The 2004 Arden Theatre Production of Mary Zimmerman's The Arabian Nights captured the audience's mi
Chris Jurkiewicz
Humanities 106
11/10/04
Nights to Remember…
The 2004 Arden Theatre Production of Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights captured the audience’s minds and sucked them into a world of thieves, whores, and great kings. No where else could one find the commitment to excellence the Arden Theatre has in order to perform this play with all of its artistic integrity. “At the Arden our mission is to tell great stories, and never have we produced a play that celebrates our mission as well as this one does” ( Nolen 4). The Production was a success in updating the traditional stories for the modern spectator, creating a work of art blended from different cultures, and translating the tone of the written book into a dramatic play. Some are suitable for children, but, aiming at an adult audience, Zimmerman concentrates primarily on stories dealing with man-woman relationships that often involve sex and sensuality ( Keating).
From the moment the music begins, your mind is already waiting in anticipation of the stories that are about to be told. Mary Zimmerman casts a dazzling spell in her unforgettable adaptation of a captivating adventure in The Arabian Nights. For 1,001 nights, Scheherazade weaves beguiling tales of an enchanting and sensual world to save her from death at the hands of a corrupted king. Revealing the power and magic of storytelling, this stunning epic unveils a visual feast of an exotic and beautiful culture. (“These stories fired in the European imagination an appetite for the mysterious and exotic which has never left it” ( Haddaway ). The steady beat of the drum, the shake of the mamba, and the strumming of the guitar faze you into the palace of King Shahrayar as he is attended to by his servants. The scene is transformed into the story of how the king discovered his wife was cheating on him, and how he killed her. They play continues to tell much of the opening chapters without skipping any stories, such as The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon,