برتولت برشت در ایران: بازنگری مرگ یزدگرد بهرام بیضایی از منظر فردریک جیمسون

The attempt to ‘post-modernize’ Iranian writers sometimes goes so far that the critic, without adequate justification, considers outstanding Iranian works which are rooted in the culture and tradition of this land to originate in and serve the same function and purpose as their Western counterparts. In this research, the authors unravel these Eurocentric interpretations in the case of Bahram Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd. Meanwhile, the goal is not to introduce Beyzaie as an exclusively Iranian playwright and overlook his cosmopolitan bent. More specifically, Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd will be explored in terms of Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater. Thereby, Beyzaie’s twofold accomplishment in tailoring Brecht for the Iranian context and drawing on indigenous traditions of performative arts will be elaborated. Out of the vast body of Brecht’s method, this study focuses on his approach to history and his conviction in the contingency of the status quo and, hence, the possibility for change and reform even at the bleakest moments. The second line of this study concerns the parallel usage of certain techniques by Brecht and Beyzaie to achieve the so-called “distancing effect.” Given the multiple and occasionally incompatible readings put forth regarding Brecht's drama, the authors have adopted the holistic approach of Fredric Jameson to the subject matter.













Introduction

In the concluding chapter of Namayesh dar Iran, Bahram Beyzaie acknowledges that in the cultural and material exchange that the East (including Iran) had with the West, both were impressed by the other side in different ways. Nevertheless, he adds, this contract was not always proportionate, so that a country like Iran lost heart and felt cowed by the greater industrial and military power of Europe (Beyzaie, 2015). According to Beyzaie, whereas the West adopted a critical attitude toward whatever was eastern and adapted them to its own spirit and outlook so much that it squeezed something western out of them, Iran was content to blindly mimic the West and be a simple receiver. This, Beyzaie contends, also occurred in the area of drama. Beyzaie rightly asserts that it was quite possible to harness performative techniques and traditional values of indigenous popular drama while channeling its thematic dimensions toward the enlightening realistic thought of the modern age so that a national drama which takes account of new developments and advancements could be produced.

In this paper, it is claimed that Beyzaie was the first to fulfill the abovementioned twofold task of preserving effective aboriginal dramatic conventions of Persian drama and assimilating the liberal/critical perspective of modern European drama. To this end, we will show how Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd (2014) deploys native dramatic elements of Persian drama that correspond to some of the characteristics of Bertolt Brecht’s “epic theater.”



Method

To better understand Brecht's epic drama, we draw on Fredric Jameson's reinterpretation of the German playwright in Brecht and Method (1998). According to Jameson, Brecht plays the role of a historical catalyst and serves as an empowering model in the development of emergent non-Western dramas; besides, he facilitates realizing untapped potentialities of Eastern cultures and arts by people who have recently been liberated from European colonialism (p. 18). We believe Bahram Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd is a perfect example of such unexplored possibilities.

Discussion

Beyzaie does not provide a definitive account of what actually happened to the Sassanid King and invites the audience to make their own inferences. This stress on uncertainty and the possibility of viewing a subject through multiple perspective enables Beyzaie to reinterpret the Iranian performing art such that it could meet the challenge of modernity, which he critically confronts “with an uncompromisingly secular gaze” (Dabashi 2001, p. 76).

In dealing with historical and mythical issues, Beyzaie—following Brecht—does not seek to merely relate how the last Sassanid King died; rather, one might hypothesize, he implies that the conventional xenophobic narrative—that a handful of backward and barbaric Arabs plundered Iran and ruled over its people—may not be necessarily true.

Beyzaie considers Brechtian alienation effect to have been the product of the East taken up by the West. He provides numerous techniques that traditional Persian drama has utilized to disabuse the audience of the notion that what they watch is reality, and thus it prevents them from identifying with the characters. This gesture induces a passive reaction in people and precludes any endeavor on their part to reform the society. This outlook, largely compatible with epic theater, underpins Death of Yazdgerd. One of the most characteristic techniques conductive to the realization of the alienation effect which has been exploited here and recommended by Brecht is the extensive use of masks. In Death of Yazdgerd masks and robes generally have been used effectively to illustrate that many deep-seated notions which have been taken for granted are indeed based on deceptive appearances and devoid of any substantial content. Transposition of the play into the past and using third-person point of view to narrate the events are two further suggestions made by Brecht for producing the alienation effect (1964, p. 138). In Beyzaie’s play, these techniques have been exploited throughout, for the entire play revolves around a historical event - i.e. the narrative of what happened to the late King after he entered the miller’s shack - which the characters as second players restage for the King’s men. In Death of Yazdgerd, theatricality is foregrounded, among others, through the stage directions that are explicitly mentioned, itself another technique proposed by Brecht (1964, p. 138).

Conclusion

Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd is an cogent example of Pascale Casanova’s thesis that writers gain domestic and global recognition by, first, appropriating their national artistic tradition and, second, harnessing the international venues of the art in question (2004, pp. 40-41). In the case of the former, Beyzaie utilizes the indigenous genre of taqlid. As for the latter, we underscored the way Beyzaie appropriates Brecht’s epic theater in this play.



References

Brecht, B. (1964). Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans. John Willett. New York: Hill and Wang.

Beyzāie, B. (2014). Marg-e Yazdgerd: Majles-e Shahkoshi. 11^th ed. Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Rowshangarān va Motāle’at-e Zanān. [In Persian]

---. (2015). Namāyesh dar Iran. 10^th ed. Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Rowshangarān va Motāle’at-e Zanān. [In Persian]

Casanova, P. (2004). The World Republic of Letters. Trans. M. B. Debevoise. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Dabashi, H. (2001). Close up; Iranian Cinema, Past, Present and Future. New York: Verso.

Jameson, F. (1998). Brecht and Method. London: Verso.