Theater Review : The Arabian Nights

The story of The Arabian Nights begins with Shahriar, a sultan who has just found out that his wife has committed adultery. In his angry and shocked state, he decides that all women are terrible and that there should be less of them in the world. So every day, he would marry a girl and have her killed by his vizier the next morning. However, the vizier’s clever and brave daughter, Scheherazade, makes a plan that she hopes will save the rest of the women in the kingdom: she volunteers herself to be the sultan’s next bride. On their wedding night, she asks the sultan if she may bring her sister, Dinarzade, into their chamber as it is her last night alive and would like to be with her. The sultan agrees and a mattress is brought in for her. Dinarzade then asks her sister to tell her one of her famous stories. Scheherazade asks permission to tell her story to the sultan, and he allows her to do so. She goes on to tell an

She marries him and tells him a story that night. Although, she doesn’t finish it so he will be eager to hear the rest the next night. The next night comes and she finishes the story and starts another. She tells story’s such as “The Story of the Merchant and the Demon”, “The first old man’s

One Thousand and One Nights is centered on a scorned sultan named Shahrayar, who was cheated by his wife and in retribution kills his wives the day after he marries them. Scheherazade marries the Sultan and in order to save the lives of not only herself but all of the woman in their country. The one way that she can think to do this is by telling the king some of the bed time stories that she was told by her father. These story not only the purpose to intrigue the Sultan but keep him from murdering Scheherazade. The plan works well, allowing Scheherazade to live for as long as her stories go on, being able to leave cliffhangers at each story so that the Sultan would have no urge to kill

All of the actors in Miracle are cast appropriately. Each and every one lived up to the

In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the Wife of Bath is married five times and always tries to have mastery over her husband; however, at the time she gains mastery over a husband, he dies. After explain how she gained mastery over her fifth husband she tells a tale of a young knight in King Arthur’s court who rapes a young girl. The law says he should be killed but the queen and ladies of the court beg and keep him alive. He tells a foul old lady he will do whatever she demands if she saves his life and she does by giving him the answer he needs. The old lady demands that the knight marry her and in agony the knight agrees too.

In The Thousand and One Nights the audience is introduced to a pair of brothers who share a similar misfortune: unfaithful wives. While the younger brother, Shahzaman, handles the unfortunate situation at a more intimate level, the older brother, Shahrayar, takes his revenge to a grander scale. Becoming completely untrusting of women and even developing an intense hatred for them, Shahrayar forms a plan to marry a new woman in the town every day, sleep with them, and then kill them the next morning. His plan progresses at such a quick rate that the only girls left in the town are his vizier’s daughters. The older of the two, Shahrazad, who is established as being well-educated in a multitude of topics such as knowing “poetry by heart, had studied historical reports, and was acquainted with the sayings of men and the

All the actors were required to sing and for being a high school production they did really well. The director did an excellent job casting the group of actors.

Although it is the wife who is always looking for a husband in her personal life, in the Wife’s tale, it is the man who is forced to find what it is that all women desire. In the end he is obligated to marry, while the Wife is always excited to marry her next husband. The Wife wants the woman in the marriage to make the decisions and to have power, which is also seen in the old woman in her tale. In her tale, the old woman basically tricks the man into marrying her, and then into kissing her. This gives her control and she can then reveal her true self.

The tales “The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor” and “The Fisherman and the Jinnee” are just two of the dozens of tales that are part of The Thousand and One Nights. The tales in this collection all relate back to one story, a frame story, which describes an angry sultan, Shahriyar, who executes his wives, one per day, because he believes that no woman could ever be faithful. The sultan then marries Scheherazade, a clever woman who is also a great storyteller. She tells the sultan a new tale each night but does not reveal the end until the next day, which causes the sultan to keep postponing her execution. After a thousand and one nights of storytelling, the sultan decides not to kill Scheherazade.

With the exception of Jessa, most member of the cast inhabits the persona of a varied assortment of characters. For the audience to recognize, each member of the cast adorns themselves with different pieces of clothing, changes their vocal cadence and accent, and even their physicality to aid the audience in being able to distinguish their different characters. But scenes changed very quick so there is no time I can recognize. Other than that, everything was good. The story is solid and the subtleties of their actions made me

Outside of sex, learned women could manipulate powerful men via their intellectual abilities, reflecting the increased amount of knowledge they could potentially gain. Shahrazad takes on this role in A Thousand and One Nights, a frame narrative translated from Arabic into a Syrian manuscript in the fourteenth century centering on King Shahrayar’s disillusionment with women. After seeing his wife, his brother’s wife, and a demon’s wife all have affairs, he decides to take a bride every night and kill her at dawn in an attempt to avoid women’s cunning nature. Yet Shahrazad, the vizier’s daughter, makes the king face women’s cunning nonetheless by volunteering as the next bride to save women. By telling nightly stories that end on cliffhangers, Shahrazad ensures that the king’s desire to listen to her overpowers his desire to kill her. Simultaneously, she weaves moral lessons into her stories that make Shahrayar reconsider his generalizations of women. Unlike the average person, Shahrazad could keep up the charade because she “had read the books of literature, philosophy, and medicine. She knew poetry by heart, had studied historical reports, and was acquainted with the sayings of men and the maxims of sages and kings” (Nights 562). With her unique knowledge of literature and philosophy, Shahrazad wins the king over by producing meaningful stories night after night. In the end, she outsmarts him by manipulating him into changing his plans without even noticing. As she subverts

The actors and actresses did well in their assigned rolls and I wish I could congratulate them on finishing the run. They worked together very well in all of the group musical numbers regardless of how hard they can be to coordinate at times. If I had to rate this performance of the musical it would get a 9/10. The acting, singing, costumes and costume changes, scenery and of course, the plot, are all wonderful and this is a must see. The only thing lacking was the cues and lighting, the use of the gobos was lacking and there was not as much color change as I would have enjoyed

After closing night of “Seussical the Musical”, parents, teachers, and students alike have been asking the theatre department, “What’s the winter show?!”

Marriage, compared to romance, plays a prominent role in The Thousand and One Nights. Marriage is organized as a measure of convenience and status rather than of love in most cases. This attitude aligns with the way women are typically treated: as prizes, not powerful, or even worthy of respect. It was considered more important to marry for status than for love. The only exceptions to this inclination come in stories where women are presented as more powerful. The best example is between Shahrazad and Shahrayar. The Thousand and One Nights offer a unique perspective on the roles of women in Muslim society. Some of the in-framed stories portray women as disobedient wives, as beautiful concubines and slaves who are always eager to please men,

The poet falls asleep and sees in his dream that Cupid appears before him followed by twenty lady martyrs for love. Cupid accuses him for writing only about faithless female characters like Criseyde and as a penance instructs him to write about faithful women, beginning with Cleopatra. But in the poem Chaucer only finished eight stories and the ninth is left unfinished. Some of the good characters are – Cleopatra, Dido, Thisbe, Medea and Lucrece. (Italian Group)