The theoretical beginning of the European dramatic tradition which Idris is confronting in his comments are generally agreed to be found in the Poetics of Aristotle where he tells his readers that drama is based in the principle of ‘representation’ (mimesis), a process that involves impersonation. An expansion, indeed a corollary, of this classic definition is represented by the notion that, in order to fulfil its dramatic funtion to the full, a play needs to be acted, performed; such a process requires a place where the drama may be presented – a theatre of one kind or another- and an audience who will engage themselves in the perfomance with both their eyes and ears. For the most part, the ‘action’ will involve actors performing on stage by using gesture and dialogue as means of representing the needs and emotions of characters in order to ‘show’ the import of play being presented. While in the Greek tradition the relationship the stimulus of the audience’s empathy followed by a sense of catharsis, more recent trends, particularly those associated with the plays and productions of Piscator and Brecht, have andeavoured to prevent such empathy, in fact, to distance the audience from the action so that the perfomance can fulfil a more educational purpose.
Within the context of that broad concept known as society the history of drama shows that the genre has managed to fulfil a number of functions, including those of liturgy, entertainment, and education. In origin the genre was connected to religious or communal festivals, as in the case of much Greek and Roman drama. In a more popular vein, the drama was co-opted by medieval Christianity through the often lengthy cylces of plays recorded in the archives of such English cities as Chester, Wakefield, and York, or in the Oberammergau Passion play. Above all, the very fact that drama is the most public of all literary genres, a perfomance, an act of impersonation and showing in front of an audience, has also made it in many, if not most, cultures and historical periods the focus of political oversight- in a word, censorship.
Within theWestern tradition of drama the performance element gravitates towards the formalities and conventions of the theatre as stucture, something that led Brecht to frame part of his own dramatic theory in terms of the effect of the theatre’s ‘walls’ on audience response to the perfomance. In the same way the script of the play has assumed the status of the text. The works of Sophocles, Racine, Shakespeare, Goethe, Pirandello, and Chekhof are regarded as major contributions to the literacy heritage and have joined the list of canonical works of Western culture, a status confirmed in numerous ways, not least by their presence on the reading list of national school curricula...
It is as part of the nine teeth-century cultural renaisaance in the Arab world that the literary community encounters and adopts the generics tradition that we have just outlined. The pre-modern Arabic literary heritage does not provide us with exmples of types of drama that drama can be conveniently linked to the Western tradition, but, as Yusuf Idris’s remarks cited above imply, there are a number of indigenous genres which exhibit dramatics qualities. Mirroring the combination of religius memorial and public perfomance that marks the medieval mysteri plays mentioned above, a first example can be provided by a perfomance tradition that survives from great antiquity till the present day. Within the Shi’i communities of the Middle east (and thus especially in Iran), there is a tradition of the ta’ziyah ( a term implying both mourning and consolation), a passion play which serves as a commemoration of the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, al-Husayn, at the battle of Karbala in AD 680. Perfomances of this particular form of drama take place during the Islamic month of Muharram and consist of a highly ritualised public performance.
The period preceding the nineteeth-century renaissance in the Arab world-an era that, as we noted in Chapter 1 above, spans no less than five centuris-witnessed an efflorescence of popular genres, many of which can be considered as dramatic. Prime amongst these was the shadow play in which coloured figures were manipulated by wires from behind a transparent screen. We are fortunate to possess the manuscript of three ‘plays’ composed by the Egyptian Shams al-din Muhammad ibn Daniyal (d. 1311), for this particular form. It is clear from the introduction to his plays that the genre was not a new one in his day; one of the purposes that ibn Daniyal has in recording these examples is to provide fresh materials for a medium where much of the material has become hackneyed. The plays themselves clearly fall into the realm of comedy, intending to show up the very worst foibles of mankind, most particularly where matters sexual are concerned. The contents are bawdy to the point of obscenity. In one play, Tayf al-khayal, the chief character is named Prince Wisal, a name that implies sexual congres. Farcical and stacological effects are provided by having the characters stumble, babble, and fart on stage. In another play, ‘Ajib wagharib, every form of profession, particularly those of the less desirable elements of the populace, is explored.
A particularly popular and widespread form of this types of this presentation was the genre known as karagz. This genre bears a very close resemblance to the traditional Punch and Judy show, perhaps not so common at the end of the twentieth century as it was in this writer’s childhood. In imitation of what would appear to be a Chinese tradition, a single performer would wrap himself in a tent-like structure and proceed to manipulate hand-held puppets on a stage above his head. A number of sketches involving different characters might be involved, but the basic hero would always be Karagz- Everyman- the bumbling and boisterous simpleton, who would endeavour to outsmart any pretentious hypocrite who chose to stand in this way, usually resorting to beatings as the preferred mode of resolving disputes.
One final aspect of the ‘dramatic’ during the pre-modern period concerns a particular function that has been much exploited by modern dramatics: the hakawati or story teller. As Edward Lane records in Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, his unique account of Cairene life in the 1860s, story-tellers would accompany themselves on musical instruments and would gesticulate at appropiate points in the narrative. Taht several contemporary playrights should invoke the figure of tha hakawati in order to provide a Brechtian distancing mechanism to their dramas and that a prominent group of Palestinian actors should call themselves th Hakawati Troupe is clearly no accident.
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