Shiite Mourning, Glory in N.Y.

NEW YORK--While ever loved as a wonderful town, post-9/11 this remains a wary town. In the subway, for instance, a slight smell of smoke--common enough from small track fires or station renovation work--was once ignored by hardened commuters but now generates nervous looks and panicky exits. New York hops as it always does in the summer, but the World Trade Center tragedy and fear of terrorism are continuing undercurrents.

This is not, then, an altogether welcoming atmosphere in which to introduce the form of indigenous Iranian near-operatic music theater, Ta’ziyeh, to America. Even so, Lincoln Center has done so, making three Ta’ziyeh--passion plays about the origins of the Shiite sect of Islam--one of the centerpieces of its annual summer festival.

The Ta’ziyeh (there are some 200 of the plays) are dramatizations of the massacre of the Prophet Muhammed’s grandson, Iman Hussein, on the Kerbala desert in AD 680 in a battle of succession. The Shiite Muslims, who revere Hussein as a martyr, contended that Islam’s leaders should be descended from the prophet; the Sunnis favored election.

Begun in Iran 250 years ago as communal rituals of mourning (Ta’ziyeh translates as mourning), Ta’ziyeh is a kind of folk theater, which includes horsemanship and parades of sheep and camels.

When performed in Iran, the audiences feel a familial closeness with the historical figures. They weep and beat their breasts over the death of Hussein and of the young children who also find their way into martyrdom--all three of the Ta’ziyeh brought to Lincoln Center included slain boys. So despised are the villains that it is difficult for the faithful actors to portray them. At one time, foreign prisoners were forced into the roles, and then beaten by angry spectators after the performance.

This is not exactly what the three Ta’ziyeh last week at Lincoln Center were like, however. Because 10 of the 28 performers scheduled to travel from Iran were denied U.S. visas by the State Department, the scale was reduced. The performances were not held outdoors, but in a big, blue circus tent in the center’s Damrosch Park, the singers and musicians competing with the roar of air-conditioning.

We Westerners watched in the respectful silence we accord all theater, but so did the Iranians in the audience, perhaps intimidated by their surroundings. Good guys and bad got the same applause.

There were a few outcries in the press about the inappropriateness of glorifying martyrdom in today’s New York. But the martyrdom depicted is little different from that found in biblical stories, to say nothing of the Homeric epic poems on which our modern literature derives.

The three Ta’ziyeh, all directed by Mohammad Ghaffari, were short and straightforward, and their conventions easy to discern. Heroes sing; villains speak; heroes wear graceful green and white robes; villains wear silly and elaborate red costumes. The stage is a circular platform surrounded by a dirt track. When someone circles it on foot or horseback, he has changed locations. Everyone is a he; veiled men dressed in black play the women’s roles.

A raucous ensemble of five musicians (trumpets and percussion) is one of the highlights; their elaborations of modal melodies and martial drumming almost sound like an Iranian version of some of the further-out American jazz (Lester Bowie, in particular).

Perhaps what proved most off-putting for the Lincoln Center audience (there were empty seats all three nights I attended) was the amateurish quality of the acting, although some of the singing was quite impressive. Texts were not translated, but short synopses of each scene were enough. The actors--most have day jobs that range from mechanic to dentist to bazaar merchant--telegraph their intentions with the urgent obviousness of actors in silent films. And they don’t worry about realism, often fussing with their garments.

All children die in the same way: Their hands flutter over their heart, their feet beat wildly, they quiver and then become motionless (or pretty much so).

The most spectacular of the three plays was “The Ta’ziyeh of Hor,” in which Hussein’s enemy, Hor, changes sides and dies a martyr, along with his young son. Here was exciting horsemanship, a caravan of camels and careless-looking swordplay. What struck most, though, was the singing, with roles for three heroic tenors--Hor (Alaeaddin Ghassemi), Hussein (Hassan Aliabbasi Jazi) and Hussein’s brother (Hassan Nargeskhani Deligani)--all in full declamation.

“The Ta’ziyeh of the Children of Moslem,” a last-minute substitute due to the State Department’s actions, is lyrical, pastorale melodrama. Two young boys, children of Hussein’s cousin, Moslem, are tracked down and their throats cut. There is a touching scene in which their dead father appears to his sleeping children and sings them a lullaby, thereby startling the boys. Though in hiding, they cry out and are discovered.

But it was “The Ta’ziyeh of Iman Hussein” that proved the most moving and fabulous. Not only does the Angel Gabriel make an appearance, wearing a purple robe and gold crown, but there is a comic scene in which travelers from the future in ludicrous Napoleonic garb and wrap-around shades are rescued from a lion by Iman Hussein.

The ending of “Hussein,” though, revealed some of the emotional intensity that this art form can produce at its best. The lion suit may be off the rack, but in an extraordinary final scene, as he wandered the battlefield mourning the slaughtered Hussein and his family, his wails of anguish filled the tent with overwhelming lyrical thunder. Powerful though this was, it seemed hardly incendiary.

Ta’ziyeh is, in fact, a dying art form in Iran, with performers increasingly hard to find. I’m not sure how much its first compromised tour to America teaches about the complexities of one small branch of Islamic culture, but it was enough to display some basic humanity and make one wish to know it in a more authentic way.