Reviews 2011
Reviews 2011
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by Peter Farbridge & Soheil Parsa, directed by Soheil Parsa
Modern Times Stage Company, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto
November 18-December 4, 2011
“The Four Words”
For most people the only Sufi mystic they will know, if any, is Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-73) whose poetry has become popular the world over. Generally unknown outside of the Middle East is the Sufi mystic and poet who preceded and influenced Rumi named Mansur al-Hallaj (c. 858-922). Unlike Rumi, who was celebrated in his lifetime and was honoured after his death with the Green Tomb, which has since become a pilgrimage site, Hallaj was imprisoned for eleven years for his beliefs after which he was publicly mutilated and executed.
What made Hallaj such a threat to Abbasid Baghdad in the 10th century and Rumi a living saint in the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm in the 13th would be fascinating to learn. The play Hallaj by Modern Times Stage Company’s co-artistic directors makes no such comparison, but we should be grateful that it makes known an important figure whose ideas about the unity of all religions many will find surprising.
The frame for the play imprisonment of Hallaj (Peter Farbridge) in a filthy cell in Baghdad. There his only interaction is with Nasr (John Ng), the Chief of Police, and with a fellow prisoner Abdul (Stewart Arnott) whose satiric view of life provides the show with some comic relief. These interactions trigger memories of the past and we see mostly in chronological order flashbacks of Hallaj’s past leading up to his present state. We see him join the a monastic Sufi order led by Junayd (Steven Bush), but then break from him because Hallaj feels that the insights of mysticism should directly benefit the suffering masses. We see him fall out with his best friend Sharif (Carlos González-Vio), who thinks Hallaj and his followers should use violence to oppose those who persecute them. “Use violence in the name of peace?” is the pertinent retort Hallaj makes that echoes with sad irony throughout history.
Hallaj’s speeches and writings get him in trouble with the authorities for many reasons. Though having gone on the Hajj himself, he does not see the purpose of it. For him religious belief itself is what is important, not the rituals that derive from it. His travels through India and Central Asia lead him to see that beneath their varying ceremonies, all religions ultimately have the same goal--unification with God. Although the unio mystica is a hallmark of the mysticism of most theistic religions, it is precisely this that caused Hallaj to be denounced as a heretic. In his trances he felt he achieved oneness with God and spoke the words “I am The Truth”. The difficulty is that “The Truth” is one of the 99 Names of Allah. The central crisis of the play is when Hallaj is given the chance to recant these four words. If he does, he will spend life in prison. If he does not he will be tortured and executed, but worse, so will his wife Jamil (Beatriz Pizano) and son before him.
Although such material would seem to provide riveting drama, for the most part it does not. The trouble is that the dramatic arc of most people accused of heresy or treason is very similar, whether it is Saint Genesius, Joan of Arc, Thomas à Beckett, Galileo or Sir Thomas More. The plays that make the greatest impression place the martyrdom of the central character in a larger context. Jean Rotrou in Le Véritable Saint Genest (1646) is intrigued by the paradox the parallel of the ecstasies of acting and religion when a pagan converts in the midst of acting to the faith he is supposed to be mocking. T.S. Eliot frames his Murder in the Cathedral (1935) as a secular version of a sacred ritual. Shaw in Saint Joan (1923), Brecht in Life of Galileo (1943) and Robert Bolt in A Man for All Seasons (1960) all focus on the politics of the period that must stamp out all dissension.
Hallaj, however, in attempting to uncover the universality of its subject, also loses the specificity that would make it distinctive. We know Hallaj only in the most generalized fashion and only a few of his key tenets. We know almost nothing of the regime that opposes him and whether there are motives beyond the speaking “four words” that necessitate such harsh punishment.
One can understand why Farbridge would want to star in the play he has written, but if truth be told he is not really the best candidate to embody a man like Hallaj. Hallaj is frequently called upon to register extreme emotion in reaction to horrific announcements concerning him, his friends and family that punctuate the action, but Farbridge falls back on the same expression and gestures every time. We hear that Hallaj has gained thousands of followers in his travels but Farbridge radiates earnestness and commitment but none of the charisma that would make this believable. The cast member who does have the requisite charisma is Carlos González-Vio, who possesses more stage presence through posture and voice than Farbridge ever achieves.
John Ng, Steven Bush and Beatriz Pizano all do well in their rather stereotypical roles as chief tormentor, aged master and long-suffering wife and Stewart Arnott is a breath of fresh air as the earthy prisoner next door. Bahareh Yaraghi makes Atiyah, the Caliph’s daughter such an intriguing figure we wish we knew more about her.
Those familiar with other productions from Modern Times such as Aurash will find that dialogue and physical movement are not integrated to the same extent. The are long sections of dialogue in the play that are not visually interesting except for the precise squares of light hat David DeGrow so precisely generates. When there are scenes of movement involving the whole troupe we feel that the company is closer to fulfilling its potential. Set designer Trevor Schwellnus has created a simple yet effective set with wood chips strewn over the otherwise empty playing area to represent both indoor and outdoor scenes and with a back wall with cracks in it tat when lit can look either like a river system or veins in the body. DeGrow has them glow green when the dialogue is life-enhancing, red when it is life-destroying.
While Hallaj may not be the most engrossing of Modern Times’s productions, I was grateful to learn the story it told which helps to show the diversity of Islamic thought that is far too often portrayed as monolithic in the West. Mansur al-Hallaj provides a point of reference everyone should know and we must thank Modern Times for helping yet again to expand our knowledge.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Beatriz Pizano, Stewart Arnott, Carlos González-Vio, Steven Bush and Bahareh Yaraghi. ©2011 John Lauener.
For tickets, visit www.buddiesinbadtimes.com.
2011-11-23
Hallaj