Traditional Ta’zieh Play Pokes at Regime

by Saloumeh Peyman

TEHRAN, Aug 13 (IPS) - By the time it was banned, a week before the Aug. 6 swearing in of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of Iran, a bold Ta’zieh (traditional tragedy theatre) on the 1997 serial assassinations of several leading dissident intellectuals, had already had a month-long run.

That month was wide enough a window in Iran’s restricted intellectual world to bestir the country’s young and thinking middle-class to flock to the capital’s main theatre and see for themselves the latest creation of Bahram Baizaee, 67, one of the great Ta’zieh playwrights of this generation.

Baizaee has no qualms in admitting that what he wanted to do was refresh public memory of six of his close friends, brutally stabbed, lynched, shot or strangulated by unknown assailants.

The then ruling establishment laid the blame for the vigilante killings on ’’rogue elements in the intelligence ministry’’ and in late 1997 the perpetrators were brought to justice behind closed doors — to deny dissidents any satisfaction.

Yet, Naser Zarafshan, a lawyer for the families of the victims, was sentenced to five years in jail for an interview he gave to the Voice of America’s Farsi service on the assassinations. The charges included disloyalty, sedition and disclosing classified information.

For Baizaee, the memories have lingered, and there was no better way to pay homage to his unfortunate friends than through stagecraft he knows best— Ta’zieh — which is curiously apposite being quintessential Shiite-Persian theatre that parallels Greek tragedy for its profound pathos.

The word ta’ziyeh literally means mourning and consolation but among Indian Shiites it means a wooden box, being metaphorical for a coffin. In Farsi, the word refers to mystic plays dating back to the tragic beginnings of Shiite history, with all its gore and bloodshed at Karbala (in what is now Iraq), 14 centuries ago.

The play itself has a quaint, prolonged title which translates as ’’Psycho - drama Recalling the Passion of Navid Makan and his Spouse, the Architect Roukhshid Farzin’’.

Intellectual circles and critics, have criticised the dramatisation for the ’’explicitness’’ against the perpetrators and the powers that gave the ’thumbs- down’ sign, but most sympathised with both the playwright and his characters who are still revered by educated Iranians. ’’I did not think there would be any ban as several deputies of the culture ministry were among the audience and had not made any objections,’’ said Reza Shmisa, one of the play’s many fans.

The play in 20 short and long Majlis (literally session but corresponds to an act in western plays) revolves around the thoughts of Navid Makan, a poet and thinker, just before he was garroted by three men as he walked home.

Makan’s grim thoughts are identical to those of his architect wife at that point. The couple had just sent their 14-year-old son Nima to a safe haven abroad and were grieving the recent murders of friends in their sophisticated circle of dissident politicians and intellectuals.

Their detractors sadistically lull them into a sense of security and there is even a scene of jubilation that marks Roukshid Farzin’s birthday and Makan was actually going home with a bouquet of flowers when he is waylaid by three faceless men carrying a noose.

’’The script was so close to reality that I would be astounded if Bahram Baizaee will get permission to make another film or play in the future. Perhaps, he thinks he is too old to worry about the future of his career,’’ said Thoraya Barari, an accountant in a private company.

On Jul. 29 as the curtain rang down for the last time on the play at the Theatre - e- Shahr( theatre of the city) and the public relations manager was thanking the director and actors and actresses, one member of the audience sprang up from her chair and demanded to know why the play was being banned.

No answers were forthcoming and the public relations manager went on with the plaudits.

Frank (second name suppressed), who teaches English, said the play was so evocative of the tragic 1997 events that she went home and ’’downed several shots of home-made vodka in the hope of fighting off insomnia’’.

Many in the audience believed that the political message of the play was so self - evident that what was truly surprising was that the performances were allowed to be staged at all.

Faribourz , a critic, told IPS: ” I found the play a political manifest against the whole ruling establishment and much of it a soliloquy by the director on experiences piled up over several post-revolutionary years’’. Behrouz Saeedi, an art critic and journalist writing in the dissident- run website ’www.roozonline.com’ , refers to a rumour that after a ’’particular deputy of Tehran and notorious as a public prosecutor’’ was spotted among the audience, it was only a matter of time before a ban was ordered.

The subtitle of Saeedi’s note in the website reads: ’’ The director was told to stop the performance and be mute about the reasons behind it ’’.

Critics in newspapers predicted that the play would be banned before Ahmadinejad, a known hardliner, took over as President and that is precisely what happened in the end.

”The director apparently timed his performances to take advantage of the three- month window between election results and the actual swearing-in of the new president,’’ Maliheh (second name suppressed),who teaches French, said.

But there may yet be a price. ’’ From now on until the end of Ahmadinejad ’s term, all plays are bound to be whetted by the culture ministry,’’ said Mohammad D., a 32-year-old engineer.

Baizaee says his primary inspiration is the Ta’ziyeh tradition, which, like its Greek counterpart, dates back to pre-historic rituals. It was reinvented as mourning rites the during the Safavid ,Shiite dynasty, in the 15th century.

Ta’ziyeh continues to be performed wherever large Shiite populations exist, in Iraq, southern Lebanon, Bahrain and Jamaica, although full dramatic performances exist only in Iran.

Secular Ta’zieh did develop political and cultural themes but all performances hark back to the martyrdoms at Karbala, especially of Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad in the year 632.

Because Shiites revere Hussein’s death as redemption and consider participation in Ta’ziyeh, either as actors or spectators, as pious acts that would gain them intercession on the Day of Judgement, the dramas remain magnetic.

And that may have been one reason why Baizaee’s play, bitingly critical as it was of the political establishment, had such an unexpectedly long run.

Veneration of martyrs has always been a part of Persian culture while the idea of redemption pre-dates Islam while scholars have drawn parallels between Ta’zieh and medieval Christian theatre, including ’Stations of the Cross’. (END/2005)

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