‘The Arabian Nights’ finds resonance in ancient fables

But once she got into the play she had crafted from the ancient fables known as The Arabian Nights she realized that she was onto something more universal. She discovered she didn’t have to argue for the tales’ relevance because they spoke for themselves.

Zimmerman, the recipient of a Tony Award for directing “Metamorphoses” and a so-called “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation, said she was motivated to create the work by a specific event — the 1991 Gulf War, in which the U.S., Britain and their allies booted Saddam Hussein’s troops out of neighboring Kuwait.

“In the build-up to the war, as in all build-ups to all wars, there was a lot of stuff on the news that I felt was geared toward making the viewer think that the people in the Middle East were somehow different than ourselves,” Zimmerman said during a visit to Kansas City in December.

She remembers hearing a report about infant mortality in Iraq, the thrust of which was women there have so many children that they expect to lose a few.

“The implication was that somehow their grief would be less when we go to war with them,” Zimmerman said.

And she remembers an American general pronouncing a reliable cliché — used infamously by Gen. Curtis LeMay during the Vietnam War and supposedly used to get Pakistan’s cooperation after 9/11 — that we would “bomb ’em back to the Stone Age.”

The expression, she thought, “was so glib and ignorant about this culture which, in fact, is much older than our own and has a very rich literary and poetic and artistic history.”

That led her to revisit The Arabian Nights, which she recalled from childhood.

“Everything I do is usually an ancient, oral text … and I think when I set out to do it I wanted to just provide a small counter-narrative to that discourse — that it was us and them, as opposed to us and us. War is predicated on the premise that it’s only possible if you think of the enemy as other than oneself. But literature is predicated on the premise that we are fundamentally the same — that you can read about someone (in) a story that is not you and see yourself in it.”

So Zimmerman unveiled “The Arabian Nights” in 1992 at the Lookingglass Theatre, the company she helped found in Chicago. The show was later produced in New York. Like Eric Rosen, KC Rep’s artistic director whom she mentored when he was a graduate student at Northwestern University, Zimmerman has built a formidable reputation by adapting literary works for the stage.

“When I first started to stage it, I thought I was going to do all (these) overtly political, relevant things with it,” she said. “But I must say the stories just sort of took over the room and were sufficient in and of themselves. Like, you don’t need to remind the audience of what they’re seeing — and of the relevance, which I feel like today is 10 times what it was.”

Flash forward to the present: We’re at war again, in two Islamic countries. When Berkeley Repertory Theatre approached her about reviving “The Arabian Nights” and a co-production deal was worked out with KC Rep and Lookingglass, she thought her “counter-narrative” was just as valid now as it was in 1992.

“There are references to Mosul and Basra and the bridges over the River Tigris which now don’t exist because we destroyed them,” Zimmerman said. “All kinds of things are in the play that feel almost as if I stuck them in as deliberate political references, but in fact are thousand-year-old references.”

(According to a press officer with the U.S. Central Command and news reports, most key bridges destroyed in the American-led invasion of Iraq were rebuilt, either by coalition forces, contractors or the Iraqi government; during the U.S. occupation some of those same bridges have been attacked by insurgents.)

The stories in Zimmerman’s “The Arabian Nights” existed as an oral tradition long before being committed to writing. Scholars point to versions in Arabic and Persian, while the individual stories are rooted in Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Persian and Indian folk tales. The first English translation by Sir Richard Burton was published in 1884 under the title The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night.

Zimmerman said she relied primarily on a 1923 version by Edward Powys Mathers, who translated not directly from Arabic but from a French translation by J.C. Mardrus.

“These stories exist orally,” she said. “There is no literary author of the ‘Arabian Nights.’ Every edition is different, every edition is arranged differently. Whoever is telling it is sort of the provisional author of the moment.”

One element that remains consistent through all versions is the framing device: Scheherazade forestalls her death by entrancing King Shahryar with nightly stories. Shahryar, made mad by the betrayal of his first wife, has settled into a pattern of marrying a new bride each night, taking her to bed and then killing her.

“What I love about ‘Nights’ is that it’s an absolute tribute to the importance of fiction,” Zimmerman said. “Fiction … is entirely how we develop empathy, it’s entirely how we are connected to other people, through these pretend examples of other lives teaching us how to live our own lives. He (the king) is in such a state of trauma and mania and depression when she finds him, and she recivilizes him through fiction. Fiction is the only thing he can deal with. He can’t deal with the actual world. … She reintroduces him to humanity.”

One of Zimmerman’s calling cards is her ability to create visual spectacle through low-tech means. The production has no recorded sound or music. All sound effects and music are created by the multi-ethnic cast. The 15 actors play multiple roles and remain on stage for most of the performance.

“Most costume changes you see on stage,” she said. “It’s right there and done by very simple means. The set never really changes. Mostly it’s rugs, lamps and six ottomans and that’s it.”

After the KC Rep run, the production travels to the Lookingglass, where it opens in May.

“When we first did this play we were non-Equity and we didn’t pay ourselves, and it’s a big show,” she said. “Originally it had 16 people in it. … But that didn’t matter in the old days because nobody was union, and my total check for the run of that show (was) $250. And every actor was paid $250. Not a week. I mean for the three-month experience.”

So Zimmerman was concerned that the 220-seat Lookingglass couldn’t afford to mount the show now. Then Berkeley Rep called.

“When I got that phone call it seemed sort of karmic,” she said. “Co-production allowed the financial possibility. And then Eric put a gun to my head and said, ‘If you’re doing “Arabian Nights,” you have to bring it here.’ ”

“My recollection of the story is a bit different,” Rosen said with a chuckle. “As soon as I got this job I started bugging Mary about coming here to do something.”

When the opportunity to get involved in a co-production presented itself, Rosen jumped. Berkeley Rep is a company he admires.

“It’s a great aspirational model for us,” he said. “They’re bigger, and the artists who feel like Berkeley is their home are the kind of artists I’d like to get to Kansas City.”