Muslim drama from Iran highlights festival

NEW YORK, July 17 (UPI) -- The annual Lincoln Center Festival is international in flavor and is highlighted this summer by performances of an all-male Shiite Muslim musical drama from Iran that almost didn't make it to New York because of security concerns growing out of the current war on terrorism.

Ten of the Iranian artists who applied for visas as members of the company performing "The Ta'ziyeh," a three-part production being performed through July 21, were denied entry into the United States by the State Department without public explanation, and 18 actors were granted entry. However, the lack of manpower doesn't show in the vivid and vigorous performances of the work under a tent in the center's Damrosch Park.

Whether the Ta'ziyeh company became a pawn in the powerplay between the State Department, which has taken a hard line against Iran, and President George W. Bush, who says he wants to encourage the forces of freedom in the Islamic Republic, is not clear. The company's performances, however, have proved a big festival draw and a positive showcase for Iran culturally.

"The Ta'ziyeh" is considered a sacred spectacle in Iran, not unlike the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany or the Mormon historical pageant in upstate New York. The first of the three dramas being presented here, "The Ta'ziyeh of Hor," retells the epic battle between Imam Hussein, son of the Prophet Mohammed's daughter, Fatima, and Caliph Yazid in the Kerbala desert in Iraq in 680 A.D., an important event in the founding of the Shiite Muslim religion.

Hussein lost the battle and was beheaded. The word Ta'ziyeh itself means "mourning," and the traditional drama bearing that name is the only indigenous form of music drama in the Islamic world. It is a work of considerable spiritual power, rarely performed outside Iran, and the Lincoln Center performances are the first ever in the United States.

The production is under the direction of Mohammad Ghaffari, a resourceful showman who fills a circular stage surrounded by a horse track with plenty of action on the part of his human cast augmented by four horses, four camels, and six sheep. This is a costume spectacular replete with colorful robes and military regalia, and much of the enjoyment is on the visual level because the show is in Farsi, the language of Iran, and there is no translation.

Program notes indicate that the battle is presented through the eyes of an intrepid warrior, Hor, who originally opposed Hussein as Mohammed's true heir but changed his loyalties at the behest of a voice from heaven. Both Hor and his son take up arms against Hussein's enemies and are killed, and the final scene of the show has Hussein bending over Hor's body to proclaim him a martyr.

The drama is broken down into ritualistic scenes, which are said to unite Muslim audiences in demonstrations of intense emotionalism, vocal response, and occasionally participation. Acting is reduced to its most simplistic, mime-like level, relying on poses and broad facial expressions to convey action and emotion. Swordplay is fast, furious, and appears to be unchoreographed.

The narrative is related by means of droning but sweetly hypnotic chants sung by the good guys in the cast. The bad guys express themselves only by speaking. Between the song-speeches, a small group of musicians perform a score that to Western ears seems repetitive when it isn't being fiercely martial to the accompaniment of trumpets and drums. These stage conventions take some getting used to, but it isn't difficult to lose oneself in the pageantry.

"The Ta'ziyeh of Hor," which stars tenor Alaeaddin Ghassemi as Hor, is being played on alternating evenings with "The Ta'ziyeh of Quesem," which deals with the marriage of a great-grandson of Mohammad just before he joins the Kerbala battle, and "The Ta'ziyeh of Imam Hussein," which tells of Hussein's confrontation of his enemy before his brutal death.

The three dramas span the 10-day battle that is commemorated by Muslims in Muharram, in the first month of the Islamic calendar, by 10 days of lamentation.