نشریه تئاتر
سال هفتم شماره 82 (پاییز 1399)

Revisionist mythmaking started as a movement to encourage women to write about themselves, rewrite patriarchal mythology from female perspectives, and overcome the system that has excluded female presence to a large degree. Unlike how feminists defined mythmakers, to be female writer, this essay aims to study a male playwright, Bahram Beyzai, to examine whether a man can act as a revisionist mythmaker or not. Beyzai is one of the few writers in Persian literature who is fascinated by writing adaptations. Among his many works which are dedicated to rewrite myths, fairytales and old stories, he has used mythology to portray issues regarding women in two of his plays: Killing Sohrab and One Thousand and First Night. This essay, after the examination of these two plays, reveals that although Beyzai has used feminist strategies to undermine the patriarchal features of mythology, but he is only successful in writing a feminist work with One Thousand and First Night.

Visual theater is aesthetically based on other arts. In visual theater, a strong tendency towards visual arts brings theater closer to spacebased art, which is in contrast to linear narrative-based theater. Wilson believes that visual theater, like modern painting, is timeless, abstract, often static and two-dimensional. Dr. Ali Rafiei, one of the prominent Iranian theatre directors, influenced by the ideas of Craig, Adolf Apia and Robert Wilson, in his works such as (shekar robah, khaterat yek jame dar, Yerma, Bernarda Alba House(khane bernarda alba), Blood Wedding(Aroosi khoon), etc.) creates images in order to create a “dramatic atmosphere”. In this article, first, the ideas and components of visual theater from the perspective of Robert Wilson are described, and then, according to the works performed by Ali Rafiei, the emergence of visual theater in Iranian theater is examined. This article tries to answer the following questions: How can the ideas of Robert Wilson be found in Ali Rafiei’s works? To find the answer, the author tries to use the qualitative and introductory method of visual theater elements from Wilson’s point of view separately, and analyzes Ali Rafiei’s plays in different performance elements and compares those elements with Wilson visual theater characteristics, as well as collecting library and visual information, to prove that what the components of visual theater are from Robert Wilson’s point of view and how it can be found in the works of Ali Rafiei and the components of Wilson visual theater in Iranian theater and of course of Ali Rafiei’s works as an Iranian director by studying two of his works (Memories and Nightmares of a Dressed Man from the Life and Death of Mirza Taghi Farahani).

Various forms of Iranian drama throughout history and over time in the form of various genres emerged from the heart of rituals mourning and joyous ceremonies. In the meantime, the role of improvisation as one of the most important methods of performing Iranian happy plays, and especially Siah-bazi plays is undeniable. On the other hand, extracting the principles and rules of improvisation in various forms of joyful Iranian plays based on new theatrical methods, achievements and methods is one of the necessities of our play today. The main purpose of this study is to study various methods, and techniques of improvisation in the production process of Iranian joyful plays, especially Siah-bazi plays. This research has been compiled in a descriptive-analytical method and library and internet resources have been used to complete the basic information in this article; The main hypothesis in this study is that the study of various improvisation techniques and methods in various forms of Iranian cheerful performances, especially Siah-bazi plays, can increase the awareness, understanding and knowledge of “actors or performers” of improvisational performance capacities in this type of play. It also tries to answer the questions of what improvisation means and what are the different methods of dramatic improvisation? And how and in what process is improvisation used in Iranian joyful plays? And how and through what process do different improvisation methods and techniques manifest themselves in Siah-bazi plays? In conclusion, while defining improvisation and examining its different levels, methods and techniques, as well as introducing and explaining the structure of black play, improvisation methods in different forms of Iranian drama and Siah-bazi plays have been studied and it specified that learning and being Familiar to the some techniques and skills such as “actors’ experience in the process of improvisation”, “Expanding situations in the improvisation process”, “Performers’ relationship and their interaction with each other in the improvisation process”, “Group trust in the improvisation process”, “Verbal action in the process of improvisation” and “Non-verbal action in the process of improvisation” can increase the actors’ knowledge of the improvisational capacity of improvisation in various forms of Iranian juyful play, and specifically Siah-bazi play.

Among the play scripts left over from Qajar period, there are groups of works that are known as “Feminine joyful performances”, but until recent years, they have been taken seriously and no scientific studies have been done on them. This type of play, which is popular indoors and among women includes seven plays, which have significant differences from other plays. Lack of a hierarchical structure, lack of a coherent narrative with a straightforward storyline, as well as their distance from prose and their unrivaled closeness to folklore, music, and popular rhythm are the most obvious distinctions of them. This article is an attempt to understand and read these overlooked works in terms of “feminine writing” concept, proposed by three French critics and theorists, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irygaray, Julia Kristeva. In this research, the plays have been collected from documentary sources, then they have been classified based on the studied elements and finally, they have been interpreted from the point of view of the mentioned theoretical framework. The findings of the article are that the sloppy and incoherent appearance of these plays should not cause their literary, social and anthropological importance to be ignored. These plays were one of the few occasions in which women reacted to the issues in their era.

According to Miskawayh’s theory, social interactions governing the society lead to the formation of Iranian-Islamic ethics if they are based on virtue. In contrast, Miskawayh considers the interactions outside of this arena to be inhumane, leading to the cultural and social collapse. In Miskawayh’s view, the ethics-based social interaction is the cause of society’s evolution. The play is also an art that tries to depict the social interactions to exhibit the society based on dramatic action, and if playwrights can move their dramatic works forward based on Iranian-Islamic social interactions, they will create a work with an Iranian identity. The plays that are produced based on the conventional social interaction discover the conceptual basis of the ethics and propose a solution in the heart of their dramatic action to guarantee the implementation of ethics in society and even specify a moderate way so that the younger generation can understand and follow moral values. Miskawayh believes that we can achieve the harmony of the soul with nature using symbolism and social action, and this causes the produced work to be pleasant. This research found that the social action common in society has been manifested a lot in the works by Akbar Radi such that we can call him the most moral Iranian playwright. That is why his plays have Iranian origin and identity. In terms of paradigm, this paper uses “Oful” the work by Akbar Radi as a model.

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) is one of the famous American playwrights whose most plays reflect political issues in his era. Arthur Miller’s plays reflect challenge of dramatically power discourses and show social inequality, which derivative in unequal power in society rules. This play represents people who prefer surviving to values, themselves to society, realism to idealism, being loyal to family to being responsible to the community. All My Sons is a modern tragedy with an archetypal theme of child murder. The most important feature of modern tragedies is that, they introduce autonomous rational human of the present age as the only responsible for his own failure and victory by depriving the mythical gods of deifying. Joe Keller, the hero of Miller’s tragedy, is the victim of social force caused by economic crisis of 1930’s and 1940’s in the United States, instead of being a failure of mythical gods providence. This article reveals that how using the power of the Capitalism system affects the play characters by components of power relations that Steven Lukes has mentioned.