Synopses & Reviews
A twelve-member cast enacts Scheherazade's tales of love, lust, comedy, and dreams. Scheherazade's cliffhanger stories prevent her husband, the cruel ruler Shahryar, from murdering her, and after 1,001 nights, Shahryar is cured of his madness, and Scheherazade returns to her family. This adaptation offers a wonderful blend of the lesser-known tales from
Arabian Nights with the recurring theme of how the magic of storytelling holds the power to change people. The final scene brings the audience back to a modern day Baghdad with the wail of air raid sirens threatening the rich culture and history that are embodied by these tales.
Review
"If you want theatre at its most unpretentiously poetic, most fetchingly stylish, as humane as it is elegant, I commend to you
The Arabian Nights." --
New York MagazineReview
"There's a saying that nobody can read the entire
Arabian Nights without dying of pleasure. In Zimmernan's production, that seems a possibility." --
USA TodayReview
"[A] feast for the eyes and ears."
--Chicago MagazineSynopsis
Based on Powys Mather's translation of The Book of Thousand Nights and One Night.
Synopsis
Based on Powys Mather's translation of
The Book of the Thousand and One Night .
Synopsis
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About the Author
Mary Zimmerman is a professor of performance studies at Northwestern University. In 1998, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2002, she won the Tony Award for Best Director. She has adapted-directed
Metamorphoses, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, Eleven Rooms of Proust, and
Journey to the West. Mostly recently she directed and wrote the libretto for
Galileo Galilee, the new opera by Philip Glass, which premiered at the Goodman Theatre.
Table of Contents
List of Photographs
Production History
A Note on the Staging
The Arabian Nights
Act I
Act II
Improvisation in "The Wonderful Bag"
A Note on the Casting