‘Shahrazad’ Worth More Than a Thousand Words

It’s usually a good rule of thumb that multi-part stories should get out while the getting’s good. Consider the ugly spectacle of works that keep beating the old horse, unaware that the good days are long gone: the sixth season of “24,” for instance, or the 11th “Redwall” book.

“Shahrazad,” however, is not one of those works. Directed by Karol W. Malik ’08 and produced by Estelle L. Eonnet ’07, the Loeb Ex’s production of Tawfiq al-Hakim’s existential meditation on the “Thousand and One Nights” was a compelling, almost hypnotic piece of theatre. Al-Hakim’s “thousand and second night” is an ingenious commentary on its source material.

Born in Egypt at the turn of the 20th century, al-Hakim is known as the father of the Arab world’s dramatic tradition. His highly philosophical plays were not generally well received by action-hungry audiences; this became such a problem that al-Hakim began to describe his work as a “théâtre des idées,” more suitable for reading and study than for performance.

The bookish aspect of al-Hakim’s work presented a tremendous challenge to the cast and crew of “Shahrazad,” especially since al-Hakim’s brand of intellectualism contains few flashy verbal pyrotechnics or self-congratulatory cultural references. “Shahrazad” is measured, elliptical, and oblique.

Under Malik’s direction, however, the cast and crew emphasized the play’s subtle elusiveness to great effect, particularly in the fantastic initial encounter between Shahrazad (Zia A. Okocha ’08) and Shahriyar (James M. Leaf ’09-’10).

But maybe I should recap. In the famed “Thousand and One Nights,” King Shahriyar reacts somewhat poorly to his wife’s infidelity: He executes her, declares all women to be unfaithful, and marries a succession of virgins only to have each one executed the following morning. Irritatingly enough, he runs out of virgins.

But then Shahrazad offers herself to Shahriyar. Knowing that she will be killed in the morning, Shahrazad begins telling her new husband a story, only to break off at a suspenseful moment. Shahriyar allows her to survive until the following evening, and Shahrazad ends the first story only to begin another. She does this 1000 more times.

The product of Shahrazad’s feat of storytelling, al-Hakim’s play tells us, is Shahriyar’s burgeoning insanity. He wants to abandon feelings for knowledge. He wants to leave his body. Most of all, he wants to know who Shahrazad is. “You seek the unattainable,” Shahrazad replies.

The audience is supposed to understand that Shahriyar’s questions are so crazy that they might just get to the heart of human existence, and Leaf and Okocha both gave performances that lived up to the script’s philosophical intensity. As their words circled back on themselves, Leaf and Okocha circled each other, creating an almost tangible atmosphere of meditative claustrophobia.

Shahriyar must have felt it, too, because he quickly heads off to travel the world with his vizier Qamar (Aseem A. Shukla ’11). Shukla’s perfomance was the perfect foil to Leaf’s nervy, wild-eyed flights of philosophical longing. As Shahriyar desperately hovered “between the earth and the heavens,” Qamar stayed rooted firmly to the ground.

There was also a brilliant scene in which the two watched the Setting Sun, played by dancer Marin J. D. Orlosky ’07-’08 (who also choreographed the production’s dance pieces). Slowly descending two swaths of gray fabric which reached from the ceiling to the stage, Orlosky gave a solo performance that was graceful, composed, and totally compelling.

Combined with the soft, atmospheric lighting of Michael Zellmann-Rohrer ’10 and the set’s pillow-strewn palace rooms and smoking dens (designed by Aileen K. Robinson ’08), Orlosky’s choreographed belly-dances made for a production that sometimes came off as excessively luxurious. Despite Okocha’s terrific performance, it was impossible to ignore the fact that Shahrazad is less a character than an embodiment—there were innumerable references to her “beautiful body”—of a set of existential issues that are meant to concern men only.

Shahriyar may see Shahrazad as the vessel of all earthly knowledge and heavenly splendor, but that notion has walked hand-in-hand with more obvious forms of sexism for centuries. One should also consider that al-Hakim once wrote a manifesto in which he declared himself to be “an enemy of woman.” Still, there is something to be said for remaining faithful to a playwright’s own vision, and Malik and company seem to have done that to best of their ability.

There were moments when al-Hakim’s vision may have been too elusive. I was a little confused by the small set of secondary characters who revolved around the play’s core trio. A hedonistic Executioner (Hessel E. Yntema ’09), a lecherous Slave (Jan Luksic ’11), and a witchy Magician (Joanna Stephens) were all fun to watch onstage, but they seemed to exist on the periphery of the play’s thematic obsessions.

I guess I could take al-Hakim’s advice and subject “Shahrazad” to additional reading and study, but I’m mostly disappointed that the show was limited to a single weekend run. A play so little known in the States would have been worth a second trip. It was well worth the first one.

—Crimson reviewer Richard S. Beck can be reached at rsbeck@fas.harvard.edu.