Five Plays

Sadegh Ashourpour is known in the field of performing arts, especially theater, for his notable background in playwriting and directing, as well as research in theater arts. He has previously authored and published a seven-volume series on Iranian theater with a similar background. The latest research text published with his editing is, however, a different work from his other creations. Historically, this work holds exceptional value and artistically can serve as a source of inspiration and adaptation for many students and theater practitioners. The book “Five Plays,” researched and edited by Ashourpour, along with his engaging introduction, serves as a kind of autobiography and the presentation of five early plays written in Persian theater history. According to Ashourpour, these five plays were authored by a person named Mirza Agha Tabrizi, and their texts were kept for a long time in the library of Fathali Akhundzadeh in Baku until an Azerbaijani scholar named Ibrahim Af discovered them, overturning the common belief that the first Persian play was written by Mirza Malek Khan Nazem-ol-Dowleh son of Mirza Yaqub Khan Isfahani. These five plays, as Ashourpour states, are marked by sharp satire and even burlesque, reflecting the author’s hatred and resentment toward the political and social system of his time—a corrupt system permeated at all levels. The author attempts, in a modern and popular form, namely drama, to depict the conditions both for his contemporaries and future generations. The historical value of this book becomes clear upon learning that following Fathali Akhundzadeh’s translation and publication into Persian, the first published Persian dramatic text is these five plays by Mirza Agha, whose authorship was long overlooked and attributed to someone else. For revising and newly editing the text of these plays, Ashourpour has maintained fidelity to the original manuscript by Mirza Agha but has also sought to dramatize the work. Accordingly, some scenes have been added or occasionally removed, without altering the essence of the work. Additionally, based on the story’s structure and necessity, some scenes have been merged, or characters added or removed, none of which were based on his personal preference but on the need and narrative flow of Mirza Agha’s plays. With this approach, the book contains five plays by Mirza Agha titled “The Biography of Ashraf Khan,” “Zaman Khan Borujerdi,” “The Karbala Journey of Shah Qoli Mirza,” “Agha Hashem Khalqali,” and “Haji Morshed the Alchemist.”