Word: shahrazad
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Under Malik’s direction, however, the cast and crew emphasized the play’s subtle elusiveness to great effect, particularly in the fantastic initial encounter between Shahrazad (Zia A. Okocha ’08) and Shahriyar (James M. Leaf...
...then Shahrazad offers herself to Shahriyar. Knowing that she will be killed in the morning, Shahrazad begins telling her new husband a story, only to break off at a suspenseful moment. Shahriyar allows her to survive until the following evening, and Shahrazad ends the first story only to begin another. She does this 1000 more times...
...product of Shahrazad’s feat of storytelling, al-Hakim’s play tells us, is Shahriyar’s burgeoning insanity. He wants to abandon feelings for knowledge. He wants to leave his body. Most of all, he wants to know who Shahrazad is. “You seek the unattainable,” Shahrazad replies...
...pillow-strewn palace rooms and smoking dens (designed by Aileen K. Robinson ’08), Orlosky’s choreographed belly-dances made for a production that sometimes came off as excessively luxurious. Despite Okocha’s terrific performance, it was impossible to ignore the fact that Shahrazad is less a character than an embodiment—there were innumerable references to her “beautiful body”—of a set of existential issues that are meant to concern men only...
Shahriyar may see Shahrazad as the vessel of all earthly knowledge and heavenly splendor, but that notion has walked hand-in-hand with more obvious forms of sexism for centuries. One should also consider that al-Hakim once wrote a manifesto in which he declared himself to be “an enemy of woman.” Still, there is something to be said for remaining faithful to a playwright’s own vision, and Malik and company seem to have done that to best of their ability...