IS THERE SUCH a thing as Islamic drama?
Is it proscribed by the Qurʹan?
These questions come up again and again in international theatrical discourse. They certainly came up often in my work on the World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre project. Now, at long last, precise and profound answers are available thanks to the impressive research offered by Iranian scholar Jamshid Malekpour in his important new scholarly volume The Islamic Drama.
The answer to those old questions, of course, is ‘yes, there is an Islamic drama’, and Professor Malekpour argues that it is called Taʹziyeh. ‘A ritualistic form of theatre’ akin to early Greek drama but more closely related to the medieval European drama or even the spectacular communal elements of the 2,500-year-old Abydos Passion Play of Egypt with its public reenactment of the death and resurrection of Osiris, Taʹziyeh requires elements of both participation and belief for its theatrical realization. In such events, the secular and the ritualistic merge in a dramaturgically rich imaginative.
Originally performed in inn-yards of caravan stops (caravanserai), Taʹziyeh is identified not just as Islamic but more specifically as a Shiʹa form of Islamic ritual. The second largest branch of Islam, Shiʹa is Iran’s official religion and today, as Professor Malekpour tells us, some 70 million Iranians practise it. Yet even among the Shʹia, Taʹ ziyeh is not so frequently seen, meaning that Professor Malekpour’s research is special indeed.
When Taʹziyeh is done, it is always during the month of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar and the month of mourning for every Shiʹa Muslim. The exact date changes from year to year. The subject matter of Taʹziyeh is always connected to one particular event in the history of the Shiʹa: the death of the venerated Hussein, the son of Muhammad, on the plains of Karbala in AD 680. In its most traditional form—dating back to the tenth century—Imam Hussein is the historical protagonist and the tragic events of his death are ritually reenacted.
The basic structure of Taʹziyeh was more or less fully evolved by the late eighteenth century, but that has not stopped writers since from using the form—particularly in the last hundred years or so—in a variety of new ways while managing to maintain the root story and its call to grieve and to believe. In this rich study, Professor Malekpour examines not only the classical Taʹziyeh texts but some very modern Taʹziyeh as well. The reader is even provided with a list of the many texts available and where they can be found. It is interesting to note in this regard that the repository of one of the largest collections of Taʹziyeh texts is the Vatican library in Rome.
As Professor Malekpour explains, Taʹziyeh is part ritual, part history, part poetic recitation, part storytelling, part music and part song. And because there are clear elements of improvization within the structure, Taʹziyeh offers room for political and religious interpretation. It is this element particularly which has caused Taʹziyeh political trouble. Taʹziyeh performances, we learn, eventually found themselves under such secular pressures that organizers eventually moved them away from the large cities almost entirely both to protect practitioners and to avoid further controversy. Yet it remained alive in those smaller communities and, since 1979, has gradually been allowed to re-emerge in other parts of Iran.
The stated purpose of Taʹziyeh, we are told here, is ‘to make the audience emotionally involved so that they empathize totally with the martyrs’. Clearly, participation in Taʹ ziyeh is much more an act of religious faith than it is theatrical exhibition. But it is a real part of the performative spectrum and the whole community is called upon to participate, to enact its personages and its emotions.
Because it is rooted in mourning ritual, those involved wear black and must maintain a skilled level of ritual suffering. Flags and banners are waved by the community at appropriate moments in the scenario and, as in the Greek drama, all the central roles— even those of women —are played by men. Music is another significant part of the event as are choral laments, structured eulogies, and communal recitations. Taʹziyeh also involves large communal processions, the carrying of coffins and banners. Originally only in verse, Taʹziyeh, especially in its early manifestations, even included masks and puppets.
Taʹziyeh is obviously an event that requires some size and, although it has been performed indoors, it seems at its most comfortable in the open air, where its battle scenes can and have involved as many as 4,000 people. I suppose the closest Western equivalent might well be the Oberammergau Passion Play—still seen every ten years in Germany—which maintained itself as both an important religious and theatrical event for several hundred years while also going through a variety of textual interpretations.
Professor Malekpour traces Taʹziyeh’s roots even further back in time than the Oberammergau stagings—to Zoroastrianism and to Mithraism in its development as part of early Shiʹa Islam. In doing so, he pays special attention to the form’s essential dramatic conflict between the Olya and the Ashghya, that is, between the believers and the nonbelievers, the good and the bad, the faithful and the pagans.
Without doubt, a scholarly study of this importance to an understanding of Islamic drama is long overdue, and Professor Malekpour effectively positions Taʹziyeh within a lively discourse of religiously rooted theatre and ritual. He is obviously determined to get theatrical respect for the form, and I believe he achieves his goal brilliantly.
Director Peter Brook is quoted in this book as saying that, for him, theatre must be ‘a mirror of the invisible’. When Brook first encountered Taʹziyeh in Iran he felt that it was precisely that ‘mirror of the invisible’ for its community. Obviously this book will not lead to a rash of Taʹziyeh productions around the world, nor should it, but it will, like a UNESCO heritage designation, help ensure that Taʹziyeh will be more appreciatively seen, understood and, it is to be hoped, kept alive for generations to come.
On behalf of the world of theatrical scholarship, I must say how very grateful we all must be to Professor Malekpour for this timely and important book.
Don Rubin
Editor, World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre