelling and playing that rude, which the loud sound of the women’s laughter were trebly heard from their boxes.64

All these plays were influenced by Siyah Bazi and the reflection or even a copy of these popular comedies which have never been written down. As previously mentioned, important in these works were the words and the improvisations of the actors, specially the Black character. Improvisation have been, indeed a safe way to replace the text, which could be referred to by authorities and might create trouble for the performers. For example this is a scene in which the son of Ibn Sad is mourning over his father’s corpse which is a copy of a scene of Siyah Bazi played by the Black character:

O you Mokhtar, the brave man, I fear you, You have made me an orphan. (He picks up the head of his father) O my dear father, I am ready to die for your ass-like head. O my father, I am ready to die of your boar-like teeth.65

63 Etmad al-Saltaneh, 1379/2000, The Dairy of Etemad al-Saltaneh, Amir Kabir, p. 591. 64 Ibid., p. 132. 65 See Ale-Mohammad, Reza, February 2001, ‘An Iranian Passion Play: taziyeh in history and performance, the elision of the faith and theatricality in a traditional Shiite prospective’, in New Theatre Quarterly, Volume XVII, part 1 (NTQ 65), p. 63.

174 Form and concept

Narrating a certain story and slipping from one subject to another, through the dramatic stream of consciousness and dialectic association of ideas, necessarily denies any lines, borders and limitation between the past, present and future, locality, reality and fantasy, fact and fiction, reality and dream, life and death, actuality and allegory and finally sorrow and joy. This structure technically represents the form of taziyeh texts.

Thirstiness takes the theatre to the desert, the desert to death, death to the mourning ceremony, the mourning ceremony to sorrow, sorrow to joy (a wedding ceremony, for instance), joy to birth (birth of a new baby as the ultimate result of marriage), birth to life, life to brutality, brutality to justice, story to story, drama to drama, performance to performance, observer to performer, performer to spectator, spectators to actor – and this stream can go on forever. To clarify this it helps to analyze the story line and the concept of The Taziyeh of Solomon, for example.

Solomon hears about Sheba. From what is said to him about her characteristics, her personal and social situation, he falls in love with her. Sheba, on other hand, experiences the same situation and from what is said about Solomon, his power and glory and his situation, she falls in love with him and is determined to meet him. Solomon invites her and they arrange a wedding ceremony. Everything occurs normally, as we read in Benjamin’s report. But the concept goes further than its naturalistic presentation: marriage reminds Sheba of the tragedy of the marriage of Ghasim. Solomon arranges the performance of The Marriage of Ghasim. The characters/actors then, engage in another drama, a drama-within-a-drama. In this play in a play, the decision of Ghasim to go to fight, reminds Hussein of the inevitability of Ghasim’s death. Death reminds Hussein of life. Hussein arranges for Ghasim, his brother’s son, to marry his daughter before Ghasim departs to fight and be killed. Marriage means, allegorically and practically, birth of a ‘new born’ baby and a baby means life and the future. In the drama of The Marriage of Ghasim, mourning for the dead mixes with the joy of the marriage. Everyone in the theatre participates in the ceremony: friends and enemies, actors, characters and spectators.

175 The drama goes on: Solomon and Sheba fade into the stream of consciousness to be reborn in the future. They will be born through the life and death of Ghasim. Ghasim’s child, indeed, is going to be united with Solomon and Sheba’s own child. Ghasim is killed on the stage and his dead body is brought back to his weeping bride. The clear message, however, has already been sent to the future through both marriages, and today, indeed, has joined to tomorrow. The participation of the spectators and the actors in ceremonies and drama joins the past to the present and marriage – as a metaphor – joins the future to the present.

Timelessness and placelessness, and the juxtaposition of the past, present and future in taziyeh manuscripts, play an important role. Regardless of the subject from which the play departs, it can go back and forth. As can be observed in the previous example, the story of Sheba belongs to the past, or before the events of Karbala. When Sheba reaches the court of Solomon, they order the play of The Marriage of Ghasim to be performed. This is an event which historically has not yet occurred. In this play-in-a-play the actors – Solomon, Sheba and their guests – change their position from actors to spectators and observe an event which belongs to the future. Therefore, the stage becomes physically a part of the auditorium and the physical gap is bridged between the stage and main auditorium. The Marriage of Ghasim is an event which occurs on the eve of the final attack on the camp of Hussein. This ceremony of marriage is absolutely contradictory to the event which is going to occur in the desert in which everyone will be killed. Despite the tragic drama of The Marriage of Ghasim, on the stage, we are still in the marriage ceremony of Solomon and Sheba, which can still go on and the actors change their position once again. This juxtaposition and coexistence of the events (fact and fiction), and the playing with contradictions and similarities (regardless of the time, place and events), and their unification into one body, are only one example of the complications of taziyeh theatre.

Through this elaborate structure, all kinds of plots can be employed. For instance, The Taziyeh of Tamer Lane, which is about the invasion of Iran by Tamer (1393-1469), or The Sacrifice of Ishmael by Abraham, where the story belongs to the ancient world, and even a morality play such as The Disobedient Son which is about a boy who opposes his parents’ decision and who is changed through the experience of observing

176 an event. All these themes begin as an independent theme and finally join to one of the events of Karbala. According to the situation, the performance may return to the first theme. Benjamin noted these facts when he witnessed The Marriage of Solomon and Sheba:

What relation Solomon held towards the house of Alee [Ali] may appear to the general reader somewhat nebulous and remote. But the poetic fancy of the Persian dramatist seems to have has no difficulty in bringing Solomon into the play of the taziyeh, and that too in a manner, which seems natural enough to the oriental mind.66

In all these plays, the character is living in the past, the present and in the future simultaneously. The past is used to address the present and the future. The character/actor who is playing a double role and addressing others can be spectators, in the real world, or a past audience in the fictional world. But in addressing the past the aim is towars the present and the future. In taziyeh manuscripts, words, paragraphs and dialogue follow each other without any stage direction and it is the reader who should recognize where the characters are and in which period.

To provide clear ideas about this complex style of the taziyeh manuscript writing, the manuscript of The Rescue by Hussein of Sultan Ghiyas from the Jaws of a Lion will be examined closely. In this taziyeh, the play opens with two scenes simultaneously. In one scene, Hussein is in the middle of fighting with his enemies on the plain of Karbala. In the other, Sultan Ghiyas, wishes to go hunting, prepares himself and departs.

SLTAN GHIYAS: The vernal affect of Nu Ruz [New Year] is seen everywhere. The hills and valleys resound with the merry noise of partridges. […]

The character introduces himself:

[…] I am the Monarch of India, and feel inclined to roam in the fields. I am Ghiyas, and my desire is to set out hunting. O God I can not understand what mystery is involved in this craving, and why this desire involuntarily draws

66 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 401.

177 me to this plain. O my chosen slave, arise, and bid my sportsmen mount at once. THE CHOSEN SLAVES: O slaves of the Shah of Hind, at this moment Ghiyas the hunter has proceeded alone for the purpose of hunting. Mount O ye valiant sportsmen of his majesty, this instant, as he is unattended.

Ghyas’s inevitable desire for hunting reminds us of the previously mentioned Sheikh San’an’s constant dream, according to which he leaves Mecca for Rome and along his journey goes through significant experiences and changes. In the next paragraph, without any stage direction or explanation, we are in the hunting field. Ghiyas finds a deer.

One of the notable points about the taziyeh manuscript translations is that the translators were the witnesses to some if not all taziyeh dramas. Yet, some of these translations, as discussed in chapter one, are ‘eyewitness accounts in dramatic form’, and were for Gobineau and Pelly at least, an attempt to recreate the performance for their readers.

As argued previously, they were apparently aware of the unusual and strange form of the manuscripts and of the scene changes, but they were unfamiliar with the taziyeh writing style. Using western concepts and conventions that they were familiar with, they tried to give the directions and draw lines between the dialogues and add to the translation’s directions such as ‘to audience’ to make the text more understandable.

In none of the original Iranian texts are directions written by the masters or authors. In the original Iranian texts and manuscripts, what is usually mentioned are the moments when an actor is going to address another single character, such as ‘to Fatimah’ for instance, when there are other characters on the stage. Therefore, whatever is written by the translators as stage directions are their words:

GHIYAS (observing a deer): A thousand thanks, for to-day fortune is on my side. A new gazelle has arrived, and it is time for me to be on the alert. […]

From this monologue, indeed, despite Pelly’s concern, there is no need to explain the stage direction and everything is said by the character’s himself:

178 […] I am searching for thee, O beautiful deer! […] where wilt thou go, O poor creature?

Once again, Pelly gives the stage direction: (The deer escapes and lion appears.)

But the monologue continues without any space and explains what is happening on the stage:

[…] What a wonderful change I observe in this transitory world! I find myself within the clutches of a fierce lion. What am I to do? Behold, I am trapped by fate. In place of the deer, I see opposed to me a lion. […]

During this monologue and between the lines, Pelly adds the stage direction such as: ‘(The lion roars.) […] (The lion roars again.)’.

Ghiyas, having lost all hope, calls for Hussein to come and help him:

[…] have favour on me, O Hussin, and make me happy! Come to Hind and deliver me from the claws of the lion. For the sake of the Kasim, the bridegroom, save me! For the love of the locks of Ali Akbar, come to my relief!

Following this paragraph, the next dialogue indicates a different scene – Karbala, where it is the angel who is speaking to Hussein and telling him that someone in Hind [India] needs him. From the dialogue it is evident that Hussein is fighting when the angel comes to speak to him:

THE ANGEL HATIF (to Imam Hussein): O Hussein, thou art engaged in war with this tribe, risking thy head for the sake of those thou lovest. In the land of Hind thou hast a friend in distress. He has become the prey of a lion, and is wretched and helpless. He calls on thee repeatedly for aid. Being a friend, relieve him.

Then follows some amazing dialogue: Ghiyas and Hussein take part in a dialogue that disregards the distance between them. Ghiyas explains his situation and asks Hussein to go and help him to be released from the lion. Hussein promises to do his wish. In the next dialogue, readers find themselves in Hind where Hussein is presented. Ghiyas wonders and is concerned about Hussein’s sorrow and his pale face, and also about the shroud around him:

179 GHIYAS: why, O lord, art thou so sorrowful? Why dost thou groan so, and why let thy tears fall like rain? Tell me why thou art so pale and unhappy, and why dost thou carry thy shroud about thy person?

THE IMAM: The less thou knowest of my condition the better, O Ghiyas! In the matter of love, it is not seemly to say much.67 GHIYAS: […] thou sheddest tears like spring clouds. Thou bearest dragger - wounds on thy body, more than a thousand scars in number. Thy stature should not be a mark for wounds of swords and arrows. The head of the king of kings is not the place for the edge of sword. Inform Ghiyas of this matter, O my lord, that he may be a nightingale in the garden and a moth in the assembly.

And all of a sudden, the spectators find out that this dialogue is taking place between a dead and a live character! Ghiyas forgets his situation and wants to hear the story. Hussein explains it. Ghiyas asks about the people who were with Hussein and Hussein remembers and tells of their situation in the fighting and the ways in which they were killed. The lion, listening, begs Hussein to forgive it. The character Hussein now separates himself from the character and calls the character’s name and speaks as a third person. These dialogues have multiple dimensions. The actor/human being and character are addressing other character/characters and the audience:

THE IMAM: I have passed over thy offence; but, for the sake of Hussein, do not mediate oppression towards the followers of Hussein.

Then the dialogue goes back again, to the first person:

Always be friendly to my supporters, […]

And once again to third person:

If any are disposed to be the foes of Hussein, be thou their enemy.

The lion insists on doing something for Hussein. Time changes to the distant past. It is the time before Hussein and his followers were killed:

67 This dialogue is one of the rare occasions in which Hussein is asked clearly why he is suffering that much and he answers.

180 THE IMAM: Come near to me, O lion, for I am distressed with grief. Listen, as I have a request to make.

Hussein says that what he wishes is that when his enemies cut his head off and leave his body under the hooves of horses and his sister, Zainab, sends for the lion to come to help, the lion delays and does not come to the battle field. The Lion asks Hussein to take it to Karbala. Once again, time and location change to Karbala after the fighting, when and where Hussein and all his family members have already been killed. Pelly adds the stage direction at the end of the paragraph ‘[The Imam proceeds…]’:

THE IMAM: Thy words make fresh again my old wounds. Come with me to the place of grief and calamity, and visit the plain of Karbala. Come, that I may show thee the bodies of my slain companions, and enable thee to distinguish friends from foes. (The Imam proceeds to the field of battle, and the lion follows.)

Hussein searches for the killed and calls them by name, one by one.

What am I to do, the slain are numerous! It is difficult to distinguish friends from foes. O, Ali Akbar, the headless, say, where art thou? O youth, why art thou far from me?

The dead answer and tell them where they are:

THE BODY OF ALI AKBAR: […] My body is lying prostrate from oppression; oh, come, come, my father, here I am.

Hussein and the lion find and speak with them and Hussein explains to the lion who they are and how they were killed. The lion has met all of them, and having found out about the entire story decides to leave Hussein. Now the scene changes to the moment when the sister and daughter of Hussein are looking for his body. They look around but they cannot find him. He appears and talks to them and complains about his suffering.68

In the taziyeh manuscript no line or even space can be seen to indicate shifts of location and time, and these moments are woven into each other and happen immediately after one another.

68 Pelly, II, pp. 54-65.

181 A further point which can be noted in taziyeh manuscripts is the multiple, simultaneous indications and addresses in one single dialogue. No sign can be observed when, for instance, a monologue – the character talking to himself – is finished and he begins to address the audience. In a single monologue one can observe multiple and simultaneous addresses to himself/character, to audience, to other characters, and as an actor, to himself/actor, to the character, to other actors and to the audience. And this occurs through a web of the actors, characters, and witnesses.

The first paragraph of The Taziyeh of the Death of Ghasim the Bridegroom or The Marriage of Ghasim is notable. In this scene Zainab talks to herself, while she mentions her own name and, indeed, addressing the audience/others:

ZAINAB: the heart-rending words of her brother makes Zainab distressed; she therefore repeatedly beats her own head with her hands. She has two lovely sons, two new-mustached youths, smiling like musk, both of whom she saw cruelly beheaded in this wilderness. And now the lot is cast on Kasim, the spouse, the bridegroom, to suffer martyrdom. Would to God Zainab had not been born of her mother to witness such things.69

The characters of the enemies are more complicated in terms of how they address others. When they are going to order a victim to be killed, they play opposite sides simultaneously. This is another part of the drama mentioned above.

Ibn Sa’s is the commander of the Syrian troop in Karbala who eventually will kill Ghasim. The way that Ibn Sa explains Ghasim’s situation is not the way that the enemy talks, although eventually he will go to order his soldiers to kill Ghasim. He uses kind words such as ‘thou hast very beautifully dyed thy hands and feet with henna’. In this manner he is on the opposite/friend side. Even at the end of the paragraph he calls Kasim ‘young man’, which once again is not the manner in which a murderer talks:

IBN SA”D: O poor, sad-hearted, tear-shedding Kasim, how pleasantly and comfortably art thou seated in thy bride-chamber! Thou hast nicely lain down on thy nuptial bed; thou hast very beautifully dyed thy hands and feet with henna. I do not know with what charms thy bride doth ensnare thee that

69 Ibid., II. P. 2.

182 thou dost not bestir thyself. I congratulate thee on this happy day, which, bethink we, thou wouldst like to continue till the Day of Judgment. Arise, young man, set thy face towards the field of battle. A young bride of spouse ill-becomes thee on such day.70

According to the eighteenth and nineteenth century eyewitnesses’ perspective on taziyeh dramas, and judging from the manuscripts translated by these eyewitnesses and hand written texts in the original language, thirty-four kinds of soliloquy and dialogue can be observed, according to the actor, character and audience. In the following categorization, all the quotes have been derived from the taziyeh manuscripts Sultan Ghiyas and the Lion and The Death of Kasim the Bridegroom, translated by Pelly:

Types of soliloquy and dialogue

Actor

• The actor talks to himself (soliloquy) as actor

• The actor talks to himself as a member of the audience

• The actor talks to himself as character

• The actor talks to the audience

• The actor talks to another actor/s as a member of the audience

• The actor talks to another character/s

• Male actor as female character talks to audience as male character:

ZAINAB: the heart-rending words of her brothers make Zainab distressed; she therefore repeatedly beats her own head with her hands […]. 71

• Male actor explains his feeling about the female character that he is playing: ZAINAB: […] Would to God Zainab have not been born of her mother to witness such things […].72

• Male actor talks to himself as female character:

UME LAILA: […] Ume Laila I am but a weak woman, destitute and without any help; a mother […] of a dead son, sighing and lamenting his death.73

70 Ibid., II, p. 11. 71 Ibid., II, p. 2. 72 Ibid., II, p. 2. 73 Ibid., II, p. 3.

183 • Male actor as female character talks to female character which is played by male actor.

Character

• Character talks to him/herself(soliloquy)

• Character talks to audience

• Character talks to other characters

• Character talks to his/her character not as the soliloquy but as a separate character (calling his/her name)

• Character talks to both (character) him/herself and audience

• Character talks to both him/herself and actor/audience

• Character talks to actor/character

• The character separates him/herself from the character and as the third person calls the character’s name and talks to other character/characters and actors/spectators:

KASIM: […] O hope of thy people, come and save Kasim, who is merged in his own blood! […] Oh, bring out the marriage-couch from the decorated chamber, for Kasim has returned from his journey prosperously! Tell the bride to come out to meet the bridegroom, that she may observe how her beloved is deluged in blood! ZAINAB: (To Kasim’s mother): Come, for the fates are against thee; thou hast become desolate! Arise! Put on black, for thou art sonless. Thy cypress is down with the axe of tyranny! The newly married son is covered with gore. KASIM’S MOTHER: Alas O Musulmans! Alas for this cruel and unjust event! Oh! Heaven after all has caused the enemy to prosper! O God, it was but to-day when I decorated his nuptial couch, and in a few hours’ time I am made to lament his death!74

In the lines mentioned above, we can observe a complicated twist from present to the past and from the character to the actor and from the actor to audience and back again to the character. At the beginning of the dialogue, the event is considered present. Therefore, the character calls on the present audience to help save Ghasim! Indeed, this is the actor who is calling for the audience’s help. Then, the drama switches back to the fictional world to become a dialogue between Zainab and Kasim’s mother.

74 Ibid., II, p. 16-17.

184 Once again, we are taken back to the present time/real world, and the audience is called on. And then again the character/Kasim’s mother begins a soliloquy in the fictional world.

• The female character played by a male actor talks to herself as a female character:

In the following example in which a male actor talks to herself as female character, it can be noticed once again how the character swings between the character and the actor:

ZAINAB: O God, I hope Kasim’s mother will not come to know this! O lord, how hard it is for a parent to be suddenly deprived of a grown-up son! Oh!75

Suddenly we have the actor who is talking by addressing the character that he is playing:

[…] Oh! Woe be to Zainab! Woe be to Zainab! She has become a shroud- woman for martyrs!76

• The male actor as a female character talks about a female character.

SUKAINAH: (Weeping over the corps of Akbar): O dear brother, I did never hearing rejoice in thy wedding banquet! 77

• Characters sing a song together as characters and at the same time as actors: FATIMAH AND KASIM SING TOGETHER: O’ Aliakbar, where art thou? How thy absence is felt by us!

They continue, but this time as the actors:

O dear one, thy seat is quite vacant in this delightful abode! O God let no youth ever suffer disappoint in his projects […].78

• Characters sing together as characters and at the same time as actors.

Opposite/other character

• The character/antagonist – aware of his character – talks to another character/s as antagonist/hero

75 Ibid., II, p. 13. 76 Ibid, II, p. 13. 77 Ibid., II, p. 8. 78 Ibid., II, p. 10.

185 • The character/antagonist – aware of his character – talks to audience as antagonist/hero

• The character/antagonist – aware of his character – talks to himself as antagonist/hero

• The character/antagonist – aware of his character – sympathizes with his opposite character/protagonist and talks to him/the protagonist: SHIMR (to Hussein): O flower of the rose-garden of creation, I wish thee joy! May the marriage of Kasim be attended with happiness! Such a marriage-feast as has been held by thee to-day has never been witnessed any time! I wish thee many happy returns. In short, having congratulated thee on the new connubial tie, I beg thee to send his highness, thy son-in law, to fight with us in the field. 79

• The character/antagonist – aware of his character – sympathizes with his opposite character/protagonist and talks to the audience

• The character/antagonist – aware of his character – sympathizes with his opposite character/protagonist and talks to himself

• The character/antagonist – aware of his character – sympathizes with the actor

• A character addresses an object (e.g. his sword), the dead or an animal as if to another character.

In this context, objects, the dead, animals and even the cut parts of a dead human body are all treated as live phenomena with human emotions to which they can be addressed.

In the taziyeh of Martyrdom of Hussein, for example, at a moment of high emotional intensity, the night before he is to ride out into battle and meet his death, Hussein addresses his sword as follows:

Zulfaghar, O Zulfaghar, O Zulfaghar. You have been with me all my life And witnessed everything I have done. You have witnessed the massacre of all my children, my family and my friends And the way this affected me

79 Ibid., II, p. 10.

186 Zulfaghar, O Zulfaghar, O Zulfaghar The sun will see her reflection in your blade And you will see justice done. Tomorrow the sun will shine on an even brighter blade You have seen that I have never shown any fear of death And that I have only ever drawn you from your sheath for just purposes. And only in the interest of justice have I ever taken step. You have seen that I have mocked death and laughed in its face. Our story, yours and mine, is the story of human dignity. I am going to fight the forces of darkness I was and have become The sun, reflected, on your hilt Tomorrow the sun will sit and see herself in the mirror of your blade And will shine on it a thousand times more brightly Dying with dignity is a thousand times more to be valued than living in disgrace You have always been my witness And tomorrow will be my judge.80

The limited significance of spoken words in a vast theatrical space where many of the thousands of spectators are unlikely to be able to hear them has already been noted. Nonetheless, a speech such as this aptly demonstrates that it is from this text that the actor shares experiences with his character: it is the text that tells the actor what his character is feeling, experiencing or wishing. It is in this respect that the text plays a vital role in the process being played, and ultimately in establishing the dialogue between actor and character as an allegorical element.

Once again, as the above fragment shows, although the text seems simple and understandable, it is in fact a combination of sophisticated ideas and simplicity that contain the complexity and multidimensionality of taziyeh in all its aspects. In this fragment, for instance, the writer plays with the elements of ‘sword’, ‘character’ and ‘sun’ as three single allegorical characters/witnesses, replaces them with each other, and finally unites them as one. In this regard the human (e.g. Hussein), who is a reflection of Sun/God/Truth, and the sword/human, by fighting against dark forces

80 Unless otherwise stated all translation from Iranian are by the author.

187 can reflect the Truth, which is a part of the human him/herself. Through dying in this way he can consequently unite with it: dying means a release from all darkness to unite with the Truth.

Noticing these points in the manuscripts makes it clear that the conventions used on the stage and the method of acting follows this distinctive style of writing. It is the taziyeh manuscripts that play an important role in allowing the actor and master to perform it as it is played on the stage. In contrast, the style of writing in taziyeh manuscripts is the reflection of the very method of acting and staging of the character.

V. The taziyeh text/manuscript on the stage

In order to stage his work and reach his aim of exceeding all borders and boundaries, and to bridge all the gaps in the theatre, the master builds up the form of his performance by a combination of devices and arrangements which can be listed as follows: combining different sketches, episodes, scenes and plots from a range of taziyeh texts for the purpose of putting emphasis on a particular theme according to the physical and social situation of each performance; using a round stage with no curtain separating the actor and spectator or the stage and auditorium; using no scenery, no lighting, no sound effects; removing the identity of the props and costumes; using coded signs, gestures and symbols with multi-meanings and references; using music as an announcement and a warning sign; and finally, creating realistic/naturalistic scenes.

Opening

The performance may begin with a parade, the chorus or music, or all at once. In the opening scene, without any interval, spectators suddenly find themselves plunged into the plot. Almost all the spectators know the story, but the facts are not the issue. The master’s crucial role is to play with actual contemporary fact and allegorical/historical story/fiction simultaneously to create a dialectical exchange between present and the past. He intends, then, to touch the participants’ – actors’ and spectators’ – historical unconscious, to guide them towards an individual and collective awareness through the process of performance to their final awakening in the climax.

188 Using the bare stage with no scenery and scenography 81, make-up82, sound effects or lighting can be considered part of this realistic arrangement, through which the past/story/fiction can be joined to the present/real world. However, each performance is a unique journey for the participants. Like the birds in The Conference of the Birds, participants discover their true selves, unite with others and the world/God/Truth/Love as one, just as Halaj did when he shouted out ‘I am God’. This is the essence of the mysticism that is working in the theatre.

Lighting

Lighting is not used in the auditorium, and the spectators and actors are visible and act in the same light. In daylight or at night time the lights which illuminate the stage and the auditorium are the same.83 No curtain separates the audience from the platform or the setting. In this regard, even the presence of the master on the stage and the holding of the papers in the actors’ hands are ways to emphasise actuality. The carrying of props such as chairs or mattresses onto the stage by the performers themselves and the master, and the way actors help during the performance are a part of taziyeh staging.

Music

If music is used, it is not used merely to complete, accompany, create atmosphere, follow, or replicate the mood of the action. Music has its own independent character and is another code or emblem used in communication. It gives the performance plasticity and flexibility. The musical interlude may be used to indicate scene changes or as an announcement for an event or as a warning sign for what is going to happen during a performance. This role is the same as that in real life when, for example, news is going to be announced to the public or for the gathering of people at an event by a performance group or even by the authorities. Music is played before the play as

81 The similarity between these performances and Jerzy Grotoweski’s Poor Theatre, despite their differences one as a popular theatre which is performed for a huge number of audiences and the the other as an elite theatre which is performed for a small group of spectators, is considerable. See Jerzy Grotoweski, 1968, Towards a Poor Theatre, Methuen Drama, Great Britain. 82In comedies, however, heavy make up and painted masks are used. Masks are used to represent the demon or jinni. Painted masks can be used in tragedies as well. They are made from pulp and glue and are usually two or three times bigger than the normal human face. Animal masks and heads are the same size as natural. To represent animals such as lions, actual animal skins are used, which is worn by an actor. 83 Jerzy Grotoweski particularly indicates the effect of the light on the spectators’ side: ‘[I]t is particularly significant that once a spectator is placed in an illuminated zone, or in other words becomes visible, he too begins to play a part in a performance.’ Ibid., p. 20.

189 an introduction, at turning points in the action, at moments of high emotion, during fighting, to heighten conflict, or at moments when the scene is to change, and finally during intervals.84 The musicians are located in one corner of the theatre, and are visible to everyone. In professional groups, who move from one place to another, music is used for the same purpose: to announce their performances and summon spectators by the beating of the drum.

In The Taziyeh of Hussein, which Wills witnessed in Isfahan in the governor’s palace in 1886, and where ten thousand spectators were present, a canon was fired in the square to announce the beginning of the drama.85

Stage

Almost anywhere in the theatre can be used for performance purposes, although the centre of the theatre or the platform is the principal performing area. The actors are visible from all sides. No exits or entrances are visible. The stage is erected so that the spectators can gather around it as a shared experience and an important form of communication. The stage is always empty and simple despite its size, which can be vast. There is a raised platform much higher than the surrounding arena. The elements of décor and properties on the stage are emblematic. A few little tents on the stage comprise the only scenery, with a few chairs or stools.

Despite the raised stage in the centre, everywhere in the theatre can be considered as the stage, and according to the needs of the drama, action can move from one location to another. It can extend, for example, from the main stage to the arena (the area in front of the stage), or from the arena to the auditorium, and amongst and beyond the spectators. Therefore, anywhere can serve as the stage and can accommodate dramatic action. The smaller auxiliary stages, if erected, are used by the main characters, while the arena is used for battles and duels.

84 Wirth noticed the different role of this music. He writes: ‘The music in taziyeh does not usually have any illustrative value and indicates transformations from one sequence to another. This again is not unlike the use of the buzzer by Richard Foreman, to take another example from the New American theatre.’ See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 36. 85 Wills, pp. 207-208.

190 Short comic scenes

The introduction of short, comic scenes serves to lend variety to the performance. These scenes generate loud laughter among the audience. It is not unusual for comic scenes to be interpolated at moments of tragic intensity in much the same way that Shakespeare used a clown to bring Cleopatra the asp that killed her.

Actors

The actors have great freedom and flexibility in their movements and actions. To change the location of the action, they simply move from one area to another. When necessary, they climb the wall of the theatre, and even onto the roof.

On an essentially neutral stage and without any need to change scenery, the actors, according to what they say and where they move, will give the stage its identity and indicate the changes in the locations of the drama. An actor may jump off the stage and walk around it once or twice and he is immediately in a different place and/or time as well. Sometimes it is sufficient for the actors to announce that they are now in ‘such and such a place’ or they are going to ‘such and such a place’.

Spectators

With this arrangement, the audience is physically attached to the event. Their participation can be required as an army or soldiers on the battle field, as part of a battle or duel, as captives, guests or participants at a party or a wedding ceremony. According to the needs of the scene, the enemy or the family members and friends of a character, may, on occasions, find themselves being beaten as the drama requires.

Props and costume

Ethnic identities and historical authenticity are not displayed in the props and costumes and they are given a present identity, despite the time in which the story/drama is set, which may belong to the past. This should be considered an attempt toward the overall aim of taziyeh: to join the past/fiction to the present and to give these elements a general, contemporary identity, making it possible for anyone in any circumstance to identify with the performance, regardless of the time and locality that the drama may belong to. At the same time, props and costumes may carry certain

191 emblematic conventions e.g. green and white for protagonists and red for antagonists. It is for this reason that in the taziyeh of The Court of Yazid, as performed in the nineteenth century, for example, the foreign ambassador wore tails and the ambassador of the Yazid court was able to wear British military uniform.

Chelkowski, observing taziyeh in the twentieth century, indicates:

Warriors wear British officers’ jackets instead of coats of mail. Abbas, the standard-bearer of Hussein’s troop, wears a long white Arabic shirt, embellished by a military jacket, Wellington boots and helmet. […] The eminence of a character is signified by a walking stick. Bad characters often wear sun glasses, learned people wear reading glasses.86

Chelkowski’s observations belong to the Mohammad Reza Shah period (1941-1978) when dark sunglasses were worn by members of the secret police (SAWAK) in order not to be recognized in public. ‘Learned people’ referred to intellectuals who were the main target of the secret police. Chelkowski does not mention in which performance he observed these properties. It is not known whether Shimr and Yazid, as the murderers in taziyeh performances, used sunglasses and Hussein and Abbas wore reading glasses. But what is obvious is that they were all used despite the historical/fictional period of the drama which may belong to the distant past, a time when sunglasses and reading glasses had not yet been developed. Therefore, such anachronistic costuming devices were used not just to signify ‘good’ or ‘bad’ character but as a form of contemporary social commentary.

The actuality on the stage

The actuality on the stage is so extensive, absolute and flawless that not only are soldiers brought onto the stage in full armor to engage in actual fighting but, in the scenes where a baby is needed, a real baby of more or less the same age will be used.87

The camels, asses and horses are brought onto the stage. If the scene is about a King, Solomon for instance, everything from the stable of the present King is lent and used. In one performance which Benjamin witnessed in the nineteenth century, he reports

86 Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 9. 87 Tavernier, p. 162.

192 the scene that is about the meeting between Solomon and Sheba, which leads to their wedding ceremony according to an Iranian legend. After an exhibition of Solomon’s power on the stage, Solomon now prepares to receive the Queen Sheba. For Benjamin ‘this scene, while calling for little exhibition of dramatic talent’, is ‘very interesting as a spectacular show’, and fascinating from a cultural point of view: ‘To a European’ it is of ‘special value’, for it gives ‘a tolerably exact although partial representation of a marriage of an Eastern court’88. Benjamin, indeed, is not aware of the aim behind this actual exhibition, nor of the dramatic talent which is hidden in this scene, since not only does everything aim to be as real as possible but it is also required to come from the appropriate place: the palace, if the scene is about a king. In this regard, the master uses subject matter from the past as an allegory to create a dialectical relationship with the present. This is achieved in part through referring to a real situation and the glory of the contemporary King. At the same time, the scene plays another complicated role by drawing a subtle and hidden connection between the situations of a King and the public or ordinary people, rich or poor, showing the contrast between their lives and possibilities as a part of actors/spectators’ consciousness.

Benjamin’s description of the arrival of Solomon and his entourage is appropriately detailed:

First came a train of camels gay with elaborate housing, strings of melodious bells jangled on the necks of these stately animals, and tufts of crimson and blue waved on their lofty heads as they marched majestically around the arena with velvet tread. The furniture of the princess, enclosed in ironbound chests, was carried by the camels and a train of richly saddled sumpter mules. A troop of horsemen magnificently mounted followed next, representing the military escort, which attend the Queen. [Sheba] appeared in truly royal state, seated with her maiden in a houdah [howdah] of crimson and gold borne on the back of an elephant. This entire procession, including scores of animals any one of which if unruly might have wrought great mischief, passes around the arena so close to the densely packed masses of women that the sides of the great beasts sometimes actually touched the women’s garments; but no one was harmed or even showed alarm. I could not help marvelling at the intelligence of these animals, which seemed to enter fully into the spirit of the occasion, and while sometimes showing a certain supportiveness exhibited no

88 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 402.

193 inclination to employ the power they has to fill the crowd with apprehension.89

As we read in Ouseley, the practice of borrowing the actual props from the King’s palace goes back to the beginning of the century:

But the grand catastrophe, the death of Hussein, was reserved for the 25th, when we saw it acted at the palace in the Meidan or square, which exhibited more valuable decorations then, probably, ever graced an European theatre; for the King had lent on this occasion, thousands of his most precious and brilliant jewels.90

It is observed how the master amazingly plays with the King’s jewels to draw clear and total attention to the same awareness he is aiming for. According to one scene, witnessed and reported by Ouseley, we read that there are riderless horses richly decorated with the King’s jewels, one particularly, with its face covered by a splendid mask or veil composed chiefly of diamonds. Under this horse’s head, two men hold a large and fine white shawl, ‘to catch any precious torments that might become loose’.91 What is the relation between the riderless horses, which no doubt belong to one of the slain dramatic heroes, and the Kings’ jewels? The master’s aim is to use the past/fictional world to illustrate the present. The two men are in the present, as themselves. They are not playing, although they can be considered part of the performance. They are there to hold the shawl in the present, whereas the subject belongs to the past. This is a part of that combination of allegory and contemporary life, which is used by the master to exceed the borders between the past/subject/drama/allegory and the present/real world.

We read again in Benjamin how the ‘chair overlaid with beaten gold’, sofa and uncouth beds are brought from the royal treasury.92

Once again, the use of contemporary costumes – even horses and chairs are borrowed from the actual ambassador to represent the dramatic character of the ambassador – is done towards the same aim.

89 Ibid., pp. 402-403. 90 Ousely, William, 1810, 1812, III, p. 165. 91 Ibid., p. 170. 92 See Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 390.

194 Lady Sheil witnessed some taziyeh performances at Tehran in 1849.93 One of the taziyeh plays about which she writes most interestingly is The European Ambassador [Eilchi-ye Farang]. This taziyeh recounts the events which happened when the captives arrived in the court of Yazid in Damascus. In this play, she writes, the ambassador, who is ‘probably Greek’ in the actual story, is present at the court of the Caliph of Damascus when Hussein’s severed head is exhibited. Because the ambassador protests loudly against the massacre, the Caliph orders his execution. In her report Lady Sheil provides fascinating details of the costume of the ambassador, and the way that it is arranged to be as contemporary as possible. She writes how the master tries to borrow their European and military costume, a cocked hat and feather, her husband’s coat and cap and even their horses and chairs for the performance of Elchee Ferang [the European ambassador].94

As can be noticed, even the horse is borrowed from the actual ambassador. By placing emphasis on borrowing even a horse from the actual ambassador to be used on the stage as the ambassador’s horse (in the play), it seems that what is important is its effect on the actors, rather than on the spectators, who are not sure or are not aware of where the horse was borrowed from. The master is well aware that the current of consciousness should begin from the stage/actor. Similarly, we see that the ambassador of Greece (who should be Greek according to the drama) changes to the ambassador of England simply because the ambassador of England is well known. While any horses and chairs can easily be found and taken onto the stage, the actual ambassador’s horses and chairs are demanded and are borrowed for the performance.

Other national costumes (Arabian for example), warfare and combat gear, military pomp, coats of mail, shields, lances and banners, the amour and caparisons are used with the same aim in taziyeh representation.95

In these scenes the captives are represented and chained with real chains and with actual triangular wooden collars round their necks as they were in reality:

First came Hossein’s [Hussein’s] horse, with his turban on the saddle. Then, in a row on chairs, were seated Yezid [Yazid], with three others; one of

93 Sheil, 1856, pp. 125-130. 94 Ibid., p. 126. 95 See Ousely, III, pp. 168-169.

195 whom, dressed in The European habit, represented a European Ambassador (Elchee Firing). Zain Labedeen [Zin al Abedin], Hossein’s [Hussein’s] brother chained, and with a triangular wooden collar round his neck, appeared as a captive before Yezid [Yazide], and was followed by his sister and children. Yezid’s [Yazid’s] executioner treated them with much barbarity, repelling the women when they implored his protection; and using the captive with great insult, at the instigation of Yezid [Yazid]. When Zain Labedeen [Zin al Abedin], by Yezid’s [Yazid’s] firman [order], was brought to be beheaded, the Elchee Firing implored his pardon, which instead of appeasing the tyrant only produced an order for putting the Elchee to death.96

Wills gives details of the same actuality:

[…] The drama is played without any attempt at scenery, […] but […] the Persians are very realistic in the matter of properties. […] Captives wear their chains, or else wooden yokes which indicate their unfortunate position. The wedding of the hopeless youth, Kazim [Ghasim], is celebrated with due pomp. The various combats are carried out with ingenious realism. Armies of supernumeraries represent the infidel Arabs, and the soldiers of Yazeed [Yazid]. Camels bear the wives, sisters, and children of the martyr, and his tent is duly pitched upon the platform thirty yards square, which forms the stage.97 It is not just the actual costume, ornaments of war and stage properties that are used. This actuality is just the beginning of the process which leads the spectators/actors to be conscious through connection with the past/fictional/allegorical world.

Other actual dramatic elements include using real children of the same age as those in the drama. Gobineau is one of the eyewitnesses who mentions the use of little children and writes about the extraordinary effects of their being on the stage as the children of the main character:

Now we must mention a certain category of actors who are in fact not [actors], and who produce an extraordinary effect on the public. […] In all events, nothing is more touching than to see these young children, dressed in black robes with large sleeves, their heads covered with tiny round black

96 Morier, p. 159. 97 Wills, p. 211.

196 bonnets, embroidered with silver or gold, kneeling on the body of the actor who plays the role of the martyr of the day, hugging him and, with their little hands, covering themselves with hewn straw (standing for sand), as a sign of sorrow. These children stand there with the interest that a game inspires at their age; but they do not play, and are evidently filled with the sentiment that they understand full well that they perform a grave and important act. It is doubtful that they understand fully what they are doing, where they are, what they represent; they are too young; but they understand in principle that what they are asked to do is sad and solemn. They stand, holding hands or alone, in the place they must occupy; they receive, their arms crossed in an attitude of respect, the blessings of the Imam Hussein. Their little faces are grave and serious; nothing distracts them or troubles them, and this vast public which surrounds them, which wails, which weeps, which torments itself, does not seem to exist for them.98

Wills describes using a baby on the stage as well, and his/her presence and effect on the spectators. The master is undoubtedly aware of all these effects. In one scene, after a long struggle and fighting, Ali Akbar, for the last time, goes back to his family, for the last farewell before being killed:

[…] He is evidently wounded. Hussein appears; he and Ali Akbar rush into each other’s arms; they make long speeches descriptive of their terrible position. The women and children arrive, weeping and wringing their hands. Ali Akbar bids them all farewell; he takes a tiny baby from its veiled mother’s arms and kisses it. (Loud shrieks wailings from the female side of the audience.) […]99

According to eyewitnesses in the nineteenth century, it was the role of human beings and their actions which was central since no effort was made to make artificial and unreal elements such as masks appear real. In other words, when masks were used, no effort was made to make them realistic. These shapes and masks were used as signs.

Benjamin makes it clear that in a performance when unreal animals were used, they served a purpose regardless of their appearance:

98 Gobineu, pp. 352-353. Excerpts in this chapter from de Gobineau and from Berezin are translated by Suzanne Eggins. 99 Wills, p. 214.

197 […] It must be admitted that many of these animals were not strictly shaped after correct models, and indicated only moderate acquaintance with natural history or the mechanics of imitation. But they seemed to interest the people, and therefore served the purpose.100

But if the masks were not used, actual animal skins were used to represent animals and an actor put it on and played the role of animal. Ousley gives detailed descriptions of the lion in taziyeh performance.101

But the master goes much further in representing and insisting on contemporary and actual life in connection with the past. He brings Russian prisoners onto the stage as the soldiers of the antagonists. The master does not take them onto the stage to be beaten instead of Iranian actors. But choosing them is a part of the same aim. Russian prisoners were the contemporary enemy of the Iranians at the time. The spectators could vent their contemporary anger by beating the same Russian soldiers.102

It is not just Russian103 prisoners who are taken onto the stage. When the character of an ambassador is needed, for instance in The Taziyeh of European Ambassador, the master tries to find and bring an actual and contemporary ambassador on the stage:

An European Ambassador, who is said to have intrigued with Yezid [Yazid] in favour of Hossein [Hussein], is brought forwards accordingly to be an actor in one of the parts of the tragedy, and the populace were in consequence inclined to look favorably upon us [the foreigners].104

According to the same aim, on the day of the celebration of the death of Omar, a non- Muslim (Armenian) is hired to play the role of Omar. Commenting on a taziyeh, which is performed on this day, and is called ‘the day of great joy and cursing’ by Wilson, Wilson writes:

A writer [China and Persia vol. I., p.364] describes a celebration where a large platform was erected and a disfigured and deformed image placed upon it, to which the crowd addressed all sorts of reviling. Having exhausted their

100 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 402. 101 See Ouseley. p. 169. 102 Ibid, pp. 169-170. 103 The conflict between Iran and Russia goes back to the Safavid period (1501-1736) when Iran lost some parts of its land through the treaties of the Golestan and Torkamanchi signed between Iran and Russia. 104 Morier, p. 177.

198 vocabulary of vituperation, they attacked the image with sticks and stones, until they broke and scattered it in pieces. At times an Armenian is hired to impersonate Omar, so that they can curse him to their hearts’ content.105

It is not only the non-actors who are brought onto the stage to become involved in a real experience and confront spectators with the contemporary event, but it is also the actor whose role goes beyond mere acting as he becomes engaged in an actual experience. In one of these scenes reported by Morier and described by him as ‘the most extraordinary part of the whole exhibition’, actors are buried in the ground for so long that in hot weather some die! In this scene, a row of decapitated dead bodies is simulated, ‘each body with a head close to it’, as the actors are ‘buried alive’, ‘leaving the head out just above ground; whilst others put their heads under ground, leaving out the body. The heads and bodies were placed in such relative positions to each other, as to make it appear that they had been severed.’ 106

Years later, the same experience and the same situation is reported by Ousely in which the actors are buried in the ground for more than three hours.107 The report proves the continuation of the same system of acting that had been used by the masters at the beginning of the century

But using actual scenes still goes even further. Real executions for instance, are taken onto the stage. No space is left between allegorical and actual character and real and fictional world. Benjamin witnesses and reports a taziyeh in which the murderers of Hussein and his supporters have been captured and brought to justice in a taziyeh called The Taziyeh of Mokhtar’s Revenge. Mokhtar is the governor and his role is to execute the killer of Hussein and his family. As Benjamin reports, Mokhtar enters ‘with majestic strides and stentorian tones’. His armed companions drag the governor from his seat of power and, with a humiliating insult, hurry him and his supporters to his execution. Benjamin calls this scene ‘too realistic for the modern stage’:

[..] two men being actually hanged by ropes suspended from the dome above, and another went through the similitude of being beheaded, while a cauldron was prepared for the boiling of yet another. But at this critical moment it was found that the Shah had left for the Palace, and the performance came to an

105 Wilson, pp. 201. 106 See Morier, p. 184. 107 See Ouseley, III, p. 169.

199 abrupt termination108 just in time to save a poor man from a terrible fate. I could not help noticing, however, that the men who have been executed proved to be very lively corpses indeed on the closing of the entertainment, retiring from the stage with very limber steps, considering their narrow escape.109 (my emphasis)

Benjamin’s description raises many questions about what in fact happened in this situation. What is the meaning of the phrase: ‘two men being actually hanged by ropes suspended from the dome above, and another went through the similitude of being beheaded, while a cauldron was prepared for the boiling of yet another’? What does the word ‘actually’ mean, in this phrase? Does a real persecution take place, on the stage? All the phrases used by Benjamin, and other eyewitness accounts previously studied, clearly indicate the real actions took place.

The drama performed on the stage, without doubt, belongs to the past. But the day of performance, a real persecution is arranged. We must assume that the two men really were hung, with the intention of being killed, but were only saved by the departure of the Shah. We should remember that the reporter is watching a performance in 1882– 83. André Antoine, in 1920, brings a cow from the butchery, with its fresh blood still dripping, onto the stage. Despite the freshness of the cow’s body, a chair, a table or even an artificial cow with red paint can produce the same naturalistic effect and create the same expression. But what about a real persecution on the stage? Real persecution on the stage, in connection to the drama, which belongs to the past, goes deep enough to touch the actor’s and spectators’ historical unconscious in order to awaken them to their contemporary life. Here, in the performance, an intense dialectical relationship between the past and present is established. Spectators and actors through these richly layered images are participating in a shared experience. The master, by crossing the frontier of the past and present, clearly indicates that whatever is on the stage belongs to the past and is only an allegorical element, in order to illustrate the present.

Despite all the actuality used on the stage, a complex and paradoxical form of staging can still be observed: a composition of metaphor, allegory, symbolism and stylization against the background of no time and no space and in a frame

108 My emphasises. 109 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 399.

200 of simultaneity and flexibility. These are used in order to represent a deep actual and visible reality, as well as what is invisible in contemporary life, that which is beyond reality. Indeed, at this point and on this ground an atmosphere is created in which the master exceeds and bridges all the borders and gaps with his theatre. No barrier between acting and non-acting in this theatre can be imagined. It is where acting and life become one, where the depths of the contemporary world are revealed to both spectators and actors as they are put in a real situation and are compelled to react. This situation releases an enormous amount of energy from the actors/spectators. Their interference in the performance or their reactions cannot be predicted and controlled. The actors/spectators may respond to their own most interior voices and react even in irrational ways, such as killing another actor who paradoxically is playing the victim role, although logically others should sympathize with him and not kill him, as Morier reports.110 Or the actors actually sacrifice their lives.111 Spectators may beat the actors who are playing the role of soldiers and throw stones at the actor who is playing a protagonist such as Shimr. Spectators may sigh, groan, and weep or show their anger and knock and push the protagonist who cannot avoid ‘judge [ing] Lynch and particularly […] the indignation and buffets of the women’ as Lady Sheil reports when she witnesses The Taziyeh of Hussein in 1849-1853.112

Even in a normal situation, control is not always possible. For example, when a character sings, and the wave of response gradually flows throughout the entire theatre. At the beginning the master can control the first waves; he can develop it, stop it, or change its direction. However, when the wave goes on too far, even the master who is responsible for the event and who is pursuing a clear aim, cannot control it – or at least it becomes difficult for it to be controlled. Who can control twenty thousand people who start dancing or singing if they are not organized and watched very carefully?

110 See Morrier, 1808-1809, pp. 196-7. 111 See Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 405. 112 See Sheil, pp. 125-126.

201 VI. The taziyeh oustad or master

Sharing the stage with the actors is the oustad or ostad (literally, ‘master’) – variously referred to as ‘directeur’,113 ‘prompter’,114 or more recently, the ‘person directing the performance’.115 The master first appears in the literature in the early 1840s in the account of Berezin, who calls him a ‘régisseur, (literally, ‘stage manager’). And Mostoufi describes him as ‘the régisseur that does the job of conductor as well’116 when he was called Mo’in-al-boka (literary, ‘weep along with all the spectators’). Writing about one of the performances in the late of nineteenth century in Takieyh Doulat, Mostoufi writes:

[…] After a short silence, finally the actors entered. Mo’in-al-boka wore a broad brown beard, which fully had covered his chest, and was dressed in a black labbadeh [long outer garment], and a stick made from black cherry cork with silver points on both ends, and his son, Nazem–al-boka [assistance], was a copy of his father except in his beard. They arrived in front and then were followed by the actors […], all in full acting dress, four in each line, while singing. The harmony of the children’s tenor and the men’s bass voices gave an impressive manner to the group. […] They went a full circle around the stage and ascended from the middle stairs, which were in front of the King’s room, and the actors, on an order and indication from Mo’in-al-boka, sat on the golden covered chairs , which had been put in different parts of this large

stage, according to the subject.117

Not only is the master responsible for the entire production behind the stage and before the drama goes onto the stage, he is on stage throughout the entire performance, carrying the book of the play in his hands, controlling the performance, actors and spectators. He also cues the musicians to strike up, or stop playing, at appropriate moments:

Mo’in-al-boka had the copy of all the actors’ parts, kept in order under his waist shawl [long piece of cloth used by men as a belt round the waist]. This was only as a precaution and in case an actor lost his part. 118

113 Gobineau, p. 349. 114 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 394. 115 Ghaffari, p. 370. 116 Mostoufi, I, p. 290. 117 Ibid., I, p. 296.

202 For many, being a master is a life-long profession, inherited from a father or grandfather, and developed with experience gained over years of practical work. Mirza Mohammad Ahmad, known as Ahmad Jasebi, is one of the veteran masters of taziyeh performance in recent years, ‘who has protected his profession for more than sixty years’ […]. In an interview with Namayesh’, an Iranian monthly review of theatre, he spoke about his background:

I was only three years old when I began to play the role of children in the productions of the taziyeh that were performed by my father. My grandfather, Mirza Abolghasim, was the master of the taziyeh in the Takiyhe Dowlat. […] I have memorized more than forty plays by heart. I also know the traditional Persian music and all its divisions. I have many manuscripts from the Nasseredin Shah era in my possession and faithfully learned many conventions and techniques of the taziyeh by heart. 119

It is a part of the master’s job to arrange meetings with local authorities and he is responsible for the troupe’s financial situation. Even finding the talented actors and attracting interested young actors to join the group is a part of the master’s job. In professional troupes, the master is always on the lookout for the best actors working in the provinces. These actors may be invited to join the group for a particular period of time or during the Muharram festival, or even to stay with the group forever. In large cities, there are certain well–known actors whom masters try to encourage to join the group on a more permanent basis. The presence of these well–known actors in a troupe raises the interest and expectations of the audience. Mostoufi writes:

This time the director was a member of the [Gajar] court […] whose predecessor, probably his father, Mirza Mohammed Taghi, a taziyeh director, changed performance from an ordinary popular theatre to a high quality performance. Teaching acting to the actors so they could reach a standard appropriate to play in front of a critic such as Naseredin Shah was one of his difficult tasks. If he heard about any talented person [for acting], who lived in any part of the country, he went and found him and by any means – promise, threat, encouragement – took him to Tehran and taught him acting. Haji Moula Hussein, for example, from Pake Zraneh Saveh, just because he could play women’s roles very well, had to leave his home and job, every year

118 Ibid., I, pp. 297-298. 119 Namayesh, 1989, No. 4, Tehran, p. 6, quoted by Malekpour, in The Islamic Drama, 2004, p. 121.

203 before the month of Muharram, go to Tehran and play in the Takiyeh Doulat group. […].120

The master moves about, cueing the actors, reminding them of their parts or their moves and business, helping them to put props on and off the stage, placing the children, or young and inexperienced actors. He even participates in the business of the drama, helping to bandage wounds, dressing martyrs in their winding sheets when they are going to their deaths, holding the stirrup for them to mount horses, putting them in their shrouds, and handing chopped straw to surrounding actors and spectators.

Not only is he the master of the stage, but of the entire theatre. He draws together all the complicated lines between the stage and auditorium or between the actors and spectators. He controls the emotional response of the spectators, establishes the bond between actor, character and spectator, helps the actors to assume their characters, and the actors/characters to achieve a union with the spectators. Furthermore, he assists the spectators to bond in response to the stage. He gives enough space to the actors/spectators to perform their respective roles in order to achieve a sense of unity.

Thousands of spectators respond to him and start singing, dancing or crying when he gives them a hint, and the whole theatre turns silent in a minute when they receive his signal. Everything that is done is done at his direction.

He is, indeed, at the centre of a circle, defining the radius between actor, character and spectator. Standing at the very heart of the drama with absolute power, he is there to join all the complex and contradictory images played on the stage, in order to unite and bring together the most important elements in the theatre – actor and spectator – and to exceed all the boundaries in a perfect, absolute and united picture, called theatre.

He plots the beginning and the end of the entire dramatic action. He signals changes in the direction of an action or puts an end to a scene or starts a new act. He is everywhere while he is also strangely ignored.

120 Mostaufi, I, pp. 290-291.

204 In the light of earlier reports such as those by Morrier and Ouseley, who made no mention whatsoever of this intrusive figure, it is tempting to believe that he only begins to play a prominent role in performance in the early nineteenth century. But, while there appears to be no explicit evidence to support this, the oustad is presumably the later incarnation of the person who organized the processions of ‘pre- theatrical’ Karbala celebrations in the previous century.

Gobineau makes almost no reference to the oustad. He was fully aware, of course, not only that the actor carries his script (‘It is not seen as essential that the actors avoid carrying their scripts in their hands’121), but also that the ‘directeur’ is onstage and interacting constantly with the actors (‘Throughout the entire performance, he stands on the sakou, always present and always directing’122). Yet Gobineau insists on reading taziyeh performance as representational. He indentifies the functions of the ancient Athenian choragus – the leader of chorus in ancient Greek drama – as perhaps the closest equivalent in Western theatre to those of the oustad: ‘a sacred personage because of the functions he fulfils’. And he says quite clearly that in his view the chorus leader in classical Greek theatre ‘fulfilled his tasks without shocking any expectations, nor spoiling the illusion’.123 In other words, he was able to mentally eliminate the oustad. He literally edits him out of his text of The Wedding of Kasim124 after a brief reference in the preliminaries:

The kernas[horn], tambourines, bugles, trumpets and fifes fall silent at a sign from the theatre director, in the centre of the platform. The most profound silence descends across the assembled crowd, and the taziyeh begins.125

No further mention is made of the oustad, either in notes or stage directions. Benjamin was similarly able to ‘turn a blind eye’ to the oustad: ‘After a short time I was scarcely aware of his presence.’126 Incidentally, Benjamin refers to him as a ‘prompter’, perhaps because prompting, of seasoned actors occasionally, but probably more often of junior players, was what he was most aware of the oustad doing. Incidentally, extant copies of eighteenth-century oustad scripts show simply the

121 Gobineau, p. 331. 122 Ibid., p. 349. 123 Ibid., p. 350. My emphasis. 124 Ibid., pp. 359-390. 125 Ibid., p. 358. 126 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 392.

205 speakers’ names in the order in which they make each speech and, written beneath each name, the first word of the speech. In other words, unless the oustad knew the entire text off by heart – it would be rash of us to pretend that that was impossible – he would have been able to indicate whose turn it was to speak, but he might have been hard-pressed to help any actor who had ‘dried up’ with much of what he had to say. That material was on the scripts that the actor carried. It is important to add a further observation of Benjamin’s: ‘At the proper moment […], by a motion of the hand, he gave orders for the music to strike up or stop.’127

Cueing and prompting were duties that came early in Gobineau’s account of the functions of the oustad, an account that was as comprehensive as any of the other nineteenth-century eyewitnesses:

The manuscript for the play in his hand, [the director] indicates to each what he should say; he examines from time to time the roles of the youngest children in order to assure himself that they will not make mistakes. […] If the hero must hold his sabre in his hand, the director takes the sabre from its scabbard, while the actor recites, and hands it to him. He holds the stirrups for the actor to help him mount his horse. He takes the youngest actors by the hand and positions them where they should be when they recite their parts; he involves himself with everything, openly, and he plays an indispensable role in the development of the drama.128

Unfortunately, the young Berezin was more closely wedded to illusionism in 1843 than either Gobineau or Benjamin were to be decades later, and he was quite unable to edit the oustad out of the performance, any more than the rest of the preparations for the performance, carried out without any concern for illusion:

Even though […] the scene is veiled, one can see […] all the preparations for the performance […]. All the spectators can see how the stage director/manager soaks some cotton in sheep’s blood and throws it onto the stage to represent morsels of flesh, how the actors are made to lie down in a pit and how they are covered with grass, how ducks and gazelles are tied up etc.129

127 Ibid., p. 392. 128 Gobineau, p. 349-350. 129 Berezin quoted by Calmard. See Calmard, 1974, II, pp. 116-117.

206 However, the physical presence of the oustad was a serious inconvenience for him. In explaining why, Berezin elaborates further on what Gobineau refers to as his ‘vital contribution to the performance’, and provides us with more, invaluable, evidence:

What greatly spoils the impression of the drama is the constant presence on the stage of the director in amongst the actors. […] The continual presence […] of a person who has nothing to do with [the action] and who, moreover, is armed with a baton in order to indicate to the actors what they should do and say, was completely undesirable. To complete this negative effect, the Malekottojjar rails at an actor who makes a mistake, and sometimes he even strikes the Imam Hussein with his baton for not speaking at his turn, and this actor in turn exonerates himself and blames Abbas for the mistake and so on. Moreover, in the most affecting scenes, le Malekottojjar does not forget to weep along with all the spectators. 130

This final observation – that the mo’in-al-boka does as his name suggests and ‘weep along with all the spectators’– suggests that beyond any practical assistance he lends to the production itself, the oustad’s role extends to a relationship with the audience. The fact that the oustad might be in a position to respond to the drama as though he were not sharing the stage with the actors but sitting with the spectators suggests that he plays a dual role, as insider-participant and outsider-observer of the drama, and is particularly significant. For it suggests that he is in a situation not unlike that of the actors themselves, insiders playing their parts and at the same time outsiders responding to those parts. Further evidence in support of this notion is supplied by Rezza Ale-Mohammed, who adds further details of the oustad’s function:

He might beckon the actors to stop the show for a short while, then address the spectators, recalling the most stirring events of the story, intent on keeping the attention of the audience. Thereafter he demands their sympathy for what is passing before them, seeking their compassion and tears for the martyrs. At the end of an intervention he signals the restart of the show.131

130 Ibid., II, p. 117. 131 Ali-Mohammed, Reza, ‘An Iranian passion play: ‘Taziyeh’ in History and Performance’, in NTQ New Theatre Quarterly, Volume XVII, part 1 (NTQ 65), February 2001, Cambridge University Press, England, P. 59.

207 This suggests a function far beyond that of simply ‘responding to the drama as an audience member might’, but rather ‘conducting the audience in order to orchestrate and evoke the proper response from them’.132

Mostoufi reports more:

This man, [Oustad] could manage his job superbly. His orders were followed in a moment by the one hundred actors and musicians. His son assisted him. His [Oustad’s] orders to the actors were by a signal of his hand, and to musician to start playing or keep silent, by moving his stick […]. Even if from a corner or one of the rooms, accidentally, a noise arose, he forced it to silence by his effective stare. 133

The process of organizing all these activities demonstrates the necessity of the master being present on the stage during the performances. He should not only control the process of the play/drama but, more importantly, he should control the emotions, modes and conditions of the actors and spectators and direct them in every single moment, in order to establish an intense relationship and a close communication between them as one unique body that should sing one single song. He should, first, activate the potential of the actor/spectator relationship, and secondly guide it to a predicted direction, according to the particular conditions of each performance.

However, in taziyeh theatre even the master’s actions cannot be predicted, and the situation and the time of each performance can lead him to react in a different way. This is the essence of this theatre: that each single performance has its own direction, aim and identity, according to the time, situation of a performance, the political or social circumstances at the time, and the unexpected reactions of actors/spectators.

Indeed, despite the circumstances in which the work is performed, the taziyeh theatre is a huge laboratory and a great workshop for the master through which he creates and builds his complicated work. It is in this laboratory that the past/story/fiction is transferred to present/performance, and through which contemporary reality is illustrated in order to be carried to the future as the master directs the actor and audience in the outside world to sing, cry or dance.

132 Ibid, p. 59. 133 Mostaufi, I, p. 296.

208 It is in this vast laboratory/workshop and through this complicated work that actors/spectators can act and react in a dialectical way. Through this workshop they can share experience, reveal and open up their innermost historical unconscious freely, and consequently discover themselves, others and their situation in the contemporary world. The master employs codes, metaphors, references, allegories and actuality in a timeless, placeless frame, as flexible elements that can be used simultaneously and transformed into one another.

It is in this laboratory that thousands and thousands of spectators enthusiastically gather with a deadly intensity of effort to find a space to sit. During the performance and acting the actors can go too far; they can forget acting and reveal their innermost thoughts. The spectators may sing, beat their chests, cry, and laugh with the actors and other spectators; they may throw stones at the villains and beat the soldiers and curse the enemy of their heroes. And after the performance, despite brutal actions by official guards to force them to leave the theatre, the spectators try to stay and keep their space for the next performance, to try for another chance to go through this collective journey.

The master’s role in the manuscript

It is likely that many of the masters are the authors of taziyeh manuscripts, perhaps the authors of most of them. Turning to consider the way the manuscripts are finished, we can note their important role as the director and the writer of play. It is another reason for the tight connection between the form of manuscripts and performances. All the spaces that have been left in the manuscript present the master’s position which he has to fill. There is vast potential for the master to act freely, and this can be considered another sign that shows him as the writer. For example, consider the last dialogue of the Taziyeh the Dispatch of Hussein’s Family to Syria. All the male members of the family have been killed. The rest of the family is mourning for their loved one. All the women are naked as a sign of their captivity. Hussein’s severed head is carried around on the top of a spear. The women and children, under the control of the soldiers, are taken to Syria. Even the murderers show sympathy towards the women:

209 ZAINAB: Mourn not so much for thy father, my niece Sukainah; let not my heart be inflamed with thy fire-scattering sobs. For my sake, be thou somewhat patient, or thy lamentation will turn the world upside down. IBN S’AD: O Shimar, thou apostate unbeliever, take that blood-stained head from the hand of this girl, for she is creating a disturbance among beasts, birds, and angels. She is making heaven and earth groan by her mourning and sighing. SHIMAR: Give thy father’s head to me, poor Sukainah; groan not so much, thou miserable girl. The hearts of all God’s creatures are consumed through thy crying; all jinns and angels are weeping on thy account, O Sukaunah. 134

In this space that has been left for the master, he has a significant opportunity to act and demonstrate his ability. He can simply invite the audience to be silent and listen to the chorus. He can give them a hint to beat their chests, sing or dance; or he can invite them to leave the theatre silently; or possibly he can invite them to come back and follow the story. This is the space that can be seen in almost all taziyeh manuscripts.

The last lines of The Death of Rukayyah are another example of the space that has been left for the master to act freely. After a long journey the captives reach Syria. They are assaulted by street people. Yazid’s daughter sympathises with them and tries to help them. Rukayyah, Hussein’s daughter, cannot bear so much suffering and wishes to die. She dies, leaving Zainab to say:

ZAINAB: How I am unfortunately entangled in misery! I myself must dig a grave for my poor desolate niece. None cares for a stranger in exile, unless the God of poor wandering souls Himself be moved in compassion towards such miserable creatures. At the time of death none even deigns to pour some drops of water down an exile’s throat nor will anybody be so good as to stretch an outcast’s feet towards the Kiblah.135

Once again the master has the chance to end the performance with beating chests and mourning ceremony, can use a slogan in favor of the people in exile, call the people to help Zaibab or offer her a glass of water.

134 Ibid., II, p. 201. 135 Ibid., II, p. 257.

210 The taziyeh of The Murder of the Ambassador from Europe starts with a scene in which a European ambassador, who is inside his house, hears the crying of the captives who have just arrived in Syria. He sends his servant to find out the story. Yazid invites him to come to the court and enjoy the triumph. He goes there and when he meets and listens to the captives and their sufferings and hears what has been done to them and their loved ones, he turns against Yazid and sympathises with the victims. Yazid, despite the ambassador’s sympathy for the captives, asks him to abuse them. The ambassador refuses. Yazid orders the ambassador to be killed. This manuscript ends with a scene where Yazid invites people to enjoy their time and orders the musician to renew playing what was interrupted by the story of the ambassador:

THE ENVOY: I am killed by the unjust order of Yazid the accursed infidel. Who ever saw such cruelties as these, O ye by-standers? I go with all readiness to see God’s Messenger. I therefore say there is but one true God, and no more. YAZID: Prepare a joyous entertainment anew, and let musical instruments play on all sides.136

This is one of those strange endings which, after tragic and dark events, offers the master the space in which he can release the spectators from the heavy, tragic atmosphere by ordering the musician to play pleasant tunes and songs on the understanding that Yazid is entertaining his court members. It is a time when the master can decide where the performance should go: dancing, singing, beating the drum or simply guiding the audience to leave the theatre and go home.

Finally, it should be stressed that despite the way in which the texts and manuscripts have been written and arranged, these manuscripts are still no more than a sketch towards a performance; a performance which will be orchestrated by the master. Thus, the stage and the theatre is a space that allows a master to show his power, ability and talent.

Climax

Conventionally a dramatic climax is that ‘point in the play which focuses the audience’s attention and marks the moment of greatest tension […] or [involves the]

136 Ibid., II, p. 240.

211 largest number of actors, or [the] most ingenious point in the staging.’137 In the taziyeh theatre the moment of ‘attention’ or ‘the moment of [great] tension is the recurring moments of shared experience, emotion and consciousness during the performance. These are achieved, largely through a dialectical relation between actors and spectators, present/fact and past/fictional/allegorical world.

These moments are rolled forward and at their last phase reaches the goal or the crucial aim of taziyeh performance, which is the awakening of the spectators/actors. In this moment they leave the theatre dancing, singing or crying, taking their wakefulness to the outside world to share it with others:

A great wave of mourning now swept over the audience, and for several moments, an awful sound of lamentation was heard from the sorrow and the rage of thousand.138

Even at the end of the performance, the spectators – particularly the women who have found themselves that chance to express themselves freely as a part of the joy of being awakened – may look for other opportunities to stay and participate in another performance, although they are forced to leave:

Many of the women, however, would not leave until forced to move by the ushers, so anxious were they to retain their place for the performance of the evening. To the women of Tehran the taziyeh is the one great event of the year. They go early in the morning each day, and patiently wait for many long hours for the entertainment to begin.139

This is the moment in which the boundary between the theatre and the outside world is broken down. In a sense, then, and in contrast to conventional theatre, the taziyeh performance does not conclude, at least not inside the theatre but is passed on to the future.

In order to exceed the borders of continents, and break down the cultural barriers between the east and the west in the discussion of theatre, in the next and final chapter I approach taziyeh from a very different perspective: I explore if from outside its

137 Pavis, Patrice, 1947, Dictionary of Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis, Translated by Christine Shantz, Preface by Marvin Carlson, University of Toronto Press, Toronto and Buffalo, P. 56. 138 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 404. 139 Ibid, pp. 396-97.

212 Iranian culture, through the lens of a Western context. In that chapter taziyeh will be compared to Brecht’s epic theatre, Picasso’s art form of the Guernica, cubism, the literary form of magical realism, and finally Samuel Beckett’s philosophy of life, death and love, particularly as expressed in Waiting for Godot. In the final section of the next chapter, I examine Peter Brook’s reports of watching taziyeh in 1970 and 1971, and I close the chapter with what I have learned from taziyeh.

213 CHAPTER FOUR

A different approach to taziyeh performances

Guernica (Pablo Picasso 1881-1973) Introduction Chapter One examined taziyeh performances through eyewitness accounts, while Chapter Two sought to trace the philosophy of taziyeh theatre through an examination of its sources and origins. Chapter Three provided an analysis of taziyeh form, technique and philosophy in relation to the actor, spectator, character, and manuscript, as well as taziyeh’s performance on the stage and the role of the master.

In this chapter I turn my attention to what happens when taziyeh comes into contact with Western historians, theorists, critics, as well as theatre practitioners and practices. Some of these encounters appear to be productive, while others seem to be detrimental to the essence of taziyeh and the complex dramatic and spectatorial performances that I have analyzed in detail in previous chapters.

In this chapter I therefore draw upon a range of Western cultural practices as a way of highlighting certain aspects of taziyeh that conceptually approximate them. I do this to show that no single practice may be found in Western art and literature that may explain the richness and complexity of this form of theatre.

In the existing literature on taziyeh, Brecht’s epic theatre is the most common theoretical approach that has been used to try to understand (in the Western context) the role of actor and spectator in taziyeh theatre.

Parviz Mamnoun, for instance, finds taziyeh ‘the most developed theatre in the narrative theatrical form […] a theatre whose form, one might say, Brecht strove unsuccessfully to attain’.1 Despite this positive comment, Andrzej Wirth denies any analogy between these two theatres and even comments that any: ‘comparisons [of taziyeh] with the Brechtian theatre are superficial and misleading’.2

As I will argue in the present chapter, in taziyeh there is a kind of alienation, but this is accompanied by a fully contradictory effect due to the spectator’s immersion and emotional involvement in the events. This is largely what distinguishes taziyeh from Brecht’s practice and theory. Thus, despite the social awareness and strong presence of the element of alienation in taziyeh, this analogy breaks down and taziyeh moves beyond Brechtian theatre and generates a truly intense and intimate experience between spectators/actors/plays, which could be called over-identification, and is the

1 See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 157. 2 See Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 38.

215 exact opposite of the Brechtian alienation effect. Taziyeh oscillates dialectically between alienation and immersion, critique and complicity.

In order to clarify these fundamental differences, the first section discusses taziyeh and the way in which alienation is presented through the taziyeh stage, the relation between the actor, spectator and character and finally the role of the taziyeh text itself.

I then move on to suggest an alternative way to approach taziyeh, through Western art. In the second section of this chapter I compare taziyeh with Pablo Picasso’s painting, Guernica, which provides us with a potent analogy for the temporal aspects of taziyeh and the idea of simultaneity. In this section I also refer to cubism as another way to interpret the simultaneity and co-existence in taziyeh, which also leads us to another Western literary form: magical realism. In this regard the play-within-the- play, the transference of attributes from one character to another, and the actor becoming spectator are only some of the shared strategies used in parallel and similar to this kind of Western authorial production.

As another alternative form of theatre that helps us to understand certain aspects of taziyeh from a Western perspective, in the next section of this chapter, I focus on taziyeh and the modern European absurdist play, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Across these two dramatic forms the main theme is based on three crucial elements: life, death, and love. Life and death in these two are the crucial concern, and various interpretations of love are manifested in the context of life and death.

Following this it is useful to move on to talk about what has been a certain loss of some of taziyeh’s performative elements in the twentieth century, specifically through the influence of Western theatrical traditions on the form, and the adoption of Western theatrical conventions as the major form of theatre in Iran in the twentieth century, which tends to dilute some of taziyeh’s most original and vital aspects. The major problem appears to be that taziyeh has come to be performed on a proscenium stage, which prevents some of the effects that make taziyeh what it is. One such performance in the 1970s was witnessed by Peter Brook, one of the theatre practitioners who not only observed taziyeh but attempted to incorporate some aspects of it (e.g. The Conference of the Birds) into his works. Therefore, in this section, Brook’s

216 observations are analyzed, in order to highlight the distinguishing points still present in taziyeh.

In the final section of the chapter, I present some of my own attempts to learn from taziyeh and incorporate it into my own theatre practice. In that section I suggest how a new conception of the relationship between character and actor may be derived from this detailed study of taziyeh and I finish the chapter with a discussion of Brook’s experience with the ‘Ah’ sound and The Iranian Legend of the Sigh.

I. Brechtian theatre and taziyeh performances

Brechtian theatre

Brook agues that Brechtian theatre is

a call to halt; [it] is cutting, interrupting, holding something up to the light; making […] [spectator and even actor] look again [at the situation]. [It] is above all an appeal to the spectator to work for himself, so to become more and more responsible for accepting what he sees only if it is convincing to him in an adult way.’3

As a Marxist, in his theatre Brecht was trying to explain the process of ‘cause and effect’ in a class-based society, offering an explanation of specific social forces. He believed ‘that the actor should work from the external signs of social behavior and that these signs should be molded into a discourse about the operations of a society’.4 As Michelle Langford suggests: ‘the epic theatre was committed to making visible the social gest, uncovering the conditions through which certain actions enter into social relations and acquire social meanings.’5 It is through gest that the actor can keep a distance between him/herself and the character being played, as well as between him/herself and the spectators and can also physically deliver theatre’s political message to the spectators, allowing ‘conclusions to be drawn about the social

3 Brook, 1968, p. 81. 4 Lillis, George, 1982, Bertolt Brecht, ContemporaryFilmTheory, Ann Abor, UMI, Rex Press. p. 9. 5 Langford, E. Michelle, August 2000, Allegorical Images: Tableau, Time and Gesture in the Cinema of Werner Schroeter, A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Art History and Theory University of Sydney, p. 272.

217 circumstances’6. Brecht believed that the actor should not identify with the character, in order to be able to comment on his/her action. In this theatre, indeed, all steps are taken to keep the spectator at a distance, to ensure that the spectator does not ‘become emotionally involved in the drama’.7 As a result, Brechtian theatre attempted to ‘become an encounter and an experiment with the audience functioning both as interpreter and critic’.8

Through this idea one of the most important aspects of Brecht’s epic theatre is developed, which is his notion of ‘alienation’. Through alienation, Lellis argues:

the playwright and stage director must make the event strange [and wrench] it out of a credible, naturalistic context and produce an effect of heightened theatricality whereby the audience remain constantly aware of the theatrical illusions being represented before him. The purpose of this is [..] to produce observation and criticism of the social process that the audience might take for granted.9

In this way the actor’s action becomes a discussion about social conditions with the audience. Brecht ‘prompts the spectator to justify or abolish these conditions according to what class he belongs to’.10 Placards and verbal headings, music in contrast to the text, ‘as commentary to it rather than supplement to it’,11 and the use of ‘non realistic, geometric grouping of actors on stage’12 were other methods he used.

The purpose of alienation was, indeed, to struggle against the passivity of the spectators, keep them critical and arouse their astonishment rather than empathy. Benjamin suggests that: ‘What Brecht refuses is Aristotelian catharsis, the purging of the emotion through identification with the destiny which rules the hero’s life.’13

Epic theatre, then, ‘casts doubts upon the notion that the theatre is entertainment. It shakes the social validity of theatre-as-entertainment by robbing it of its function

6 Brecht, Bertolt, 1974, ‘On Gestic Music’ in Brecht on Theatre, trans., John Willett, Metheuen, , pp. 104-105, quoted by Langford, ibid., p. 273. 7 Roose-Evans, 1991, p. 68. 8 Ibid. p. 68. 9 Lellis, 1982, p. 10. 10 Ibid., p. 10/9. 11 Ibid., p. 10. 12 Ibid., p. 10. 13 Benjamin, Walter, 1973, ‘What is Epic Theatre’ (first version), Understanding Brecht, NLB Verso, London, P. 18.

218 within the capitalist system.’14 However, ‘he would never entirely preclude the possibility that a progressive and socially conscious form of theatre, such as the epic theatre, could entertain at the same time as it educates its audience’.15

The actor/spectator relationship in taziyeh

In taziyeh theatre all the dramatic elements are nothing more than the elements through which the spectators’/actors’ reactions can be heightened. As a result, taziyeh can only be explained in terms of the spectators’/actors’ participation and reactions to each performance, and not in terms of the manuscript, the play, the characters or aesthetic dimensions. Here, we are talking about spectators/actors and not spectator and actors as two sides of an encounter. Thus the audience does not function as interpreter and critic according to the Brechtian model, but participates and reacts to other/others in a very immediate way.

The ‘seething forces’ which take spectators to the theatre and which enable the performances are the spectators’ need for communication – with themselves, others and the world. This communicative need provides the initial motivation for the creation of this theatre. So the spectator, in contrast to Brechtian theatre, is not an observer but a participant seeking dialogue.

In taziyeh, in contrast to Brechtian theatre, the function of the actor is absolutely different. The actor is simultaneously in the position of actor, spectator, witness and human being. He changes his position and plays the role of victim (hero), victor (antagonist), witness, and others, in a circle in which he himself as the human being is in the centre and can react, unconditionally, to the events. During this changing of positions, he reacts to the real world, spectators, other actors, characters and the play being performed on the stage. Spectators are in an even more complicated position. They have the same role as actors while they communicate with the actor, character, the actor’s reactions and those of others around them. Communication and dialogue between actors and spectators is established through this dialectical relationship. This relationship sets up a complex communication through which a dialectical exchange of experience and emotion is created. This situation enables the actors and spectators

14 Ibid., p. 9. 15 See Langford, August 2000, p. 268.

219 to break down all the walls and limitations and bridge any imagined gaps in the theatre, express their own feelings, and interpret the play and reality from their own point of view.

Thus, in contrast to Brechtian theatre, narrative plays a complex role and provides actors and spectators with opportunities to alternatively change their positions as the actor, the character, and the witness. Changing positions allows them to communicate with each other and express themselves, as well as judge the situation from their point of view through expressing their emotions. This creates multiple actions and reactions, and communication through a complicated web of dialectical relationships.

Actors are on the stage to express and share their experiences and emotion, on the one hand by acting a character, and on the other by sharing a character’s experience and emotion in the process of acting him/her. It is through this intricate web of sharing experience and emotion, and not through the Brechtian style of alienation, that a taziyeh actor achieves self-alienation. An actor can stop playing a character for many reasons, including:

• to show his emotions as an actor/spectator in present/contemporary time (as when he cries, laughs or beats his chest in mourning) • to sympathize with the character he is playing • to sympathize with the other character/characters, as a fictional character in the past • to ‘be himself’, when he sits smoking or takes tea or talks to a friend while waiting for his turn to act.

Self-alienation goes so far that between playing a role an actor can leave his role and salute his colleague and then resume his role and continue acting. In the same way, a spectator can act as (a) a spectator, (b) a character (such as a guest at a wedding ceremony, eating sweets or even the enemy or a mourner) or (c) as a human being. In this theatre, through this cross-web of positions of exchange, all the gaps are bridged between the fictional world and the real world which are presented simultaneously. This is far from the aim of Brechtian theatre.

Because the taziyeh participants can occupy different positions as actor, spectator, victim, victor, witness, self and other/others, in practice this creates the means for the

220 actor and spectator to observe their own situation, achieve a better understanding of themselves, and develop their personality through the other’s experience and not through a discussion about their social condition which is the method of Brechtian theatre.

The taziyeh technique is fundamentally based on a mutual, emotional, dialectical internal/external exchange between the actor and spectator. Actor and spectator, therefore, are both involved in acting, and as a result, they exchange their roles. The term ‘spectatorial function’ captures the nature and psychology of audience reaction in the performance of taziyeh.

Spectatorial function

To understand what we might broadly call the ‘spectatorial function’, it is necessary to appreciate the fact that, in taziyeh performance, there are two spectator–figures: one sitting in the auditorium in the conventional manner, and the other performing on the stage. Both operate on three levels. In the case and person of the actor, we have not only a human being who presents a character/role, but also a spectator who observes both the actor as actor and the character that he is playing. Detailed analysis of a key dramatic moment will help to clarify these complexities.

Put crudely, when Hussein is murdered, actor A, playing Shimr, confronts actor B, playing Hussein, and kills him. Actor A is aware of the role he is playing as a human being and as Shimr and as a spectator. As a human being he is not only earning his living (as a professional actor), he is presenting/being himself, playing his own emotions. In the character of Shimr he does what, in the conventional sense, his role requires of him: he shows no mercy towards Hussein and kills him. As a spectator of the event he is enacting, he feels considerable sympathy for Hussein, to the point of putting himself emotionally in Hussein’s place as a victim and even weeping for him. On the other hand he is a victim of his own needs at this, or any other, specific moment and, since in the mystic world there is no such thing as evil independent of human beings, he alone is responsible for his wish to commit murder and he alone is to blame if others hate him. So his situation is also that of a victim, worthy of pity. Similarly, actor B, in the character of Hussein, is a hero who must die bravely at the hands of Shimr. The actor is aware at once of his own position as a human being, as a

221 character who must be killed, and as a spectator who is witnessing this killing. As the character, he is antagonistic towards Shimr; but as a human being and spectator, he sees that Shimr too is a victim and so feels sympathy for him and may also weep for him.

The spectator, the third element of this trinity, puts herself or himself emotionally in the place of both Hussein and Shimr. S/he has sympathy for Hussein’s plight on the one hand, and for the situation of Shimr the murderer on the other, while s/he is the witness of this situation as well. It is at this point that the trinity of actor A, actor B and spectator – or victor, victim and witness – become united in one indivisible entity.

Once again, it is vital to remember that when we talk of ‘character’ here we are not thinking in Stanislavskian terms. The characters of Shimr or Hussein do not originate in some outside source, such as history, or in some other narrative. Here, character is defined by the actor’s own self: it is inappropriate, therefore, to think of ‘building character’ or ‘creating a role’ in any way that Stanislavski might have approved of. In the process of creating his role, the taziyeh actor does not look to bring an independent text to life by reference to, say, aspects of his ‘emotional memory’, but to present his own emotions as the principal material of his performance. For the taziyeh actor, the text plays the role of an allegorical element which enables him to present himself and his relationship with the history that is being reconstructed on the stage.

The spectator in the auditorium is similarly ‘three-dimensional’. We might suggest, however, that s/he operates in the ‘opposite’ direction: first as human being/spectator, then as character, and finally as actor. For, like any of the participants in the staged drama, s/he too is required to behave both independently of the stage events and also as part of them. S/he may be called upon to play a role, both notionally and physically.

Similarly, the sense of the actor’s independence from the character, his quasi- Brechtian alienation from his role, is strengthened by the fact that the taziyeh actor carries his script in his hand. Malekpour reports of a taziyeh16 performance in which a blind person goes to see Reza, one of the Shi’a’s saints, and asks him to heal his eyes and give back his sight. In this performance, the actor who plays the role of the blind

16 The Taziyeh of Imam Reza. See Malekpour, 2004, p. 127.

222 person reads his lines from the manuscript. The eyewitness does not explain how the actor represents the blind character to show he is blind, but he clearly says that the blind character read ‘his lines from a manuscript that he had in his hand.’17 What is obvious is the crucial role of allegory which has been well recognized by actor/spectator, according to which a blind man can keep a text in his hand and read from it and it does not create any surprise. The constant presence of the ‘master’ in the performance constitutes a further strengthening of this alienation. These aspects are different from the self-alienation that plays an important role in letting the actor/spectator oscillate between positions. However, the actor’s purpose here is neither a judgmental nor an educative one, as Brechtian theatre might require. The function of the actor in taziyeh is to establish with the spectator a ‘space’ in which they – actor and spectator – can voice and share those feelings that they are unable to express outside the theatre.

Taziyeh, alienation and the social gest

As was argued, taziyeh is an alternative model of theatre with deep roots in history, the mourning ceremony ritual, Iranian mysticism and mythology. It is an epic popular theatre, which has flourished as an historical social movement of oppressed people that projects the masses’ revolt against injustice, oppression, military might and the tyranny of ruling powers. It intends to rouse and awaken spectators’/actors’ collective unconscious in order to liberate their innermost emotions and memory so they become conscious of their temporal reality and contemporary situation. Taziyeh awakens the most hidden unconscious memory of the masses of spectators and actors, and releases their rebellious energy and emotions, which in many cases go beyond the rational. This is done through performing the event of Karbala episodically, as an allegorical story, and the stories relevant to this event, woven in the ancient mythological mourning ceremonies.

Taziyeh is a production in which an unjust social situation is revealed. It is a dialogue between the present and the past or the contemporary moment and allegorical fictional life of the character/event.

17 Ibid., p. 127.

223 Indeed, in this theatre, historical elements, placed in texts/manuscripts/character, act as the revolutionary collective memory of the masses, hidden in the historical masses’ unconscious and brought to consciousness and narrated on the contemporary stage. These elements are narrated in order to remind spectators/actors of their forgotten memories of injustice and brutal situations, which allegorically correspond to the injustice and brutality of their contemporary life. In this theatre, the reactions of the spectator/actor are heightened as they receive the coded signs and allegorical emblems from the stage and as they share the emotions and experiences of the characters/past. Through this dialectical situation, the past and present or fictional and contemporary world are united and act as one and all the gaps between time – past/present/ future – and fictional and actual place – theatre or outside world – are bridged and any distance between the actor, spectator and character is eliminated while it reveals the innermost emotion of the actors/spectators. In this situation the narrative gestures, historical content and contemporary social gests act as one in a dialectical manner. Through the self-alienation of the spontaneous actor’s/spectator’s reaction to the characters/past/events, a great deal of the spectator’s/actor’s energy is released. This self-alienation is created through a contradictory cross-dialogue between time – the present and the past – place – the actual and the fictional world – and character. Repetition of the images and the simultaneous dialectical relationship between all these elements creates taziyeh theatre. Collective crying, rhythmic dancing and movement, singing and in some cases unbearable violence such as pinching, beating, and even killing a character/actor, are some of the suppressed, hidden, innermost emotions of actors/spectators/participants that are freed and allowed to speak themselves. This situation creates a tense dialogue between the spectators’ psychological and social gestures as well. This dialogue leads to consciousness and the final awakening of the spectators/actors. This is what can be taken to the outside world through singing, dancing or crying at the end of each performance.

The taziyeh stage is infinitely flexible and metamorphous, imbued with a sense of limitless potential. Through the abrupt shifts, the actors, spectators, objects, time and place are all able to be constantly intertwined and absorbed into one another and can change. One moment we are in the present, the next the future, then the distant past. The taziyeh stage is a space of constant flux. The actor, character (self and other), spectator, subject matter, object, time and place explain each other, while each is the

224 oneness of others which can be opposite. The performance takes the actor, character, spectator, subject, time and place beyond their reality, the stage, and even beyond the theatre. This structure creates the quality of cubist painting with multiple-facets and the multiple-meaning of being everywhere, seeing everything and watching every aspect and dimension, outside and inside of a reality, and having different perspectives on one single fact. This quality, indeed, gives the stage of taziyeh performances the potentiality and dynamism to show different dimensions of reality and fantasy, fact and fiction, love and hate, fear and courage, victory and defeat, fall and rise, birth and death, contemporaneity and eternity simultaneously. This kind of representation provides an opportunity to observe different dimensions inside or outside a character, actor, and spectator or different characteristics of one person. This is the greatest mystery in taziyeh, of how one thing becomes another, and how the multi-dimensionality of things, actor, character and spectator can be shown on the stage simultaneously. Taziyeh has gone beyond Brechtian theatre already. This situation guides us to another alternative way to approach taziyeh through Western art and Picasso’s Guernica.

II. Guernica, cubist quality and taziyeh

The empty taziyeh stage represents a barren desert. On it stands a small tent. It is the height of summer and a group of people are trapped and desperate for water.18 Water is not far away, but the group is surrounded by enemy soldiers, who cut them off from it. Outnumbered though they are, as they begin to die slowly and painfully of thirst, the group have no option but to revolt against their situation and fight for their lives. Thirst is a dynamic condition that forces the characters in this drama to act.

The desert may be barren, but it is not dead. Indeed, everything here is alive, everything is sensitive, and capable of reaction. Even objects, even amputated limbs, have human characteristics and are able to talk, laugh and cry; a lion can talk and throw dust on its head as a sign of sorrow; animals can dance; doves can paint their wings with blood and fly to report a family calamity to loved ones; a soldier can talk to his horse or to his sword; a cooked chicken can fly from the dinner table.19

18 In ancient Iranian mythology water is a symbol of purity, light and life. 19 In the taziyeh Conversion of a Christian Lady to the Muhammadan Faith, for example, the dead body of Hussein talks and acts as alive (Pelly, II, pp. 286-303), in Conversion Murder of the

225 Everyone struggles for life and everything reacts to this deep and profound desire to live. Life and desire have overflowed everywhere, over everything and everyone. When the ground is dug, for example, blood flows over it.20 For thirsty lips, time plays a crucial and vital role.

In terms of its deeply emotional commitment and its fragmentary non-realist treatment of form, the taziyeh stage creates something of the impression of Picasso’s great indictment of war and violence, Guernica, an image of battle, destruction and suffering brought vividly to life. The stage, like the mural, resembles a crucible for extreme sensation, as if a battle-coffin from the ancient world had been cracked open and its contents exposed. Wailing women, crying children, bloody costumes, wounded horses, archaic archetypal symbols, bloody doves’ wings, metal open hands on the top of the poles and black flags, all simultaneously contemporary and timeless, perform their savage, allegorical drama side by side.

But there is much more to taziyeh than its pictorial resemblance to Guernica: the thirst of the characters in the desert for the water of life gives the drama a deeper and new dimension, which takes the drama from present to future. Death is a fundamental theme. It is private, personal and universal. But still death is not simply significant here in itself, as the discontinuity of life; it is the affirmation of its very opposite, namely the continuity of life and the opportunity thus created for revolt. When a character dies, the theatre become a site of lamentation, a place to mourn dead heroes, so the performance changes focus from something simple and private to something complex and public, social, and even universal.

The physical action and movements of the characters as they fight for their lives render this situation visual and theatrical. Thirst, as a physical need, causes everyone and everything to struggle for survival, even in the face of inevitable death. In a situation as sensitive as this, even the earth will react with signs of life. For instance,

Ambassador from Europe, the cut head of Hussein sings and talks (Pelly, II, PP. 222-240); in Dispatch of Hussein’s Family as Captives to Syria (Pelly, pp.188-201), Hussein ‘s Faithless Camel-Driver (Pelly, II, pp. 151-166), and In Camp at Karbala after the Death of Hussein (Pelly, II, pp. 104-122), the ghosts of the dead talks; in Rescue by Hussein of Saltan Ghiyas from the Jaws of a Lion (Pelly, pp. 54-65), a lion talks and acts as a human character; in the taziyeh of Halaj in a party the cooked chickens fly away from the desks. 20 In the taziyeh Conversion of a Christian Lady to the Muhammadan Faith, for example, a caravan arrives in the plain of Karbala. They decide to stay and put up their tents. Wherever they dig the ground to put up the tent pole, the blood springs out (Pelly, II, pp. 286-330).

226 blood, as an allegorical emblem for life, may boil up from the ground when someone touches or digs in it.

III. Taziyeh and magical realism

This structure achieves something magical with its subject matter. Everything overlaps, meets and changes; place and an actual and known story are recapitulated on the stage in different performances without the expression being repetitive. The climax is not in the story or story-telling, but in the very intense relation between actor and spectator and the moments that these two become one as the observers of an event. This representation, indeed, creates a magic crystal ball. The different rotations of this magic world change a dramatic action into a social movement, and achieve constant rebirthing of the new heroes through the spectators/actors.

Surprisingly taziyeh, on its stage, through its ‘mixture of realistic and fantastic elements’21 in which ‘realist details and esoteric knowledge are intertwined with dreamlike sequences, abrupt chronological shifts and complex, tangled plots’22 shares the a similar world with magic realism in literature. 23

The way Rushdie includes the narrator’s act of writing in Midnight’s Children24, where he is some times in the action as ‘I’ and at other times refers to himself in the third person as ‘Saleem’ in the course of the same sentence remind us of referrals which are used frequently in taziyeh.

On the stage of this theatre, a decapitated head can cry or make a speech; a dead man can hug his child all night, and give a tiresome description of his grievances. If you dig up the ground, blood can spurt out; a man can talk to his sword or horse; animals

21 See Murfin, Ross, Supryia, Ray, M., 2003, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, Bedford/St. Martin’s, second edition, Boston, New York, p. 242. 22 Ibid, p. 242-3. 23 ‘The term has most often been applied to Latin American writers such as the [Argentinean] Jorge Luis Borges and the [Columbian] Gabriel Garcia Márquez, novelists such as Italo Calvino, John Fowles, Gunter Grass, and Salman Rushdie have also been called magic realists, as has [the Japanese writer] Banana Yashimoto, who combines magic realism with postmodernist attitudes and styles’. (See Ibid. p. 243.) This fictional genre, first termed magical realism in the 1940s’ works ‘to portray the strange, the uncanny, the eerie […] aspects of everyday reality’. (See Hawthorn, Jermy, 2000, A Glossary of Contemporary Literary theory, Aronold, Fourth Edition, co-published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press Inc., New York; also Moretti, Franco, 1996, Modern Epic, The World System From Goethe to Garcia Marquez, translated by Quintin Hoare, Verso, London, New York.) 24 Rushdie, Salman, 1995, Midnigh’s Children, Vintage, Great Britain.

227 can talk and have human emotions and behaviors; an actor can travel anywhere by turning around on the stage; cooked chickens can fly from the plates on the dinner table; a story that belonged to a family in the past can be narrated by the people of the future, the past or the present, and can be performed on the stage in any order. 25 Decades before the term of magic realism had been applied to a kind of literary fictional form, it has been played on thousands of taziyeh stages in Iran26.

Taziyeh drama is a part of people’s everyday life and consequently the public have found an outlet for all their desires, wishes, pains, joys and nostalgias through it. Consequently, not only the barriers between the stage and auditorium or the actors and spectators, but also any barriers on stage such as time, language, action, fact and fiction and reality and fantasy, can be broken down in order to establish a profound and tangled communication between performers and audiences as one.

In this regard, the taziyeh manuscripts play a significant role in taziyeh performances. This may be demonstrated by examining the taziyeh manuscript called Abbas, the Indian, in some detail.

This taziyeh begins with a visit between an old woman and a taziyeh group. The woman invites the performers to play The Taziyeh of Abbas at her place. She emphasizes that for a long time it has been one of her wishes to watch this play and she is ready to pay whatever cost the group demands. The master refuses to perform this particular taziyeh because he has no actor in the group to play the role of Abbas. The lady goes home sad and crying, since she cannot fulfill one of the wishes at her old age. A young Indian man who is passing by hears the old woman’s loud complaint. He comes to the woman and asks if he can help to relieve her from her problem. The young man’s name is Abbas! The woman tells him her story. The man says that he is ready to play the role of Abbas in the performance:

25 In Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, for example, people can remain awake for years because of the plague of wakefulness, or it can be raining for months without stopping. (See Marquez, G. Garcia, 1970, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, Avon, New York.) In Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, we read: ‘A thousand and one children were born; there were a thousand and one possibilities which had never been presented in one place at one time before; and there were a thousand and one dead ends.’ (See Rushdie, 1995, Midnight’s Children, p. 66.) 26 It is interesting to note that ‘the 2001 film Amelie contained many elements of magic realism: talking lamps, paintings, and photographs; a winking statue; and a protagonist who literally melts when her love interest leaves the restaurant in which she works without asking her for a date.’ (Murfin, 2003, p. 243.)

228 ABBAS, THE INDIAN: my voice is good. I know how to play fighting. I can read the manuscript very well.

But the young man, Abbas the Indian, has a serious problem as he explains. His father is not a believer and consequently he is the enemy of the Prophet and he would not allow him to play the role of Abbas. But Abbas is willing to play the role on the condition that his father be kept unaware of his acting; otherwise his father would kill him.

The old woman then sits on the stage as a spectator watching the performance.

The performance of The Taziyeh of Abbas, as the play-in-a-play, is begun, while Abbas, the Indian plays the role of Abbas. The stage which was the woman’s place, now changes to the Karbala desert. Abbas, the brother of Hussein by different mothers, accompanied Hussein as one of his family members and with others becomes trapped in the Karbala desert. Having access to water he bravely fights till the last moment of his life, though both his hands are cut off during the battle.

The performance is finished. Everybody relaxes. Now we are in the old woman’s place once again. Another play begins. An interloper gives the news that Abbas the Indian has played the character of Abbas to his father and the son is faced with his furious father aware of the whole story. Abbas the Indian proudly defends what he has done and refuses to apologize. He adds that he is now a follower of Hussein and ready to face the consequences and he says as a result of his playing the role of Abbas he came to understand his situation. The father, blinded with anger, cuts off both his son’s hands. Abbas’s mother and sister desperately try to shield Abbas, but the raging father cuts out his wife’s tongue and makes his daughter blind and throws them all out of his place. The three take refuge in the desert, Abbas complaining:

ABBAS, THE INDIAN: wandering in the desert! No hands to touch, no tongue to speak, no eye to see. Do we deserve it? My God! Helpless! Nowhere to go! I just played young Abbas. Who is going to help us?

Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, appears. She heals the mother so the mother recovers her tongue and Abbas arrives and gives Abbas the Indian his hands back.

229 Finally, Zainab, Hussein’s sister, appears and the sister finds her sight again. With the final dialogue, the spectators receive a final or awakening shock:

ABBAS, THE INDIAN: How can I offer my thanks? Your blessing present gave me back my hands. Give me your hand to kiss for all you have done for us. ABBAS: Forgive me young man! I don’t have hands to be kissed.27

It should be mentioned that Abbas, one of the bravest, well-known fighters in the Karbala event, has both his hands cut off during his fight to get access to water and save the loved ones surrounded by soldiers. In this play Abbas is a character who plays a crucial role as a strong, effective allegorical emblem to awaken the spectators’/actors’ unconscious memories of the brutality against oppressed characters.

In this play, as we noticed, fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, the present, the past and the future, allegory and actuality are woven into each other. Places are replaced by one another. All borders are exceeded through the play-in-a-play and act-in-an-act which conveys its message to the spectators: an experience from a character (Abbas) transfers to another character (Abbas, the Indian). The myth (a fictional character) and contemporary person (present character) share their destinies. The play starts with a simple wish from a character/actor/spectator in the present and takes the theatre/spectator to a fictional world, then brings everything and everyone back to the present time once again. Then it takes everything to the past again. The awareness in the present is the result of a dialectical relationship between the past and present and mythical and contemporary characters. In this transformation, indeed, Abbas the Indian does not identify with Abbas, even though he plays his character. But through a process of dramatic action, Abbas the Indian is put in a position in which he is metamorphosed into the same identity in many ways if not completely, according to an external (political, social or cultural) force, which is unwarranted and unjust.

In this complex process many elements are exchanged, shared and used in order to join the fictional and contemporary world together. The present world is integrated and transformed into the past, and the past is integrated and transformed into the

27 Number 3 of Enrico Cerulli’s Collection.

230 present. This allows the spectators to share the experiences and become a part of the theatre. In this play, for instance, this is achieved through: the similarity in the names (both characters have the same name: Abbas); dramatic acts (both end up with severed hands); and place (the fiction happens in the desert and Abbas the Indian, his sister and mother also end up in the desert). At the end of the performance, the spectators are left alone to face reality – their present situation – and to be able to share their understandings and outcomes. In the last dialogue in the play, the myth – the fictional world – remains fiction and unchanged: Abbas, still, has no hand to offer for someone to kiss. Consequently, both spectator and actor can become conscious of the parallels and this possibility can change their points of view through understanding and shared experience. It is through this process that elements such as hands, eyes and tongues can still be well used. Three important parts of the human body (that with which one can touch others such as loved ones, can see and can speak freely about his/her wishes, findings and desires) can all be destroyed by political, social or cultural brutality, which is against free will. In this taziyeh, we see how the political situation of Abbas, as a mythical/historical allegory, who is the victim of oppression and was killed by brutal forces, creates another dialectical link between the political, cultural, and individual situation, exemplified by Abbas the Indian and his father. Finally, the old woman, who opened the play at the very beginning, is, indeed, firstly an allegorical element as a spectator/witness among the actors or on the stage and the cause of all these happenings. Second, she is another allegorical element that illustrates the masses’ historical unconscious (the story of brave Abbas hidden or forgotten in their unconscious), a story that has the tendency to surface into consciousness and seek an opportunity to be raised. Third, she plays the link between the present (the life of Abbas, the Indian and his story) and the past (the life of Abbas who fights bravely and is killed in Karbala). All these elements create the aim of the performance through which the unconscious is brought to consciousness and lead to awakening and understanding of the contemporary situation.

As was argued, in taziyeh, approaching the actors’/spectators’ historical unconscious through an historical event in order to bring it to the consciousness and link it to the contemporary situation creates a fundamental difference between taziyeh and Brechtian theatre. This is despite the presence of some elements such as alienation in

231 which these two different theatres may share. It is why stress may be laid on the connection and sharing world of taziyeh and magic realism.

It is now time to approach certain aspects of taziyeh from anther Western perspective, through another alternative form of theatre, the modern European absurdist play, Samuel Becket’s Waiting for Godot, and to compare the different interpretations of life, death and love between these two.

IV. Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is about two tramps on an open road passing the time. They have no choice but to live, although they are slowly degenerating and being buried deeper and deeper in time and eternity. There is some point to their waiting: they are waiting for Mr Godot, but, as quickly becomes evident, Mr Godot will never turn up. The lights go up on a country road and a single, leafless, lifeless tree. Beneath it is a man struggling with his boot. When a second man arrives, their first exchange takes us to the heart of the matter:

ESTRAGON: Nothing to be done. VLADIMIR: I’m beginning to come around to that opinion. All my life I’ve tried to put it from me, saying, Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven’t yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle.28

We quickly discover that the previous night Estragon has been beaten, as on the previous night, and again, as before, by unknown assailants and for unknown reasons:

VLADIMIR: and they didn’t beat you? ESTRAGON: beat me? Certainly they beat me. VLADIMIR. The same lot as usual? ESTRAGON: The same? I don’t know.29

We are only a few minutes into the performance and it is already clear that repetition is a key feature of the structure, not only of the tramps’ lives, but of the play itself. Not only does Act II replicate in symmetrical fashion the shape of Act I, but, within this broader structure, smaller repetitions, smaller routines, occur constantly: the

28 Beckett, Samuel, 1975, Waiting for Godot, Faber and Faber, London, p. 9. 29 Ibid., p. 9.

232 tramps’ circular exchange of hats, Estragon’s repeated fussing with his boots, Lucky’s repeated picking up and setting down of his luggage, the boy’s repeated failure to bring Godot, the tramps’ round-song, one tramp’s constant picking up of the other’s words and lines. Well before the play ends we realize that Godot will never turn up and that this cyclical pattern will go on and on, forever and ever:30

VLADMIR: (Silence. He looks at the tree.) Every thing’s dead but the tree. ESTRAGON: (Looking at the tree). What is it? VLADMIR: It’s the tree. ESTRAGON: Yes, but what kind? VLADMIR: I don’t know. A willow.31 Estragon draws Vladimir towards the tree. They stand motionless before it. Silence. ESTRAGON: Why don’t we hang ourselves? VLADMIR: With what? ESTRAGON: You haven’t got a bit of rope? VLADMIR: No. ESTRAGON: Then we can’t. Silence. VLADMIR: Let’s go. ESTRAGON: Wait. There’s my belt. VLADMIR: It’s too short.

30 Beckett, Samuel, 1970, En attendant Godot, Edited by Colin Duckworth, with a forward by Harold Hobson, George G. Harrap, pp. xci and lxxxiv-lxxxv. 31 The willow, which usually grows near water, acts as a symbol of mourning, death, and rebirth. Willow was used in the building of Solomon’s temple (Old Testament, 1K.5:6, 7:7). The Jewish captives in Babylon in 597 BC hung up their harps on the weeping willows along the banks of Euphrates, because they were not able to play the harp and sing any more in exile or in a land that did not belong to them (PS.137). In some tales it is said that the human backbone, which is considered as the seat of life, was originally made from a willow branch. Willow and cedar trees are almost always present in cemeteries in America as a symbol of everlasting life. The Japanese have a story about the spirit of a willow. They tell how there was a large and very old willow in a village by a river. The villagers decided to build a bridge over the river and use the willow wood. A young man, who loved and respected the willow tree, offered the wood from his own land to save the willow tree. One day when he was returning from work he met a beautiful young woman under the willow. He fell in love with her. He asked her to marry him. They married on the condition that he never asked his wife about her past life. Years passed. One year the Emperor ordered a temple be built by the river. The villagers decided to use willow wood in the construction of the building for good fortune. One morning when the willow was being cut down, the woman woke up and told her husband that she was leaving him forever. When her husband asked her the reason for her decision she replied she was the spirit of the willow. She married him to make him happy in return for saving her life. Now that the villagers were cutting the willow down she must return to the willow and die with it. (See Elliade, Mircea, 1958, Patterns in Cooperative Religion, New York; Greertz, Clifford, 1960, The Religion of Java, New York; Pritchard, E. E. Evans, 1977, Nuer Religion, New York; and Turner, Victor, 1976, The Forest of Symbols: An Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca, N. Y.)

233 ESTRAGON: You could hang on to my legs. VLADMIR: And who’d hang on to mine? ESTRAGON: True. VLADMIR: Show all the same, (Estragon loosens the cord that holds up his trousers which, much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord. ) It might do at a pinch. But is it strong enough? ESTRAGON: We’ll soon see. Here. They each take an end of the cord and pull. It breaks. They almost fall. VLADMIR: Not worth a curse. Silence. ESTRAGON: You say we have to come back tomorrow? VLADMIR: Yes. ESTRAGON: Then we can bring a good bit of rope. VLADMIR: Yes. Silence. ESTRAGON: Didi. VLADMIR: Yes. ESTRAGON: I can’t go on like this. VLADMIR: That’s what you think. ESTRAGON: If we parted? That might be better for us. VLADMIR: We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes. ESTRAGON: And if he comes? VLADMIR: We’ll be saved. Vladimir takes off his hat (Lucky’s), peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, knocks on the crown, puts it on again. ESTRAGON: Well? Shall we go? VLADMIR: Pull on your trousers. ESTRAGON: What? VLADMIR: Pull on your trousers. ESTRAGON: You want me to pull off my trousers? VLADMIR: Pull on your trousers. ESTRAGON: (Realising his trousers are down). True. He pulls up his trousers. VLADMIR: Well? Shall we go? ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go.

234 They do not move.32

However, at the same time as having this circular form, the play charts a very gradual, slow decline, what Lawrence Harvey has called ‘a linear, downward line’ towards degeneration and slow burial in time, in eternity 33 In a sense it looks as though all the characters are being buried in eternal time. But this happens more slowly and less obviously than in, say, Beckett’s Happy Days, or How it is. In Happy Days, Winnie is only buried up to her waist in Act I and up to her neck when Act II opens. Were there to be an Act III, she would doubtless be totally buried. It is the same for Pim and Bom, entering the muddy limbo of How it is. The theme of degeneration is as important in Godot as that of circularity: life goes round and round, but also down and down. It is perhaps the one clearly articulated point in Lucky’s otherwise unintelligible speech. In Act I Estragon remembers that they were under the tree the previous day, but in Act II it is Vladimir who remembers, for Estragon can remember nothing. Estragon was once presentable enough to be allowed up the Eiffel Tower, but by the end of Act II, is not aware whether his trousers are up or down. Pozzo loses his possessions one by one, the crack of his whip, his sight. As time goes by, the tramps’ impatience with one another increases, and the monotony and deep feeling of decay grows more and more unbearable. They find it more difficult to talk: Estragon is more silent and morose, and Vladimir is talking about suicide at the end.

A number of factors – suspense, renewal of the dialogue through the asymmetrical introduction of new themes, the constant oscillation between ‘surface patterns and the universal themes of human existence’,34 the poetic action of images, the rhythm of words and silence, talking, speechifying, miming, arrivals and departures – all create a visual and dramatic situation.35

Life and death in Godot and taziyeh

Although, at first sight, taziyeh and Waiting for Godot appear to have nothing at all in common, they do, in fact, have some important similarities. As I have argued, death is the bedrock of taziyeh and, alongside the frequent narration of death, the enactment of

32 Beckett, 1975, p. 94. 33 Harvey, Lawrence, March 1960, Art and the Existential in En attendant Godot, P.M.L.A., LXXV, p. 141. (See foreword of Beckett, 1970, p. xci.) 34 See Harvey, 1960, pp. 137-146. (Quoted in Beckett, 1970, p. lxxxv.) 35 See Beckett, 1970, pp. lxxxiii-xcv.

235 death, mourning and the funeral succeed one another in a pattern of constant repetition. We can say the same of Waiting for Godot. Hugh Hunt’s remark about Beckett’s play applies equally well to taziyeh:36

The approach made […] in Waiting for Godot … symbolizes that chaotic state of existence by a corresponding anarchy in the construction of the play itself. Play architecture as it was understood by the writer of the well-made play has given place to a seemingly abstract void in which plot, or dramatic story-telling, is almost non existent.37

On Beckett’s stage we have the expression of both sides of a single coin: one is what we might call pure existence, nature’s eternal cycle and the slow degeneration of humankind, and the other, very different, is our contemporary daily existence, the social condition. While Estragon and Vladimir’s waiting under a tree that grows and loses its leaves with the passing seasons suggest the drama’s eternal dimension, the class/power relationship between landowner Pozzo and slave Lucky illustrates its social dimension. In taziyeh, these two sides of a single coin become the complex, multi-faceted expressions of a single event, presented, in a quasi-cubist manner, simultaneously. Reality and fantasy, fact and fiction, brutality and innocence, love and hate, fear and courage, victory and defeat, fall and rise, birth and death all co-exist in both time and place on the taziyeh stage.

The characters in taziyeh are fighting for life, but the outcome of their struggle will be the very thing they are fighting against: death. It is a fight between life and the inevitability of death. But regardless of the struggle, the mourning and the shedding of tears for loved ones – occurrences that dominate the dramatic action – the outcome will be no different.

In taziyeh this fatalistic condition of hopelessness causes a chain-reaction from the character to victim to actor to spectator, from stage to auditorium and then to the outside world in the climax of taziyeh, as was argued in Chapter Three.

A similar fatalism predominates in Waiting for Godot. Here the characters are gradually dying, slowly being buried in time and eternity. It is their waiting and the

36 Beckett, 1970, p. 1xxxiv. 37 Hunt, Hugh, 1962, The Live Theatre, Oxford University Press, p. 155. (Quoted in Beckett, 1970, p. 1xxxv.)

236 anticipation of Godot’s imminent arrival that makes this inevitability tolerable – and that renders their situation theatrically plausible. The pain of dying is made bearable for us because we only witness and share in the waiting, the fighting for survival, the metaphors for dying. No change will occur if Vladimir and Estragon do not wait any longer, do not try and pass the time any more. Nor will there be any change if the characters of taziyeh stop fighting and struggling for water: they will continue to die of thirst.

In Waiting for Godot there is no question of any physical, external struggle: such conflict as the characters have, between living and dying, is internal. In taziyeh, all psychological action, whatever is going on within the characters, is externalized and made visible on stage.

In both dramas, time, as a vital factor of human existence, is fundamental to meaning. In Waiting for Godot, Pozzo and Lucky, his slave, arrive and then pass on in Act I. In Act II they come back, though their situation is radically different. The wintry, leafless tree of Act I sprouts springtime leaves in Act II, suggesting the ongoing, never-ending cycle of nature. But for human beings, whose situation is different, there is always the possibility of some solution, some ‘promised end’. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett turns the passing of time into a visual, theatrical experience, by showing the activities of the two tramps as they struggle to prove that they are alive. In taziyeh, the struggle of the characters as they fight to extricate themselves from their deadlock is the source of the theatrical experience. Although there is no prospect of change, although their situation has no future, the characters still struggle, in order to prove that they are ‘there, still alive’– and this means hope. In Waiting for Godot the struggle is internalized. In taziyeh, not only is the struggle externalized on the stage, but also, more importantly, it is extended out into the auditorium. The moment at which the play ends, according to convention, means that the spectators take ‘the message/awakening’ of the play away with them. It is in no sense an ending in taziyeh: it is merely one stage of many.

What in Waiting for Godot is ‘no choice but living and buried in time’ becomes in taziyeh ‘no choice but fighting and dying for water/life’.

237 In taziyeh dramas there are no beginnings, middles or ends, no plots, developments or climaxes, according to the conventional meaning of these terms. Different themes are broached, then disappear, and climaxes occur repeatedly, like waves that rise up and die again, but without any clear sense of closure. The openness and flexibility of these structural features are a reflection of the complex relationship between actor, character and spectator, where, as we have seen, there is little sense of finite, clear-cut definition, but rather the sense of an ever-active interrelationship. Similarly, Waiting for Godot was seen to challenge all conventional ideas of structure.

In taziyeh, both actors and spectators are living death; they join together in experiencing an irreversible situation, in which the outcome is well known. In one very deep respect, the taziyeh theatre is a place where actors, characters and spectators – both on the stage and off – all share the experience of dying, dying in deepest sorrow, for half a day. Similarly, the actors and spectators of Waiting for Godot enact and undergo for three hours an essentially static, ‘absurd’ situation that stands for a lifetime of lived experience.

As Colin Duckworth says of Waiting for Godot:

The combination of monotonous repetition with the circularity of the total structure, and the line of life leading sharply to the grave and beyond to eternity is one of great aesthetic simplicity and beauty.38

The same may be said of taziyeh. However, here the ‘combination’ extends beyond the stage. Waiting for Godot is a structure that has the ‘rare quality of being both static and dynamic’.39 So, too, in taziyeh, where qualities of fragmentation and a kind of cubism suggest that a single reality can be seen from a multitude of perspectives simultaneously.

In taziyeh ‘water’ is somewhere there, not too far from the thirsty characters. Characters have to fight with thirst from inside to bear it, and from outside to get it. In Waiting for Godot, the characters have convinced themselves that Godot is somewhere there and so they keep passing time. In Waiting for Godot, ‘waiting’ and

38 Beckett, 1970, p. xcii. 39 Ibid., p. xcii.

238 the effort of the characters passing the time, gives the drama its sense of time. In taziyeh ‘thirst’ and ‘fighting for water’ creates the same sense.

Godot in Waiting for Godot may not come, and fighting in taziyeh may never result in victory, but the dynamism of hope never ends. Hope is a phenomenon which, in both dramas, keeps the characters active. There is always the possibility that the situation will come to an end, even if it never happens. Suspense marks both situations. So water in taziyeh is equal to Godot in Beckett’s play.

In taziyeh, there is not only the outside reality – dark forces – but something inside human beings – human need/thirst – which persuades the characters to fight. This same need in Beckett’s play has crystallized in Godot/hope/waiting.

In taziyeh, water/life is surrounded by dark forces and the characters’ efforts may change the situation. In Waiting for Godot nothing can be done to make Godot come but to wait. Therefore, the dramatic technique of taziyeh creates a situation which leads the spectators to revolt against their own situation to achieve its opposite. For instance, as was previously mentioned, in taziyeh, death is illustrated to demonstrate life, in order to lead the spectators to life and to lead them to revolt against death. In the same way, it illustrates darkness to demonstrate light, injustice to demonstrate justice, the inhumane to demonstrate the humane, and hate to demonstrate love.

In other words, the taziyeh performance is a theatrical method in which a passive situation is changed into an active circumstance by transforming spectators from observers to performers. This is the moment when the auditorium becomes the stage or the centre of the theatre.

Love as a common theme

The other element which these two dramas are based on and share a theme, is love, although with two different interpretations.

Waiting for Godot in particular, and Beckett’s point of view in general, as well as taziyeh illustrate two different interpretations of love although they both share the same philosophical point of view on existence. In Waiting for Godot, love is a hidden element with a new version of the same phenomenon: the unavoidable need for the

239 other/others. As in most of Beckett’s other dramas, Vladmir and Estragon can not leave each other and are so close that they seem two dimensions of one person, despite their differences and in spite of their occasional efforts to separate.

In taziyeh, although it takes a more complicated form, and despite characters’ deeds as protagonists or antagonists, love illustrates the vital dimension of their lives according to Iranian mysticism. All the characters are in love. Those who are seeking and fighting to death, hoping to reach water and bring it to save other/others lives and their motivation of their struggle are the lives of loved ones and those who fight against them as antagonists who seems they are conscious of their actions but they are ensnared by an unavoidable fatalism. The murderers, for example, cry loudly for their victims despite their cruel actions. Love is a motivating element which gives meaning to characters’ struggles on the one hand, while on the other love seems to express another dimension of life and existence. All the characters in taziyeh are lovers. Those who are seeking and fighting to the death, like those who are hoping to reach water and bring it to save other/others’ lives – the motivation of their struggles is the thirst of their loved ones. The present element of Love in taziyeh, once again refers us to Iranian mysticism as one of the crucial taziyeh origins argued in chapters two and three.

Despite these different interpretations of love, they both explore how we may protect ourselves from fear: from the fear of loneliness in Waiting for Godot, and from the fear of meaninglessness in taziyeh. In Waiting for Godot, the unavoidable need for other(s) illustrates the characters’ (and our) terror in the face of death and loneliness, while in taziyeh love gives meaning to the lives of the characters and spectators. Without love, taziyeh suggests, the characters would be thrown into a meaningless life, and thus love provides protection against absurdity.

V. Brook’s Observations

I saw in a remote Iranian village one of the strongest things I have ever seen in theatre: a group of four hundred villagers, the entire population of the place, sitting under a tree and passing from roars of laughter to outright sobbing – although they knew perfectly well the end of the story – as they saw Hussein in danger of being killed. And then fooling his enemies, and then being martyred, and when he was martyred the theatre form became

240 truth – there was no difference between past and present. An event that was told as a remembered happening in history, thirteen hundred years ago, actually became a reality in that moment. Nobody could draw the line between the different orders of reality. It was an incarnation: at that particular moment he was being martyred again in front of those villagers.40

These are the words of Peter Brook, describing a taziyeh performance in a remote village in Iran in the late twentieth century. Brook was struck by the very same effect that had impressed Lewis Pelly over one hundred years earlier. Pelly, who lived in Iran from 1859 to 1862, wrote:

If the success of a drama is to be measured by the effects which it produces upon the people for whom it is composed, or upon the audiences before whom it is represented, no play has ever surpassed the tragedy known in the Mussulman [Moslem] world as that of Hasan and Husain.41

These reactions, expressed by two men experiencing in the flesh the relationships between spectator and actor, between realities and ideal, go to the essence of taziyeh performances.42

Brook visited Iran on two different occasions, the first in 1970. It is possibly during this visit that he had the opportunity to become familiar with Iranian mystical ideas and philosophy. One result of Brook’s visit was that he developed a performance based on the ideas and the story of The Conference of the Birds, written by Iranian twelfth-century mystic poet, Faridodin Attar.43 During this time, Brook watched taziyeh performed in the faraway countryside, in a natural performance site: a village near Shiraz. In this performance, two hundred spectators gathered sitting and standing, in the sun, near a tree. From the first moment, what impressed Brook was

40 Brook, Peter, 1979, ‘Learning on the Moment: A Conversation with Peter Brook’, in Parabola Myth, Tradition & the Search for Meaning, Parabola Magazine, New York, Volume 4. 41 Pelly, 1878, volume I, preface, pp. 3. 42 Brook in The Shifting Point, argued about the relationship between actor and spectator and reality and ideal as the essence of theatre. See Brook, Peter, 1988, The Shifting Point, Methuen Drama, London and Harper and Row, New York. 43 The Conference of the Birds was among the first experiments of which was performed by Peter Brook when he formed his International Centre of Theatre Research in Paris in 1970. In 1972 Brook set off with a group of his actors, on a journey to Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Benin (formerly Dahomey), Togo and Mali to develop one particular show of this performance. John Heilpern, a journalist reporter, who was with the group on this journey, has written about the experience in his book The Conference of the Birds. (See Heilpern, John, 1989, The Conference of the Birds, The Story of Peter Brook in Africa, Methuen Drama, London.) The Conference of the Birds was performed by Peter Brook in New York in 1980.

241 the villagers’ way of gathering, through which they represented their unity and observed the outsiders. Brook writes:

When I first went to Iran in 1970, I saw a very powerful form of theatre known as taziyeh. Our little group of friends had come a long way across Iran, by air to Mashhad, and then by taxi deep into the rolling, open countryside, off the one main road and down a muddy track to keep an important rendezvous with a theatre performance. Then suddenly we were outside a brown wall that circumscribed the village, where near a tree two hundred villagers made a circle. Standing and sitting in the scorching sun, they made a ring of humanity so complete that we five outsiders were totally absorbed into their unity.44

As he writes, the taziyeh spectators gather in a circle. It is a way of sitting in the mystic houses to leave the conventional masks, become themselves and let the unconscious come up to consciousness and talk. Through this process the participants can observe in others and unite as one. All these happen through singing, repeating a word and dancing.

There are different ages and genders, ‘men and women’ with different costumes, traditional and modern: ‘Young men in jeans leaning on their bicycles, and children everywhere.’ ‘Young men in jeans’ suggests their contact with cities:

The villagers were in perfect expectation, because they knew down to the last detail what was to come, and we, knowing nothing, were a sort of perfect audience.45

Brook calls himself and his companions correctly ‘a perfect audience’ because they know nothing about the details of the drama. This is a crucial point which provides Brook with the possibility of watching the performance as a neutral spectator and giving us a detailed report through which we can catch and analyze the moments in which the gap between the actor and spectators is bridged. The difference between this report and other reports written in the nineteenth century is that it is a report written by a theatre practitioner sensitive to and strongly aware of changes in the theatre and between the actors and spectators.

44 Brook, 1993, p. 38. 45 Ibid., p. 38.

242 Then he suggests his group’s knowledge about taziyeh and the political circumstances as a result of which taziyeh performances were banned:

All we had been told was that the taziyeh is the Islamic form of a mystery play, that there are many such plays, and that they deal with the martyrdom of the first twelve imams who followed the prophet. Although banned by the shah for many years, they continued to be performed clandestinely in three or four hundred villages. The one we were about to see was called Hossein, but we knew nothing about it: not only did the idea of an Islamic drama suggest nothing, but it even awoke a doubting corner of the mind to remind us that Arab countries have no traditional theatre because representation of the human form is forbidden by the Koran. We know that even the walls of mosques were decorated with mosaics and calligraphies instead of the huge heads and searching eyes found in Christianity.46

Although Brook talks about the musician who ‘sitting under the tree struck a rhythm insistently on his drum’, he does not say whether the drummer was playing a repeated monotonous beating. Repeated and monotonous rhythm is the way of beating the drum in taziyeh performances and mystic houses. In taziyeh, it is not only a warning but the monotonous rhythm suggests its listeners be ready to leave everyday/contemporary life and move deeper and deeper into the unconscious world. The drum is played in this distinctive way in the mystic houses while the participants start echoing the same monotonous beat by repeating a word and moving to that rhythm. Repeated monotonous rhythm is a tunnel through which the participants leave the everyday/contemporary life to discover their historical unconscious and bring it up to consciousness in order to be awakened and be able to see the Truth/Love/God. In the next few lines we see how this repeated rhythm is used by the main actor through his melodic phrases. Repetition is a form which is shared in taziyeh and mystic houses and is used in different ways such as repeating word, music/rhythm and sound or action.

The main actor enters:

[..] a villager stepped into the circle. He was wearing his rubber boots and had a fine courageous air. Around his shoulders he carried a length of bright

46 Ibid., pp. 38-39.

243 green cloth, the sacred colour, the colour of fertile land, which showed, so we were told, that he was a holy man.47

As it is clear, there is no stage, no lighting and no decoration. It is notable that the main character is like the other villagers. What makes the actor different from others is the bright green cloth that he carries around his shoulders. He is a man, a hero, a holy character, but his holiness and heroic character comes from his allegorical role. The green cloth that he is carrying refers to this crucial role, which makes this character familiar, attractive and well known for men, women, young and old alike. He refers to the desired land, nature, justice and equality on the one hand and on the other an oppressed character caught in brutal condition under the autocratic rule still, as if under the occupation. The oppressed character is the role which deeply resonates with the participants, actor/spectators. It is this aspect that finds its response in the performance and can unite actor/spectator in a shared nostalgic emotion. In addition, he is the element in which the past/character and present/actor/spectator can act as one through a process of self-alienation. It is through self-alienation that the actor/spectator plays the role of the witness, character and actor/spectator simultaneously through a dialectical relationship with a different time, place, character and human being: actor/spectator.

The main character begins to sing:

a long melodic phrase made up of a very few notes in a pattern that repeated and repeated, with words that we could not follow but whose meaning became instantly clear through a sound that came from deep inside the singer. His emotion was in no way his own. It was as though we heard his father’s voice, and his father’s father’s and so on back. He stood there, his legs apart, powerfully, totally convinced of his function, and he was the incarnation of that figure that for our theatre is always the most elusive one of all, the hero. I had long doubted that heroes could be depicted: in our terms, the heroes, like all good characters, easily become pallid and sentimental, or wooden and ridiculous, and it is only as we go toward villainy that something interesting can begin to appear.48

47 Ibid., p. 39. 48 Ibid., pp. 39-40.

244 As previously mentioned, the repeated and monotonous rhythm now appears in the few notes repeated by the main character. The main character is playing his innermost emotion and conveys it to Brook who knows nothing about what the character is singing, but Brook expresses his feeling that it is as if the character was singing his grand-father’s voice.

Another character enters:

[..] this time with a red twist of cloth about him, entered the circle. The tension was immediate: the bad one had arrived. He did not sing, he had no right to melody, he just declaimed in a strong rasping tone, and then the drama was underway.49

This character, despite his fictional figure, has once again an allegorical role. His dress refers to this role. Red means drought, oppression, cruelty, injustice, tyranny, massacre and hostility. What is going on, on the stage is a struggle between good and bad, fertility and drought, justice and injustice, oppression and oppressed:

The story became clear: the imam was safe for the present but he had to travel farther. But to do so, he would have to pass through the lands of his enemies, who were already preparing an ambush. As they snarled and shouted out their evil intentions, fear and dismay rippled through the spectators. Of course, everyone knew that he would make the journey, and everyone knew he would be killed, but at first it seemed as though somehow today he could avoid his fate. His friends argued with him not to go. Two small boys singing in unison, his sons, came into the circle and passionately begged him not to leave. The martyr knew the fate that awaited him. He looked at his sons, sang a few poignant words of farewell, clasped them to his chest and then strode away, his big farmer’s boots carrying him firmly across the ground. The boys stood watching him leave, their lips trembling. Suddenly it was too much for them and they ran after him, throwing themselves on the ground at his feet. Again they repeated an entreaty in the same high musical phrase. Again he answered with his melody in farewell, again he clasped them, again he left them, again they hesitated, and then again they ran, even more intensely, to throw themselves once more at his feet, as against the

49 Ibid., p. 40.

245 same melody was repeated. Again and again, back and forth across the circle, the identical scene was repeated.50

The actors’/spectators’ unconscious has been touched and awareness is rising to consciousness:

By the sixth time, I became aware of a low murmur all around me, and taking my eyes for a moment off the action, I saw lips trembling, hands and handkerchiefs stuck in mouths, faces wrought with paroxysms of grief and then the very old men and women, then the children and then the young men on bicycles all began sobbing freely. Only our tiny group of foreigners remained dry-eyed, but fortunately we were so few that our lack of participation could do no harm. The charge of energy was so powerful that we could not break the circuit, and so we were in a unique position as observers close to the heart of an event of an alien culture, without bringing to it any disturbance or distortion.51

In the performance, timelessness is easily observed by Brook. He sees how the past and present are united and time is ‘abolished’, and the gap between the actor and spectators is bridged:

The circle was operating according to certain very fundamental laws and a true phenomenon was occurring, that of ‘theatrical representation’. An event from the very distant past was in the process of being ‘re-presented’, of becoming present; the past was happening here and now, the hero’s decision was for now, his anguish was for now and the audience’s tears were for this very moment. The past was not being described nor illustrated, time had been abolished. The village was participating directly and totally, here and now in the real death of a real figure who had died some thousand years before. The story had been read to them many times, and described in words, but only the theatre form could work this feat of making it part of a living experience.52

In 1971, one year later, Brook visits Iran for the second time. He traveled to Iran with his theatre group to perform his play Orghast at the International Shiraz Arts Festival at Persepolis. This time, once again, Brook has another opportunity to observe a taziyeh performance in absolutely different conditions. It is the time when the Shah, as

50 Ibid., pp. 40-41. 51 Ibid., p. 41. 52 Ibid., pp. 41-42.

246 a part of his propaganda, tried to portray a liberal image to the world. Performing taziyeh at the Festival was a part of this effort. This time, Brook is one of the guests at the International Arts Festival, and the taziyeh drama which he watches is performed in front of officials and foreign guests and on a conventional stage with lighting, design and theatrical props according to western four-walled theatres. To arrange this taziyeh performance, all efforts were made to collect the best tazieyh actors and musicians from around the country to be trained and fitted with proper costumes by professionals and made ready to perform in an international festival in front of official guests. Brook expresses his impression:

Here, in the presence of the queen and five hundred international festival guests in gala evening dress, […] the villagers were put, for the first time in their lives, on a platform facing front, with spotlights blazing down on them through which they could dimly perceive a bank of society figures, and they were expected ‘to do their stuff’. The rubber boots worn by the village shopkeeper, in which he had looked very smart, had been replaced by leather ones, a lighting designer had prepared lighting effects, the temporary props had been replaced with well-made ones, but no one had stopped to asked what ‘stuff’ they were expected to do. And why? And for whom? These questions were never put, because no one was interested in the answers. So the long trumpets hooted, the drums played, and it meant absolutely nothing. The spectators, who had come to see a pretty piece of folklore, were delighted. They did not realize that they had been conned and that what they had seen was not a taziyeh. It was something quite ordinary, rather dull, devoid of any real interest, and which gave them nothing. They didn’t realize this because it was presented as ‘culture’ and at the end the officials smiled and everyone happily followed them towards the buffet. The embourgeoisement of the show was total, but the most lugubrious and unwatchable aspect, the most ‘deadly’ was that audience […] It dramatises more than anything the most vital and least considered element of the theatre process: the audience.53

What Brook reports in 1971 could be the same taziyeh performed in 2002 at the Lincoln Centre Festival in America, which was described by Peter Chelkowski. In this

53 Brook, 1993, Pp. 42-44.

247 report, what was experienced is the same as in the second performance Brook observed:

In the past, actors used to read their lines from a crib sheet held in their palms, indicating that they were merely role-carriers with no personal connections to the characters they portrayed. Today most of performers learn their roles by heart (if they don’t, they refrain from conspicuously referring to their notes). While traditionally, the director was responsible for eliciting strong emotions of grief and sadness from the audience by he manner in which the production was staged, it is today more incumbent on the actors to provide a cathartic experience for the spectators. Influenced heavily by the realistic acting of modern film and television, taziyeh actors no longer distance themselves from the characters that they are playing, but throw themselves wholeheartedly into their roles. Often the performers identify so strongly with their parts that they are swept away by their situations. In turn, the audience is caught up and in an atmosphere of potent and sincere emotions.54

It should be noted that what Brook observes in his first observation is a drama performed in 1970. Between the Golden Age of taziyeh during the Naseredin Shah reign (1848-1896) in the nineteenth century, during which time a secular theatre was gradually emerging,55 and Brook’s observation in the twentieth century, there is about a one-hundred-year gap. In these years, Iran, went through deep social and political changes from a traditional to a modern society: from the beginning of the first movements seeking an institutional assembly in 1890 to an institutional revolution in 1906, the year of the opening of the first institutional assembly, and to establishment of the dictatorship of the Pahlavi regime in 1925, during which any gathering was banned (including taziyeh performance). This was a time when taziyeh was pushed back to rural areas and to villages far away from the cities. This not only seriously affected taziyeh development, but returned it to a simple and primitive form similar to what had begun during the late eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the same style, technique and conventions were used in the

54 Chelkowski, Peter, 2002, Time out of Memory: taziyeh, the Total Drama. http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/taziyeh/chelkowski.html. As Chelkowski mentions this taziyeh has been performed in Paris, France and Parma, Italy. 55 Chelkowski, 1979, Tazieh: Indigenous Avant-Garde Theatre of Iran, p. 8.

248 performances and this constancy of its conventions was the only reason taziyeh could survive and remain alive.

As can be noted from Brook’s detailed report, in his first observation, the form, technique and style basically are in essence the same as those used in the nineteenth century. However, in the nineteenth century the presence of the master was significant, according to the reports of eyewitnesses examined in earlier chapters. In the taziyeh theatre, the master could create an intense connection between the past and the present by creating parallels between the fictional/allegorical world and actual elements and events. During the process of performance, he could touch the spectators’/actors’ historical unconscious, bridging all the gaps in the theatre and awakening the actors/spectators. It is what is absent in Brook’s first observation and can be easily seen in nineteenth century reports. The resilience of tradition is what this similarity between Brook’s first taziyeh observations and nineteenth century theatre expresses, which despite political and even social changes, has remained the same. It is in Benjamin’s report in 1896:

So interested had I become in the extraordinary character of all that was going on before me, that I forgot there was no scenery, and actually seemed to myself to be gazing upon actual events as they once occurred on the bank of the Euphrates. This convinced me that the ancient Greeks, and Shakespeare after them, were right in paying little attention to artificial aids to dramatic representation. There can be no question that in proportion as the imagination is left to supply all the optical details of a drama, the reality becomes more vivid and the emotions are more forcibly aroused. The elaborate and costly details observed in mounting a play for the modern stage may create a curious interest and whet a taste over-stimulated by the restless activity and ceaseless excitement of the present age, but they have proportionately less power to kindle the imagination.56

What is obviously understood from this performance or of the similar performances by the performers is the fact that performing a text/story used in the taziyeh theatre, and has been performed according to Western popular conventions, has been considered taziyeh. Indeed, this idea drives form the naive understanding of tazieyh, its essence and power. In these performances the performers’ effort is simply limited

56 Benjamin, Samuel, 1887, p. 292.

249 to introducing a text rather than experiencing a new way of performance or introducing taziyeh as it is. Still the difference between adapting taziyeh to the Western proscenium stage and incorporating aspects of taziyeh into contemporary performance and attempting to collapse the distinction between Western and non- Western performance should be considered seriously. Taziyeh, indeed, is a technique through which all the theatrical elements are used for a dialectical communication between participants or the actors/spectators. Without this communication taziyeh can not exist.

According to this interpretation, theatre is the communication and dialectical relationship between the differnt elements of theatre. Communication is what taziyeh emerged from as the true refection of its roots and origins, Iranian mysticism, ancient morning ceremony, and historical necessity, which all were born through deadly need for communication with self, God, truth and oppressed masses. This is the same aspect, which has impressed taziyeh observers in the nineteenth and twentieth century. This is the fact according to which despite its apparent similarity makes it absolutely different from Brechtian theater and connects it to magic realism with all its complex devices.

For the taziyeh theatre communication is the crucial concern in the first place through which all the theatrical and conventional elements such as actor, spectator, stage, text, props, costume, time, and space/place can be interpreted. According to this relationship even the theatrical terms such as actor, spectator and director are insufficient and inadequate and cannot illustrate their real roles and need to be revised.

It is through this interpretation that nineteenth-century actors and spectators experience acting and participating as a part of the taziyeh performances. Even governments in different periods have used it for their own benefits, because they understood taziyeh’s power and possibilities in establishing communication. In the ninetieth century the autocratic king supported and participated in taziyeh performances as a spectator to be a part of this communication and to encourage the masses to support his power, even while he emphasised Iranian nationalistic tendencies against Russia and the Ottoman empire. In the twentieth century the dictator (Reza Shah), who before being the king was the head of military, when he

250 replaced the Gajar dynasty (1796–1925) and established the Pahlavi regime (1925– 1979), found this communication dangerous enough to his power and banned it in order to cut the communication between participants. Similarly, the religious government in the new era is using and supporting taziyeh for its religious propaganda. This is the same power and capacity which Brook was impressed with and tried to use. The Conference of the Birds seeks the same communication and unification of contradictions between Truth/God, self and others. In this allegorical story the birds are looking for a leader. At the end of their journey, they find out that they are all ‘one’ and that ‘one’/we is the same leader/us that they are looking for. In this simple fable the writer is playing with ‘I’, ‘we’ and leader or ‘he’/’she’. They are all transformed into one another. This fable is a different version of the life and ideas of Halaj, the tenth century Iranian mystic, when he said: ‘I am God/truth’. In this dialectical way, he called himself creator, created and observer simultaneously, with the same transformation of identity.

In another story, that of the Sheikh San’an, we have the same concept. In this story the lover, loved one and observer are put in the same relationship. In all these examples the dialectical relationship is elegantly working: one thing transforms into another. This relationship as we have seen was not limited to the text but embraced the stage and theatrical elements. We should remember those nineteenth century actors who, instead of using models, buried themselves in the ground to illustrate a dead body or a severed head. In such positions the actor was experiencing (a) acting as an actor, (b) the character’s situation, as the dead, (c) real experience, suffering from being buried into the ground, and finally (d) observer/spectator simultaneously. The dialectical relationships between these different roles, aspects and contradictions led him not just to experience playing a role, but also to change the quality of his mind. Thus each performance could be a new birth for participants.

It is in this sense that everything is generated by and fades into other elements. With time, for example, past, present and future create each other and fade into each other simultaneously.

251 VI. The dialectical observation and experience

Taziyeh can therefore be considered a dialectical observation and experience. It is through this consideration that our perspective on theatre can be changed. Observing from opposite sides is part of this observation. Multiple observations, multiple illustrations and simultaneity are a part of this dialectical context which gives it a simiar essence to cubism. Its revolutionary aspect links it to Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, and its flexibility and crossing of borders connect it also to magical realism. In the centre of this dialectical relationship in an eternal time the mortal human being exists, which connects taziyeh to Beckett’s philosophy.

In this theatre emphasis cannot be on the either actor or spectator but on communication through dialectical relationship between all theatrical elements including the actor and spectator. In this relationship everything is in an active and live relation with other/others, which enables it to exceed all the borders. All taziyeh power is hidden in this mystery. This is the point that has attracted Iranian cinema to exceed the borders between reality/fact/documentary and fiction to reveal reality. 57

Dialectical observation was my principal motivation in playing with the position of the actor and character as a new experiment. I interchanged their positions and experienced different ways of characterization and in the process I found ways of harnessing some of taziyeh’s powerful elements. I try to explain this experiment briefly as only one example to illustrate the vast possibilities of dialectical observation as happens in taziyeh.58

57 Given the duration and intensity of taziyeh performance in Iran, it is neither accidental nor surprising to find that modern Iranian cinema has been influenced by taziyeh. In the 1960s a type of cinema was born, based on real stories collected by filmmakers, which uses metaphorical elements and allegory to achieve something magical in taking us beyond the surface to the deepest layers of reality. Given this kind of approach to contemporary reality (i.e. the use of a real story, historical or contemporary), it would be easy to trace the origin of Iranian modern film through the taziyeh performance. Breaking down the barriers between fact and fiction and reality and fantasy are points which are successfully used in Iranian cinema when the barrier between the documentary and fiction is completely ignored. The reaction of world cinema to these Iranian film genres has substantiated their success in establishing a worldwide communication. The technique and methods used in taziyeh performances have been reborn and brought to international attention through contemporary Iranian cinema. 58 I started to collect taziyeh manuscripts from the masters/directors, conducted interviews with actors and masters and gave taziyeh and its form and technique serious consideration. I began writing about taziyeh and its actors and masters and I later published dozens of plays in which a complicated mixture of dialogue and narration shape their dialogues. (See Shahriari, Khosrow, 1975, Grey of Night, Mosswod Sad, Tehran, Iran; 1986, One Thousand and One Night, Yeganeh, Tehran, Iran; 1986, Ketabe Namayesh [theatre book], Amire Kabir, Tehran, Iran.

252 Observing from the other side: being on one side, acting from the other side

Let us change the character’s position and function from an element that is played or read by the actor to the opposite. In this new role, the character plays the actor’s role. In other words, the actor plays the role of an instrument, while the text and the character assume the role of the player.

With this new role, all the negative energy of the actor’s efforts to experience, understand and play the character role becomes powerful, vital and positive, in the process of the character’s efforts to approach the actor and open up the actor himself to the character. Going through this unusual, reverse and complex process of acting, every single moment of every single performance directs a positive current of energy towards discovering and rediscovering deeply the self/the actor. This process will ultimately culminate in the actor’s constant rebirth. In this way, the character can play the actor perfectly, since it is the actor himself who is going to play the character’s discovery.

This dialectical process of discovery-in-discovery, playing and discovery, becomes an ongoing understanding between the actor and himself as a human being. So the actor on the stage is not himself any more. Actors are not playing the characters’ roles as well, but playing the characters who try to play the actors’ characters. So the actor is playing a multi-dimensional role.

In this radical method of acting, the actor, instead of playing the three levels of the character, spectator and human being, is acting at six different levels:

1. as a human being 2. as the character 3. as the actor 4. as the character who is playing the actor, character/player 5. as the actor who is playing the character that is playing the actor/himself 6. as his witness/spectator.

1989, Spring of 78, Namayesh, Tehran, Iran; 1990, Always Sun (a collection of plays), Kawoshgar, Tehran, Iran; 1998, The Tales of Night Birds [A Collection of Interviews], Kaveshgar, Tehran, Iran.)

253 In taziyeh performance, as previously demonstrated, the actor plays at four levels simultaneously: as himself/human being, as spectator, as character and as actor. The spectators, similarly, can play the same four levels, which results in an intense relationship between actors and spectators.

In this method of acting, the actor’s role, indeed, is more complicated and requires a complex work in which, ultimately, a multi-dimensional current between actor and spectator begins to flow. In this situation, the actor is on the one hand, his own observer, and on the other, a spectator in the theatre, so he is in the position of the spectator. The spectator is in the same position, and consequently both can become involved in a dialogue through which all barriers can be broken down and the entire theatre can become one.

During the last ten years of research, in addition to teaching Iranian cinema, I have tried to discover taziyeh’s mysteries and experience a new from of acting and theatre on the stage, derived from a new perspective to the theatre following my understanding of taziyeh technique. In my performances, the actors never memorize their dialogues by heart. In these performances, as in taziyeh, they live on the stage. Living on the stage, having dialectical dialogue with the others/spectators, gives them the possibility of breaking down all the gaps between participants. For example, in one of my latest performances, Ida in a Mirror, based on the life and poems of Ahmad Shamloo, the greatest poet in modern Iranian history, his poems were read from his books through the movements and pictures by which his poems were illustrated. His poems are full of pictures which illustrate life and events of Iranian history.59 My experiments in working with actors for stage theatre using this method has produced two important results. Professional actors are used to trying to get into characters and overload themselves with too much information by going into a deep process of analyzing the script, fleshing out the history of preceding actions, situations, obstacles, through lines, political and social status, age, appearance of the character and so on. At first, these professionals are bewildered when they find out that they are neither asked to separate themselves from the role nor to identify with

59 This work was performed in Sydney in 2003.

254 the character. What they are asked to do is to reveal themselves to an unknown character and play themselves according to the character’s interpretation. Professional actors initially find this kind of approach to acting complicated, and impossible even to imagine. But in the process of the work, at any moment of acting in which the actors encounter the audience and not themselves, before staging and then during the performance, they experience it as a new discovery of themselves and the character simultaneously. For amateur actors, this approach seems much easier. The result on the stage is a miracle. At the beginning of the performance, the spectators are wondering what is going on but, as the work goes on, they go through a process of bridging the gap between themselves and the actors, who consequently end up being united with the stage and act as one.

It should be emphasised that theatre is a live phenomenon. Each performance is a new experience. Reaching out to a theatre in full relationship with its actors/spectators or participants as taziyeh can do requires hard work, experience and dialectical observation. But there is still much we can learn from taziyeh.

I would like to finish this chapter with two additional references. The first is to Brook’s own notable experience of working with the ‘Ah’ sound among the Peulhs in Africa. This experience, despite its crucial difference from the complex work of taziyeh theatre, still refers to the same factor of communication with the same essence. Note that this experience comes from Brook’s work on The Conference of the Birds, so there is a direct connection with him translating some of what he may have learnt from his experience of taziyeh to another context. And finally I finish with a reference to an Iranian folk legend, The Legend of the Sigh.

Brook’s experience of the ‘Ah’ sound

The Peulhs are a nomadic tribe, shy of strangers, and a mystery even to Africans because they lack a common language. Brook arranges for a private meeting between his actors and the Peulhs and decides to build a bridge to them through music. The actors sing a song. The Peulhs take no notice. They just admire themselves in little mirrors. The actors sing six songs. But each is received with the same indifference. Brook asks the group to make a sound which they have worked on during the research in Paris. It is an ‘Ah’ sound. They extend and develop this one sound. John Heilpern

255 explains this experience: ‘It seemed an easy thing to do. Yet the group had worked on this one sound for weeks and months. It seemed like an awful moment of truth in Agades.’60 He writes: The group began to make the sound. The Peulhs were still staring into the mirrors. I watched the actors grow hesitant, uncertain whether to continue. But the sound stretched and grew – and the Peulhs unexpectedly looked up from their mirrors for the first time. The sound took life, vibrating. The Peulhs discarded their mirrors and joined the sound. Oh, it seemed miraculous! It was as if the Peulhs pointed to the sky. Just as the unimaginable sound reached its height, or seemed to, no one would venture any further. Somehow it was frightening. The two sides had met and come together in one sound. And yet it was as if they were stunned and frightened of the discovery.61

Brook, indeed, was searching for a universal language. But the significance of this experience illustrates the difficulty of crossing borders between the participants in any gathering and the hard work which must be done to find a shared language. The ‘Ah’ sound, as a key function, can establish a communicative dialogue and bridge the gap with the Peulhs, in the same way that a performance of Waiting for Godot may do in a prison, and a complex form of taziyeh is able to effect in Iran.62

The Legend of the Sigh

The Legend of the Sigh is an Iranian folk tale. In this legend there is a creature who is called ‘Sigh’ and who can materialise when someone sighs deeply or calls her/him from the bottom of her/his heart. This creature appears and helps the caller. This character illustrates the shared language between human beings, despite their cultural and social situations, through which communication between people is possible. This is the same language that taziyeh uses. This legend once again refers to the potentially shared language that can be discovered and used for communication across different cultures. This is the same shared language that, in the most painful moment of his life and suffering from extreme pain, Jesus used to call: ‘My God, My God, why hast thou

60 Heilpern, 1989, p. 143. 61 Ibid., p. 143-144. 62 On the basis of this legend, Tahmineh Milani, an Iranian women film maker, has directed her film under the same folk title (1988). Despite the strikingly anti-feminist, obviously static, passive and reactionary messages of the film and its emphasis on the patriarchal character of the sigh, this film is notable as a search to find one situation in comparison with others.

256 forsaken me?’63 This is the same language that is used by Halaj, Hussein, Zarer, Siyavush, the birds, in the Conference of the Birds and finally taziyeh actors and master to communicate with others. This is a part of the shared human language which should be discovered and used in the theatre to bridge all the gaps and unite actors and spectators as one.

63 Matthew 27. 45-56.

257 CONCLUSION

Augusto Boal writes:

Perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself; but have no doubts, it is a rehearsal of revolution.1

Taziyeh is a complex and unique theatre through which all the gaps are bridged and all the borders in the theatre are exceeded. The gap between the actor and spectator is just one of the gaps which is bridged. To understand this phenomenon, then, we can approach it only through a careful and detailed examination of all its aspects. For me, as a theatre practitioner and writer who all my life has thought about the relation between the actor and spectator, this research was a moment-by-moment and day-by- day discovery through discussions, references, or thoughtful hours.

At the beginning of this research I examined taziyeh through eyewitness accounts from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. In this examination the most important accounts written by different eyewitnesses were examined, regardless of their social positions as traveler, visitor or political delegations. These accounts were crucial for this research since they provided almost a full picture of this complex theatre in its Golden Age. These reports and diaries formed the foundation for my detailed analysis.

I then moved on to examine other important factors which eyewitness accounts did not deal with: the origins, sources and roots of taziyeh. Without identifying, discussing and analyzing these elements a full understanding of taziyeh would have been impossible.

I argued that mysticism and the mourning ceremony constitute two strong roots of taziyeh theatre through which, once again, Iranians emerged from the ashes of the ancient mythological era in the tenth century. Both movements arose as a response to

1 Boal, Augusto, 1979, Theatre of the Oppressed, Urizen Books, New York, P. 155.

social necessity in conjunction with the crisis in Iranian history after three centuries of oppression and silence under the Arab occupation. These movements became interwoven with the diversity and complexity of Iranian historical, social, cultural, and political circumstances, still with deep roots in primitive cultures, prior to the mythologisation of the past. This constituted a collection of complex, interrelated phenomena through which taziyeh was to be shaped in the nineteenth century.

I argued that the events of Karbala were used to run parallel with and provide an allegory for the oppression of Iranian society. The mystic philosophical idea of God, Truth and Love, which had a profound effect on taziyeh theatre, and an examination of the figure of Hussein, the main character of taziyeh, shaped the other part of this argument.

In order to give a clear impression of Hussein, this allegorical figure in the tazieyh theatre, I compared his character with popular images of Jesus and characteristics and concepts of the rising and dying gods. In addition, I compared him with the ancient figures similar to his character to illustrate his deep roots in Iranian culture. I examined the mourning ceremonies in the mythical world and mythical characters similar to Hussein in order to reveal how profound this ceremony and character reaches, and to illustrate some of those historical memories hidden in the deep unconscious of the mass that is shared in taziyeh theatre and which provides the possibility for the gap between the actors and spectators to be bridged.

In next chapter, I went on to examine and analyze all the theatrical elements, methods and intentions in taziyeh. I showed how the dialectical communication between the actor and spectators – or the stage and auditorium – is established; how the master, through allegories and reference, simultaneity, flexibility, and parallels between the fictional and contemporary world, unites the past, present and future. I discussed how the master therefore creates his theatre, through which the innermost historical unconscious of his actors/spectators is touched and which leads to self-alienation and awareness, and finally to a collective awakening in which all the gaps in the theatre are bridged and all the borders are exceeded.

In order to develop a clearer understanding of the quality of taziyeh according to Western contexts, in Chapter Four I took a different approach and compared taziyeh

259 and Brecht’s epic theatre. I also drew an analogy between taziyeh and Picasso’s epic painting Guernica, as well as its relationship to cubism, and finally its similarity with the literary form of magical realism. In another approach, I analyzed life, death and love in Samuel Beckett’s philosophy according to his works and taziyeh. I also analyzed Peter Brook’s reports about taziyeh and I discussed some of my experiences inspired by a practical approach to taziyeh in which the character is given an active role.

As I argued, many elements have enriched taziyeh performances until it became a unique theatre, able to bridge gaps and exceed borders in the theatre through a complex relationship between the actor and spectators, present and the past, and history/mythology/allegory and contemporary reality. Through its employment of allegorical elements, fiction and historical facts, subjects or events, and its transformation of theatrical elements into one another, taziyeh goes far beyond its sources to give greater insight into contemporary life, to reveal the greater reality that lies present beneath its surface.

Taziyeh performances achieved their complex and complicated theatrical and dramatic form over centuries, through and with the people, and remained at the heart of public life without becoming marginalized from the participants’ own values, whatever their socio-political situation in different periods. In taziyeh performances, as was observed in this thesis, the interaction that necessarily takes place between spectators and actors creates an involvement, despite the massive presence of the audience.

Taziyeh experiments with new horizons of expectation, according to the role of the performers and audience, in which there are no certain and recognizable boundaries between stage and auditorium. In this way it can liberate its spectators/actors through the engagement of all participants in tangled interactions within a performance. In this theatre, however, the dynamic involvement of the audience/actor is the sole means by which text, performance, and the theatre can be interpreted through a dialectical relationship.

The experience of taziyeh clearly illustrates the complexity of crossing the border between the stage and auditorium and bridging the gap between the actors and spectators. It manifests how much hard work must be done and what profound

260 knowledge must be at work in order to discover the shared language between the actors and spectators. Effort and knowledge are both needed if performances are to touch the collective unconscious in connection with contemporary life, and unless this happens, drawing a link between them is almost impossible.

Taziyeh, it was suggested, reaches towards that point where all the conventional terms such as actor, spectator, director, stage and auditorium, text and character are abolished and must be reviewed.

Through taziyeh, the meaning of theatre is changed as well. As we see in taziyeh, the theatre becomes a place in which participants’ hidden, shared historical unconscious, finds the ground to be revealed to consciousness, enabling it to talk freely, through a dialectical relationship between all the dramatic elements. This enables an individual and collective awakening and changes the contemporary point of view and life. At such a moment, through a powerful intensity, something unique can take place: the barriers separating actors, spectators and characters are broken down, and observers and participants become one. This is the essence of mysticism in self-discovery and oneness.

Having taziyeh and its unique experience in front of us, and through this thesis in particular, I hope to facilitate a greater understanding of this experiment for theatre practitioners across cultures. I hope also to demonstrate the enormous potential of theatre in general to break down all barriers, specifically the barriers between the actor and spectator, and through a shared language to unite them as one.

261

APPENDIX I: THE MANUSCRIPTS

In this appendix the taziyeh manuscript collections are listed. In addition to listing these collections and comparing them with each other, for an example of literary form of taziyeh, some parts of one of the taziyeh translated by Pelly, are quoted and some comments on his translation are made.

A page of a taziyeh manuscript on which the names of the characters and the first word of their dialogues have been written (From Taziyeh in Iran)

A page of a taziyeh manuscript (From Taziyeh in Iran)

Taziyeh collections

Alexander Chodzko in 1828, Colonel Sir Lewis Pelly between 1859 and 1862, Wilhem Litten in 1929 and finally Enrico Cerulli between1950 and 1954 were amongst the foreigners who collected as many tazyieh manuscripts as they could find or had access to. Pelly not only collected manuscripts, but translated them into English. The Enrico Cerulli collection in particular covers material that deals with hundreds of different subjects and involves thousands of different characters. This collection demonstrates the tremendous enthusiasm that existed in writing taziyeh between the nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century.

I. Alexander Chodzko, 1833–1840

During his stay in Iran, between 1833 and 1840, twenty-nine year old Alexander Edmond Chodzko (1804-1891), a Pole who worked as the Consul of Russia, saw a performance of The Taziyeh of Amir Teimur at the Royal Theatre in Tehran. He asked the producer, Hussein Ali Khan, director of the Court Theatre, for a copy of the manuscript, which belonged to the Royal Library. Chodzko’s request was granted. In addition he managed to obtain copies of 32 other manuscripts from the Royal Library. The fact that Chodzko was able to collect these manuscripts simply suggests the significant number of taziyeh plays, which were written according to people’s demand at the time. Obviously, uncounted numbers of manuscripts were possibly in the hands of the performers. During his stay in Iran Chodzko worked and lived in the cities of Tehran and Rasht. In 1840, he resigned from his job and left Iran to live in Paris for the rest of his life. Chodzko, apparently knew the Persian language and could publish some books about Persian popular poetry, grammar and costume. He donated the original taziyeh manuscripts collected in Iran to the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.

Chodzko edited two of the plays in his collection, The Messenger of God and The Death of the Prophet, and published them in Persian in 1852 under the title Djung e Chehadet [An Anthology of Martyrdom].1 In 1878, he published another book based on his collection under the title Théâtre Persan , Choix de Teazies ou Drames, edited by Ernest Leroux, consisting of a French translation of five Taziyeh, including a long

1 Chodzko, Alexander, 1852, Djungi Chehaet [An anthology of Martyrdom], Paris.

263 introduction.2 The first volume of the Chodzko collection including six plays was published under the same title in Tehran, in 1977.3

In the preface to his anthology Chodzko writes:

Les Persans ont des drames, des spectacles et toute une littérature dramatique, ce qui pourrait bien étonner les orientalistes. Nous nous étonnons à notre tour que, dans un aussi grand nombre de savants, de touristes, qui étudient et observent l’orient, nous ne connaissons personne qui, avant nous, ait signalé ce fait littéraire si remarquable.4

The Chodzko collection kept in the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris5 consists of the following manuscripts. Some of the manuscripts are different versions of the same taziyeh:

1. Le Messager d’Allah, ou L’archange Gabriel annonçant au prophète Mohammed que ses deux fils doivent mourir en martyrs 2. La mort du Prophète

3. Le jardin de Fathma, fille du Prophète 4. La mort de Fathma 5. Le martyre d’Aly 6. Le martyre de l’Imam Hassan

7. Même sujet 8. Le départ de Muslem, fils d’Aquil, pour la ville de Koufa 9. Le martyre des enfants de Muslem 10. Le martyre des adolescents 11. Le départ de l’Imam Hossein de la Mecque

12. Hour (Hurr) arrive sur le chemin de l’Imam Hosein

13. Même sujet

14. L’Imam Hossien s’égare dans le désert

2 Chodzko, Alexander, 1878, Theatre Persan, Choix de Teazies ou Drames, Edited by Ernest Leroux, Paris. 3 Chodzko, Alexander, 1355/1977, Jong-i Shahadat [An anthology of Martyrdom ], Zahra Eqbal Namdar, (ed.), Sorosh Press, Tehran. 4 Chodzo, Alexander, 1878, Théâtre Persan , Choix de Teazies ou Drames, edited by Ernest Leroux, Paris, P., 1. 5 Chodzko, Alexander, 1928, Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans, Bibliotheque National de Paris.

264 15. Même sujet 16. L’Imam Hossein implore la pitié des méchants 17. Le martyre d’Abbas

18. Le martyre d’Aly Akber 19. Le martyre de Qassim 20. Le martyre des enfants de Zeineb 21. Fathma Sogra envoie des fleurs de Medina à Kerbela

22. Fathma Sogra écrit une lettre à son frère 23. Le martyre d’Aly Asgare 24. Le martyre de l’Imam Hossein 25. Les Mânes des Prophètes antérieurs viennent visiter le cadavre de l’Imam Hossein

26. Les femmes de la tribu Beni-essed apportent de l’eau pour les gens du harem de l’Imam Hossein 27. Sekina se rend au camp de Ben-sead et lui demande la permission d’enterrer les corps des martyres

28. Les orphelins de l’Imam Hossein sur son tombeau 29. Katib et Velid 30. Un monastère de moines européens 31. Les Arabes de la tribu Ibn Essek infument les martyres 32. Même sujet que celui du mystère

33. La famille de l’Imam Hossein envoie de ses nouvelles a Medina

Of these 33 plays, 7 were translated into French by Chodzko, (numbers 1,2,3,5, and 30), one by De Ceneret (number 18), and one by Virolleaud (number 24). Most of the poems/dialogues in the taziyeh in this collection are long, although the taziyeh seem to have possibly been written by different authors. Five of the manuscripts are two different versions of a single text. The collection covers the story of the Prophet’s lineage from the death of Prophet to the Maryrdom of Hussein.

II. Colonel Sir Lewis Pelly, 1862–1873

Colonel Sir Lewis Pelly (1825-1892) was an English scholar and diplomat who spent eleven years from 1862 to 1873 in Iran as secretary of the British legation. As

265 foreigners invariably are, Pelly was profoundly impressed by what he observed of the taziyeh performances in 1859. In the preface to his The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain, he writes:

I was […] struck by the effect produced upon all classes of society at the capital as they listened, day after day to this unprecedentedly long tragedy. From the palace to the bazaar, there was wailing and beating of breasts, and bursts of impassioned grief from scores of houses, wheresoever a noble, or a merchant or others were giving a taziyeh.[…] If the success of a drama is to be measured by the effects which it produces upon the people for whom it is composed, or upon the audiences before whom it is represented, no play has ever surpassed the tragedy known in the Mussulman world as that of Hasan and Husain.[Hussein].6

When he went back to Persia as a diplomatic resident in 1862, his attention was once again attracted to the recitation of these tragedies, as well as to those of favourite episodes from the Shah Nameh, the mythologies of ancient Iran, written in verse by the tenth century poet, Abolghsim Ferdousi:

As I watched, some public story-teller, seated in the bazaar on a rude dais, was intoning the story of Sohrab and Rustam, and gradually raising his voice until, towards the close of the hexameter, it seemed to pause and then fall into the following line, while the miscellaneous street assembly listened with rapt attention, I fancied I had there before me a counterpart of the early recitations of the Iliad.7

Pelly decided to collect and translate taziyeh manuscripts – ‘this singular drama’ – and consequently he searched to find someone to help him in this regard. Finally he found ‘a Persian who had long been engaged as a teacher and prompter of actors’. Pelly, who never mentioned the teacher’s name, made some arrangements with him and asked to be helped to collect taziyeh manuscripts. With the assistance of some of ‘his dramatic friends’, the teacher gradually collected 52 taziyeh dramas and dictated them to Pelly:

6 Pelly, iii, preface. 7 Ibid,. iv, preface.

266 During the course of several years they were carefully written out and corrected in English by two of my assistants, Mr. James Edwards and Mr. George Lucas, to both of whom I shall always feel most sincerely grateful for their kind and efficient aid upon this and every occasion on which they were associated with me.8

Of the 52 manuscripts, only 37 were translated, and appear in the collected edition. Pelly does not make clear why the other 15 of the dramas were omitted or what happened to them. He only says ‘for even in harrowing the feelings, one must draw the line somewhere; and it has been said that a sad tale saddens double when it’s long’.

Pelly lists the features that for him made taziyeh a unique form:

It is singular in its intolerable length; in the fact of the representation of it extending over many days; in its marvellous effects upon a Mussulman [Muslim] audience, both male and female; in the curious mixture of hyperbole and archaic simplicity of language; and in the circumstance that the so-called unities of the time and space are not only ignored, but abolished.9

In the introduction to his collection, in order to provide an historical context for these tragedies, Pelly added a sketch of the origins of Islam, detailed conflicts amongst the Prophet’s family over the succession of Muhammad, outlined Persian history from the Arab conquest in 641 A.D., and finally, covered the beginning of the Persian movements as a revolt against Arab invaders under the cover of the Shiite sect of Islam, and the story of Karbala.

The titles in the Chodzko collection of some twenty years earlier, and the Pelly collection, indicate the variety and rapid growth of taziyeh in the nineteenth century. Pelly, indeed, was a resident first in Bosher and then in Shiraz, which are both in the southern province of Iran. The Chodzko collection belongs to Tehran or the capital of the state.

The titles in the Pelly collection are as follows:

8 Ibid., iv, preface. 9 Ibid, v, preface.

267 1. Joseph and His Brothers 2. Death of Abraham, the Son of Mohammed 3. The Disobedient Son

4. The Magnanimous offer of Ali to Sacrifice his Life for a Fellow Creature 5. Death of the Prophet Mohammed 6. The Seizure of the Caliphate by Abu Bekr

7. The Death of Fatima, the Daughter of the Prophet Mohammed 8. The Martyrdom of Ali, the Son of Abu-Taleb 9. The Martyrdom of Hassan, the Son of Ali 10. The Martyrdom of Muslim, the Envoy of Hussein 11. The Murder of the Sons of Muslim

12. The Departure of Hussein from Medina on his Way to Kufah 13. The Withdrawal of Hussein from the Road to Kufah 14. The Martyrdom of Hurr 15. The Martyrdom of Abis and Shuzab in Defence of Hussein

16. A Night Assault on Hussein’s Camp 17. The Death of Ali Akbar, Eldest Son of Hussein 18. The Death of Ghasim, the Bridegroom 19. The Death of Abbas, the Brother of Hussein 20. The Martyrdom of Hashim

21. The Rescue by Hussein of Sultan Ghyas from the Jaws of a Lion 22. The Lamentation of Hussein and His Family for the Loss of the Martyrs in Karbala 23. The Martyrdom of Hussein

24. The Camp at Karbala after the Death of Hussein

25. The Field of Karbala after the Death of Hussein

26. The Fight of Shahr-Banu from the Plain of Karbala

27. Hussein’s Faithless Camel Driver

28. The Release of Fatima, Owing to the Intervention of the Persians

29. The Despatch of Hussein Family as Captive to Syria 30. The Arrival of Hussein’s Family at Damascus

268 31. The Conversion and Murder of Ambassador from Europe 32. Death of Rukayyah, the Daughter of Hussein 33. The Release of Hussein’s family from Captivity

34. The Death of Zeinab 35. The Conversion of Christian Lady to the Muhammadan Faith 36. The Conversion of King Kania 37. The Resurrection

Pelly’s collection is arranged chronologically and begins with a biblical story, Joseph and His Brothers, and ends with The Resurrection. The Disobedient Son (number 3), the play, which does not belong to historical stories, is mentioned early in the list. Two other non-historical themes, The Conversion of Christian Lady to the Muhammadan Faith (number 35) and The Conversion of King Kania (number 36), appeared in the list before the last manuscript The Resurrection.

Before the plays, all the characters in the entire collection are listed in alphabetical order under the title of ‘Dramatic Personae’, followed by those characters without names such as: First Angel, Second Angel, Arab Camel Driver, Army of Ibn Sa’d, Damascus girl, a lion, Messenger, and Sentry. At the beginning of each play, Pelly gives a short abstract of the content.

As an example of Pelly’s translation, here is the opening scene and some parts of The Camp at Karbala after the Death of Hussein10. In this play, in addition to Pelly’s language in translating taziyeh, we notice one of the most important elements in staging taziyeh. That is, the fact, that whatever is imagined can be presented on the stage regardless of the reality. For example, in this particular play the dead Hussein talks and hugs his daughter, behaving as though he were alive. As we have noted already, severed heads can talk or cry. These elements give taziyeh its unique magical form, as has been discussed throughout this thesis.

The action of The Camp at Karbala after the Death of Hussein takes place during the first night after the slaughter of Hussein’s family and his followers. All the male members of the group have been killed except one of Hussein’s sons, who is sick and in bed. Those who are left alive are wandering about the camp, distracted and

10 See Pelly, 1878, vol. II, pp. 104-122.

269 bewildered. At the beginning of the scene, they are complaining about the cruel fate which has overtaken them. In the midst of their troubles, they begin to realise that the enemy are still surrounding them and keeping watch over the camp. To add to their distress, Rukkayeh, one of Hussein’s daughters, who cannot sleep, leaves the tent to search for her father. The family discovers her missing. Rukkayeh looks around and finally finds her father’s body. The family searches for her and finally finds her sleeping in the arms of the body of her father. This play is full of the dead and dead bodies that talk and react in the manner of living persons. We are not aware of how the ghosts were represented on stage, as none of the travellers who witnessed and reported on these plays seem to have seen this particular drama.

This taziyeh is one of those which was performed after the tenth day of the month of Muharram, or the day on which the Hussein taziyeh was performed as the main climactic drama.

The Characters involved are: Zain-ul-Abddin [the only surviving male child] Zainab [Hussein’s sister]

Kulsum Sukainah Rukayyah Kasim’s Mother The Body of Hussain

The Ghost of Ali The Ghost of Hasan The Ghost of Fatima

Pelly’s text reads as follows:

Scene I ZAIN-UL-‘ABID-DIN: Tonight is the night succeeding the day on which Husain was made a martyr, and went from Karbala to rest in the meadows of Paradise. Tonight is the night when, by the injustice of Shimar, small children were deprived of seeing the dear face of their parent. Tonight is the night on which Fatimah the virgin reddened her face with the blood of different

270 martyrs. The spheres have rendered our fortune and our day both dark. May thy face, O white-faced heavens, be altogether black! ZAINAB: Tonight is a night on the morning whereof Ali’s head was cloven in twain, and the moon Husain was made a martyr with the daggers of injustice. Tonight is the night when, through the wicked behaviour of the inhabitants of Kufah, the wolf of death tore my Joseph’s coat to pieces. Tonight is the night wherein heaven humbled me. May thy day, O bright- faced spheres, be altogether dark! KULSUM: Tonight is the night when I am perplexed in my affair for the calamity that has befallen us destitute ones. Tonight is the night wherein the child brought up in my mother’s bosom was plunged in blood. Tonight is the night in which my head dress was turned black. May thy face, O white-faced spheres, be altogether black! SUKAINAH: Tonight is the night when the story of her father’s death was, for the first time, whispered in Sukainah’s ear by Zephyre. Tonight is the night wherein Sukainah has been made an orphan. May thy face, O white- faced spheres, be altogether black! RUKAYYAH: Tonight is the night succeeding the day on which Sinan cruelly, without cause, pierced the side of my father with his spear. Tonight is the night when, some hours ago, Harmalah cruelly made the blood of Asghar’s delicate throat drop on ground. Tonight is the night when Rukayyah must give up the ghost. May thy face, O white-faced spheres, be altogether black! [Vol. II, pp. 104-106]

Scene II

[Rukayyeh has left the tent and wonders in the dark searching for her father.] RUKAYYAH: She whose father hath died, and who is destitute of a protector, in vain labours to sleep. I will arise and go out of my tent, in the hope of seeing my father; peradventure I may behold the full moon in this dark night. O honourable father, separate me not from thyself, but let me sleep by thy side. HUSAIN’S BODY [speaking]: My poor Rukayyah is moaning tonight, my dear family is in a wandering state. Exile has produced nought but distraction. To be an orphan is little better than to be a vagrant. Nobody cares for another man’s orphan; Thou, O Lord, art both beneficent and merciful to all. RUKAYYAH: It being a dark night, I can not see the beloved of my soul. I can not tell where my rose-cheeked, cypress-bodied love is sleeping. Give me

271 an intimate knowledge of thyself, dear father, for I am distracted tonight. O sojourner of Karbala, pour forth thy notes as a nightingale, and refresh my brain with the fragrant scent of spring. O father, the spheres do not treat me kindly, nothing can be agreeable but thy company. THE BODY OF HUSAIN: My distressed one, turn thy face to this side. Come to me, O solace of my restless soul. O thou who art scarred with grief at my absence, come, here is he whom thy soul seeketh. Give light at my pillow, like a candle, for I have no lamp burning on my tomb. RUKAYYAH: A murmur struck my ears, O friends. I caught a familiar sound just now. It is thy voice, O father, that I hear, but I can hardly say where thou art. Tell me where to find thee, that I may come, for I can no more bear to be separated from thee. THE BODY: Poor Rukayyah is looking here and there for her father. Yea, of necessity a planet seeks the sun. Come among the slain, O child, for in desiring to see thy face the wounded mouths of the martyrs get refreshed RUKAYYAH: This voice melts my heart within me; it destroys the foundation of my patience. Would to God this nightingale were to sing again, and show that my midnight prayers have been already heard! THE BOSY OF HUSAIN: Hear the true sound of my voice; let the ravishing air of my singing enchant thee. Come to me, that thou mayest dye they hands with the blood of my body, and make them red like the feet of the partridge, O my royal hawk. RUKAYYAH: [in the field] With many difficulties, O father, I have come here to thy dwelling-place, on this spot of ground. I have been successful in detecting thy scent, but cannot distinguish thy body among the many slain lying around thee. I pray thee, father, lift up thy hand, that may be able to recognise thy elegant stature. THE BODY OF HUSAIN: I shall lift up my hand for thy sake, dear child. Ah, thou dost see it! Come, then and sit down by my side; I have no head, child, that I may ask thee to put it on thy lap. As for the voice, it proceeds from my throat only. ROKAYYA: May my soul be a sacrifice for thy body, which is drenched with its own blood! May thy daughter be a ransom for thy severed head! Who hath beheaded thee, and made me, at such age, a fatherless wanderer?

272 THE BODY OF HUSAIN: The cruel Shimar, child, severed my head from the body. He cut it from behind with the edge of his dragger. He had not only cut off my head, but has done the like to Kasim and Abbas. RUKAYYAH: There fell a fire, at last, amongst the chattels of my life, dear father; the burning bush of the blessed valley has been at length hewn down. I fear, dear father, lest Shimar should come and hurt me; I beg thee, therefore to hide thy poor daughter under thy garments. THE BODY: O my softhearted girl, thou light of my bright eyes, I have no garments wherewith to hide thee under their skirts. Dost thou not see, child, that, notwithstanding so many wounds, my body is thrown naked in the sun? RUKAYYAH: I shall cover thy body with my head-dress, dear father. Put thy hand round my neck, as thou hast no bosom for me to clasp. THE BODY: Sleep, darling, in this very palace in my bosom; between my arms thou shalt find thy usual resting place; sleep on then. RUKAYYAH: [Lying down to sleep by the body]: There is no place more suitable to me than by the side of my father. I can nowhere else rest but in his dearer bosom. In will sleep tonight in thy scared arms, father. I wish the sun would not rise from the east and make it day. [Vol. II, pp. 112-115]

Last scene ZAINAB [entering the field]: O women, I have found out where Husain’s child is; I have discovered the source of a fresh lake of water, O thirsty ones; Husain’s child is laying down in the field of battle; the planet that had been lost sight of is discovered in the vicinity of the moon. Come, niece, deprive me of patience, of intellect, of sense! KULSUM: Why didst thou go out of the camp at such a time, my niece? What a girl thou art, to be my darling, after all! O Zainab, it is now time to gather flowers from the garden of sorrow; it is time, O melancholy nightingale, to pour forth thy notes.

ZAINAB: Sleep on, my soul-stricken child, sleep on. Thou art rending thy clothes through grief; thou must be ready to be buffeted by Shimar. Thou hast had time enough for mourning, dear child; sleep on now, and take thy rest.

KULSUM: O my restless, thirsty creature, go to sleep, go to sleep! O my fatherless girl, go to sleep, go to sleep! O miserable, desolate girl, O heat- rent damsel, thou shalt about thy father; go to sleep, go to sleep! [Vol. II, 121-122]

273 Despite the value of Pelly’s translation in introducing this important Persian popular theatre of the nineteenth-century to Western readers, his translation is stilted and rhetorical and ‘ornate Victorian’,11 literary language that is at odds with an essentially oral theatre and could hardly give his reader an authentic account of the atmosphere of taziyeh. Pelly’s language might be odd, even for the nineteenth-century English language popular spectators. Popular theatre of that time tended to sound like Edward Fitzgerald or Oscar Wilde or early translations of Maeterlinck. Scribes like Pelly are unable to illustrate Persian popular language and in particular taziyeh, which is full of idioms, references, delicacy, sensitivity, and pathos, at the same time that it is simple and can convey its message or messages to its spectators and can be understood by common people. Moreover, taziyeh is a popular theatre based on acting and establishing a communication with the spectators, which allows the actor unlimited possibilities to improvise his role. Therefore taziyeh’s content is used as a means to establish an internal communication between actors and spectators.

III. Wilhem Litten, 1831–1834

The 15 manuscripts collected by the German scholar, Wilhem Litten, between 1831 and 1838 and were copied by hand from the Iranian scripts, as the collector states. Litten writes that 14 of these manuscripts were copied directly from the actors’ texts although the collector does not mention which one was not copied and how was appeared in his collection. This collection was published in 1929 with a German introduction written by Friedrich Rosen under the title of Das Drama in Persia. Litten’s collection is as follows12:

1. Abraham Sacrifice Ishmael 2. The Pigeon that Brings the News of the Martyrdom of Hussein to Medina, and Recovery of the Jewish Girl from the Illness

3. The Martyrdom of Hussein

4. The Martyrdom of Abbas, the son of Ali

5. Khuli Hides the Head of the Imam in the Oven

6. The Martyrdom of Vahab and his Farewell to the Hussein Family

11 Chelkowski (ed.), 1979, p. 261. 12 Litten, 1929.

274 7. A Christian Lady Visited the Field of Karbala and the Miracle which Happen 8. Hussein Asks for a Respite from the Enemy on the Eve of Ashura ,the Tenth day of the Month Muharram 9. The Wedding Scene at Medina 10. The Disobedient Son 11. Solomon A’mash Makes a Night Assault on Ibn Ziad’s Camp

12. Kania, the King of Europe 13. Dorrat-al Sadaf in the Month of Shaban, Eight Month of the Lunar Year in the Arabic Calendar 14. Imam Jafar Sadeqh, the Sixth Imam of the Shiite Sect 15. Emir Tamer, Tamer Lane

In addition to Chodzko’s 33 plays, the Pelly collection adds 37 items and the collection of Wilhem Litten a further 15. A number of useful observations can be made about these 85 taziyeh.

[A] The Martyrdom of Hussein, item 3 in the Litten collection, also appears in the other two collections. It is important to note that, although some subjects in these three collections are the same, each individual taziyeh is a unique version and deals with its subject matter in its own particular way. Each director who copies a taziyeh manuscript has his own individual interpretation of a single subject, which is recorded in the manuscript as it is copied. Furthermore, as well as taziyeh manuscript writers, some of the directors are poets in their own right. Therefore, their interpretation of a particular subject remains their individual version and will retain their signature – this is the spite of the fact that traditionally all taziyeh manuscripts are anonymous. It is why the manuscripts can be said to belong to directors and may indeed bear the directors’ names.

[B] The Martyrdom of Abas (Number 4) in the Litten list is similar to number 19 of the Pelly collection.

[C] The Disobedient Son (number 10) in the Litten collection corresponds to number 3 of the Pelly list.

275 [D] Hussein Asks for a Respite from the Enemy on the Eve of Ashura, the Tenth Day of the Month Muharram (Number 8) in the Litten collection is equivalent to A Night Assault on Hussein’s Camp (number 16) in the Chodzko list.

[E] A Christian Lady Visited the Field of Karbala and the Miracle which Happened (Number 7) and Kania, the King of Europe (number 12) in the Litten collection have similar subjects as those written in numbers 35 (The Conversion of Christian Lady to Muhammadan Faith, and 36 ( The Conversion of King Kania) of the Pelly collection.

[F] Numbers1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 15 of the Litten list are mentioned neither by Chodzko nor Pelly.

[G] Discounting the 24 repeated titles, there are 61 different titles in the various collections.

IV. Enrico Cerulli (1950–1954)

The most recent example of a foreigner collecting taziyeh manuscripts is the Italian ambassador to Iran, Enrico Cerulli, who during his five-year stay from 1950 to 1954 collected 1,055 text from different provinces of Iran. On returning to Italy, he donated them to the Vatican Library. This collection is one of the world’s most valuable collections of taziyeh dramas. The late Ettore Rossi began to prepare a descriptive catalogue of this collection, which was completed after his death by Alessio Bombaci. Published in 1961 under the title of Elenco di drammi religiosi persiant,13 this catalogue illustrates the enormous development of taziyeh, with its huge range of subject matter and vast cast of characters. This suggests the rapid process of development from religious subjects to secular themes at times when the political and social changes did not prevent this.

This collection lists, for each play, the probable year in which the manuscript was written, the size and the number of the pages, the name of the play, the names of the characters, the name of the person to whom the copy belonged (traditionally the director of the taziyeh), and finally the name of the city where the manuscript was

13 Rossi, Etrore, and Bombaci, Alessio, 1961, Elenco Di Drammi Religiosi Persiani (Fondo MSS. Vaticani Cerulli), Studi E Testi, 209, Citta Del Vaticano, Bibloteca Vanticana.

276 located. The following list gives an indication of the range of subject matter dealt with in these dramas.

It should be remembered that each subject exists in different versions. For example, in the first of the 30 stories from the Christian Bible, the life of Adam exists in three different versions.

1. The stories from the Christian Bible: 30 subjects 2. The life of Mohammad: 30 subjects 3. The lives of the first three Caliphs Abu Baker, Omar, and Ottoman: 11 subjects 4. The life of Ali, the son–in-law of Muhammad, husband of Fatima, and father of Hassan, Hussein and Abas: 50 subjects 5. The life of Fatima, daughter of Muhamad and wife of Ali: 13 subjects 6. The life of Hassan, son of Ali and Fatima, and brother of Hussein: 7 subjects 7. The life of Hussein, son of Ali and Fatima, and brother of Hassan: I. His childhood: 27 subjects. II. His martyrdom: 19 subjects.

8. The life of Abbas, son of Ali and Lyla, and stepbrother of Hussein: 22 subjects. 9. The events of the Hussein family after his death: I. In Karbala: 6 subjects. II. In Kufa: 6 subjects.

III. From Kufa to Damascus: 5 subjects IV. In Damascus: 21 subjects

V. From Damascus to Medina: 5 subjects

10. The life of Fatima Sugra: 6 subjects

11. The lives and stories of the supporters and revengers of the Hussein family:

I. The Martyrs in Kuffa: 5 subjects

II. The Helper: 6 subjects III. The Revengers: 10 subjects

12. The male and main generation of Hussein after his death: 27 subjects

277 13. The lives and stories of the relatives of Prophet: I. The lives and stories of the Sons of Ali: 5 subjects II. The lives and the stories of the Sons of Hassan: 2 subjects

III. The lives and the stories of the Sons of Musa Kasim: 4 subjects IV. The cycles of brothers, sons and nephews of Ali en route to Khorasan, one of the provinces of Iran: 26 subjects. V. Various characters: 5 subjects

14. The Pilgrimage to Karbala: 10 subjects 15. Taziyehs concerning various individuals: 6 subjects 16. Taziyehs concerning various events: 14 subjects

For an idea of the variety of subjects in this catalogue, let us look at the various subjects randomly. As we see there are taziyeh dramas about events and individuals that belong to different periods (including specific events and individuals), or the popular tales and stories based on individuals or events. The notable point here is that the known characters in some of these dramas are not contemporary:

1. Anushirvane the Just [the King of ancient Iran]. (Number 670) 2. The Prophet writes a letter to Khosrow Parviz, [the King of Iran before Arab conquest]. (Number 685) 3. Mansure the Halage, Shamse Tabrizi and Mulaye Romi [the three great Iranian mystics of the ninth century who were not contemporary to each other]. (Number 721)

4. A man (Ainu al-Guzat) who brings people back to life and finally disappears in the mountains of Hamadan. (Number 914) 5. Sultan Muhammad and Ayaz the benefactor. (Number 653)

6. Adham falls in love with a princess, who dies, is resurrected and marries Adham. (Number 655)

7. How Barsiya deceives by evil, rapes a girl, kills her and then kills himself. (Number 859)

8. Zienab (after her death) participates in a wedding in the house of Zuhri. (Number 683) 9. The story of Mahan who is arrested, runs mad and is saved by herbs. (Number 675)

278 10. The story of a judge who tells lies about a woman who is a guest in his home. (Number 748) 11. The King of Balkh and how he accused a woman. (Number 999)

12. The repentance of Nasuh. (Number 668) 13. Far Ali Shah. (Number 184) 14. Abis and Shuzeb. (Number 262) 15. Zienab’s dreams. (Number 1055 LVII)

16. The Jew who tears off Old Testament. (Number 166) 17. Nasir al Dine, King of Ghajar [King of Iran in the nineteenth century]. (Number 1055 XXVIII) 18. The Messenger and Omar of Khatab. (Number 245 II).

The total number of different characters mentioned in all taziyeh plays collected in this catalogue is 1436. According to the catalogue the number of places where taziyeh plays are performed and are mentioned is 259. The manuscripts were collected from 25 different places throughout Iran.

279

APPENDIX II: ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1: A drawing of a taziyeh performance in open space played by wandering dervish in the city of Rustam Abad, in northern Iran. A rug spread on the ground forms the stage, the drummer and a trumpeter shape the music group and the spectators are seated around the performers in two separate groups of females and children and males. [From Heinrich Brugsch, Reise der koniglichen Preussischen Gesandschft nach Persien, 1860-1861]

280

Figure 2: A drawing of a taziyeh performance in open space, in a takiyeh or possibly a caravanserai. The spectators are seated on the ground and on the balconies around the performers. There is a cover, draped on a tree to cover the performers from the sun or possible rain. There is no stage or any sign to indicate the boundary of the stage. A single chair is one of the props used on the stage, as well as a horse, which can be seen on the painting. And on the left hand side of the picture, there is possibly a heap of the chopped straw. [From Heinrich Brugsch, Reise der koniglichen Preussischen Gesandschft nach Persien, 1860-1861]

281

Figure 3: The engraving shows one of the four horses bearing two feathered ‘objects emblematical of the death of Hussein’. [From A Journey Through Persia, 1812-1818]

Figure 4: An engraving illustrating the litter. The poles include representations of Mohammad’s hand. [From A Journey Through Persia, 1812-1818]

Figure 5: Mirza Gholam Hussein, a leading actor of Qajar era, with full character’s costume, in the role of Abbas. [From Persia and Persian, 1887]

282

Figure 6: The dome of Takiyeh Dowlat [From The Islamic Drama]

283

Figure 7: The metal dome of Takiyeh Dowlat from two different angles. [From The Process of Shbiih Khani Concept]

284

Figure 8: A group of taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century. The man on the right hand side, in black, with a manuscript in his hand, is most likely to be the master [http://www.iranchamber.com/cinema/articles/taziyeh_drag_kings_gueens.php]

285

Figure 9: An exceptional photo from Takeyeh Dowlat when spectators filled up every space: yard, boxes, roofs. [From A Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice]

286

Figure 10: Takiyeh Dowlat

Figure 11: A scene from a taziyeh performance in Takiyeh Dowlat in 1869 [Both from Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice]

287

Figure 12: Takiyeh Dowlat from one angle [http://www.iranologie.com/photo/dolat2.jpg]

Figure 13: Takiyeh Dowlat in the nineteenth century from a different angle [From A Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice]

288

Figure 14: A taziyeh performance in the Armenian caravanserai in the cloth sellers’ bazaar in Tehran. A part of the pond, in the middle of the caravanserai, has been covered to be used as the stage. [http://www.geocities.com/servruguin/pages/tazieh.html]

289

Figure 15: Takiyeh Niyebolsaltaneh (Kamran Mirza)in Tehran, in nineteenth century, with a rectangular platform/stage in the middle of the yard [From Archive of Daftareh Pajouheshhayeh Farhangi]

290

Figure 16: A group of taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century. The man on the left-hand side, in black with a staff and manuscript in his hand, would be the master. [From A comparative study of Abraham’s sacrifice]

Figure 17: Another group of performers in the nineteenth century. [From A comparative study of Abraham’s sacrifice]

291

Figure 18: A group of taziyeh performers in acting costume in the nineteenth century. The man in the middle with the taziyeh manuscript should be the master. [From Taziyeh in Iran]

Figure 19: Four typical warriors in taziyeh performance in the nineteenth century [From A Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice]

292

Figure 20: A group of taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century [From The Process of Shbieh Khani Concept]

Figure 21: A group of taziyeh performers in Ghajar period [From The Story of Iranian Music]

293

Figure 22: A group of taziyeh comedy performers in the nineteenth century, some holding masks. The man on the left-hand side with script in his hand would be the master. [From The Theatre in Iran]

294

Figure 23: Two taziyeh performers in the nineteenth century, one with demon mask. [From Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice]

Figure 24: Different masks used in taziyeh performance in the nineteenth century. [From Anthropology museum in Tehran]

295

Figure 25: Different scenes of a taziyeh performance in open space [Yazd, 1971, K.S.collection]

296

Figure 26: A group of musicians with their musical instruments in the nineteenth century. Instruments include the drum, trumpet, windpipe and long horn. The man, standing on the left-hand side, with a long stick, would be the master.

Figure 27: A group of musicians in the twentieth century with cymbal, drum and horn. [From K.S. collection]

297

Figure 28: The last page of a taziyeh manuscript. This shows the name of the characters, the props which are needed, the number of copies, the number of lines, the name of the copier and the date. The page shows there are eleven characters, six females and five males and the necessary props for performance, which are as follows: a cut head, a basin, an ice chest, hair, 4 mud bricks, 2 chairs, a worn out aba [men’s loose sleeveless cloak open in front], a broom, a carpet, a sword, a dragger, a bowl, a bucket, the flower and garden and a nightingale. [From Taziyeh in Iran]

298

Figure 29: A page of a taziyeh manuscript on which the name of characters and the first word of their dialogue has been written. [From Taziyeh in Iran]

299

Figure 30: A religious procession [From Comparative Study of Abraham’s Sacrifice]

300

Figure 31: The wall painting of mourning for Siavush. The open coffin is carried by four men and surrounded by lamenting women [From Archaeology in the U.S.S.R.]

301

Figure 32: The scene of the killing of Siavush from a painting in canvas. The name of important character beside their pictures, have been mentioned. The costumes of these characters are the same as are used by the taziyeh characters on the stage. [From The Islamic Drama]

302

Figure 33: A painting on a huge canvas used by Karbala story-tellers [From Theatre and Prayer in Iran]

303

Figure 34: Different scenes, including the Karbala events painted on the tile work, in the Moshire takiyeh theatre in Shiraz. As seen, at the bottom of the painting, the painter used fish to indicate water. [From Taziyeh in Iran]

304

Figure 35: Tile paintings of scenes including the Karbala events.

Figure 36: Painted tiles on the walls of Moshire takiyeh theatre in Shiraz [From Taziyeh in Iran]

305

Figure 37: Some scenes of taziyeh performance with the male’s actors playing women’s characters and children playing children’s characters [From K.S. collection]

306

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