“It is the thousands of years of Iran’s rich history and culture that make us Iranians and place a great responsibility on our shoulders”; this was Bahram Beyzaie’s belief that made him the contemporary inheritor of our country’s history and culture; a mission whose traces can be clearly felt in “The Death of Yazdgerd”, “Finding the Roots of an Old Tree”, “Where Are a Thousand Legends?” and “The Night of the Thousand and One”.
According to Artmag.ir, citing IRNA, Bahram Beyzaie, a playwright with a style, passed away on Saturday evening of this week, on his birthday and in America, far from his homeland.
The Stanford University Iranology Department wrote in the announcement of the death of this Iranian artist and researcher: “He had repeatedly said that his homeland and calling was the world of culture. He had a great love for Iran and, despite the narrow-mindedness against him and his family, he never stopped for a moment from preserving and preserving Iran’s cultural heritage.”
Although he passed away far from his homeland, as evidenced by his unparalleled works in loyalty to his love for this land, he always lived with Iran and became the guardian of Iranian identity by creating his incomparable dramas.
In his works, he always tried to open a window on Iranian culture and history, enlighten the minds of audiences and thinkers to the richness and mystery of this ancient land, and be the heir of Iran in the world of performing arts with a research-oriented perspective in his works; As in the play “The Night of a Thousand and One”, by resorting to the book “Shahnameh”, the story “A Thousand and One Tales” and Iranian myths, he tried to represent the Iranian origin and roots of the story “Aleph Layla Walili” or the Thousand and One Nights in Iranian literature for the audience.
In the books “Where is a Thousand and One Tales?” and “The Roots of the Ancient Tree”, Beyzaie shows by putting together evidence and clues and tracing the roots in ancient Iranian myths, that the story of a thousand tales, which many consider to be related to Arab culture, actually has Indo-Iranian (Aryan) roots. A story derived from the “Avesta” (a collection of religious books in Mazdeyasna in the Avesta language) and the “Rig Veda” (a collection of religious poems and hymns in Sanskrit) that was translated into Arabic after the Arab invasion of Iran during the reign of Harun al-Rashid and distorted by the interpretation of some experts.
From Beyzaie’s perspective, “Shahryaar”, “Schehrzad”, and “Din-Azad” of One Thousand and One Nights are the same “Zahhak”, “Shahrnaz”, and “Arnoz” of the Shahnameh, who previously appeared in the Avesta and in an Indo-Iranian myth under the names “Azhi-Dahak”, “Sanghavak”, and “Arnouk”.
On the other hand, with his book “The Night of a Thousand and One Nights”, which consists of three one-act plays, he recreates them by adapting the myths of the Shahnameh and ancient texts to highlight the Iranian roots of the One Thousand and One Nights by focusing on women such as Arnavaz and Shahnavaz.
In the first play of this work, Beyzaie narrates the story of Shahrnaz and Arnavaz, who become the wives of Zahak the Hound; two women who are the daughters of King Jamshid of Iran and voluntarily go to the house of Zahak the Hound to defeat injustice and oppression, so that by singing a story every night, he can save the lives of young people whose brains are eaten by snakes.
In the second play, Beyzaie tells a story in which an Iranian named Pourfarkhan translates the story of “A Thousand Tales” into Arabic, and after killing him, the ruler of Baghdad changes the book to his liking and asks “Khorzad” and “Mahak”, Pourfarkhan’s wife and sister, to read him “A Night and a Night”, which is the Arabic version of “A Thousand Tales”, but they do not submit to such humiliation in order to preserve national pride and surrender their lives to the cause.
In fact, in this play, Beyzaie addresses the historical and cultural distortions over time and tries to reconstruct a view of Iranian identity in the face of these distortions.
On the other hand, the third play of the book The Night of the Thousand and One Nights also narrates a story in which a woman named “Roshanek” in the early Constitutional era decides to read The Thousand and One Nights despite her fanatical husband and the superstitious beliefs of the time that forbade women from reading this book.
In The Night of the Thousand and One Nights, Beyzaie is trying to represent the roots of the stories of The Thousand and One Nights in ancient Iranian legends and the Shahnameh by creating original or contemporary narratives, and in this regard, he especially highlights the role of women.
In addition, Beyzaie has chosen the image of “Marvdasht’s Simin Cup” for the cover of the book “The Night of the Thousand and One Nights”, and such a choice expresses the central role of women in developing her dramatic stories; women who, with their reason and thought, are the narrators and, of course, the determinants and victors of the field; Just as the Elamite Lady of the Simin Marvdasht Cup is a lady of victory and was rightly chosen for the image on the cover of the book The Night of the Thousand and One.
The Simin Marvdasht Cup was made during the Elamite era and contains two images of the goddess “Narundi” or the goddess of victory of ancient Elam, which was obtained from an important archaeological discovery in Fars Province.
Bahram Beyzaie was not only a playwright or director, but also a prominent researcher in Iranian history and culture, and with this spirit of research, he was able to create magnificent dramatic works such as The Death of Yazdgerd and valuable works in the field of Iranian drama and dramatic literature.
On the other hand, one of Beyzaie’s largest areas of research has been the study and investigation of the history of drama in Iran, and due to these extensive researches and studies in the history of this land, he was able to beautifully display the spirit of Iranian culture in his works.
Beyzaie’s comprehensive and broad view of the history, culture, and background of theater in Iran, and at the same time their integration with drama, led to the creation of masterpieces in Iranian theatrical literature; such as the one in the book “Three Bars of Recitation” where he created three mythological narratives of “Arash”, “Zahhak”, and “Bondar Bidakhsh”.
On the other hand, the basis of what is today registered and recorded under the title of “Ta’iziyah” in the UNESCO Intangible Heritage; was the result of Beyzaie‘s effort to accurately identify “Performance in Iran” both before and after Islam in a book of the same title; a treasure trove that we know as part of Iran’s intangible heritage and includes performances such as Ta’iziyah, Shahnameh recitation, puppet shows, Pardekhani, and Naqali, and they are discussed in the book “Performance in Iran” and other research by the author.
In his works, Beyzaie has paid attention to and drawn inspiration from the methods of Ta’ziyeh and other traditional Iranian plays; this strong influence, apart from his interest in play, may have been due to the fact that his father and uncle were involved in organizing Ta’ziyeh in Aran and Bidgol, Isfahan, and this background cannot be seen as ineffective in correctly understanding the path that Beyzaie was taking.
This background and at the same time, his interest in play led his questioning spirit not to be confined to the academic resources in the Persian literature department of Tehran University and to step beyond and, by studying and researching Iranian fiction, play, and culture, he wrote down the evolution of play in Iran in a book titled “Play in Iran”; an unparalleled and unique source of the history of play in Iran, which, like Beyzaie’s other works, whether in plays and films or in his research works; It immortalizes him in everyone’s memory as a contemporary heir to Iranian history and culture.
The late Master Beyzaie, is considered one of the most stylish and reputable filmmakers and one of the prominent writers and thinkers of modern Persian drama and literature. Some of his plays have been translated into other languages and published and performed in Asia, Europe, America, and Australia.
10 feature films and four short films, approximately 70 books, and 14 plays on stages in various cities in Iran and sometimes outside of Iran, since 1962, constitute the bulk of Beyzaie‘s artistic career. Many critics have considered the play and the play and film The Death of Yazdgerd to be his masterpiece.
Masoumeh Shahbaz / IRNA News Agency
