Siam.
Java, Sumatra, &c.
Such dramatic examples of the drama as may be discoverable in Siam will
probably have to be regarded as belonging to a branch of the Indian
drama. The drama of the Malay populations of Java and the neighbouring
island of Sumatra also resembles the Indian, to which it may have owed
what development it has reached. The Javanese, as we learn, distinguish
among the lyrics sung on occasions of popular significance the _panton_,
a short simile or fable, and the _tcharita_, a more advanced species,
taking the form of dialogue and sung or recited by actors proper. From
the _tcharita_ the Javanese drama, which in its higher forms treats the
stories of gods and kings, appears to have been derived. As in the
Indian drama, the functions of the director or manager are of great
importance; as in the Greek, the performers wear masks, here made of
wood. The comic drama is often represented in both Java and Sumatra by
parties of strollers consisting of two men and a woman--a troop
sufficient for a wide variety of plot.
Persian.
Among other more highly civilized Asiatic peoples, the traces of the
dramatic art are either few or late. The originally Aryan Persians
exhibit no trace of the drama in their ample earlier literature. But in
its later national development the two species, widely different from
one another, of the religious drama or mystery and of the popular comedy
or farce have made their appearance--the former in a growth of singular
interest.
The teazies.
Of the Persian _teazies_ (lamentations or complaints) the subjects are
invariably derived from religious history, and more or less directly
connected with the "martyrdoms" of the house of Ali. The performance of
these episodes or scenes takes place during the first ten days of the
month of Muharram, when the adherents of the great Shi'ite sect all over
Persia and Mahommedan India commemorate the deaths of the Prophet and
his daughter Fatima, the mother of Ali, the martyrdoms of Ali himself,
shamefully murdered in the sanctuary, and of his unoffending son Hasan,
done to death by his miserable guilty Deianira of a wife, and lastly the
never-to-be-forgotten sacrifice of Hasan's brother, the heroic Hosain,
on the bloody field of Kerbela (A.D. 680). With the establishment in
Persia, early in the 16th century, of the Safawid (Sufi) dynasty by the
Shi'ites, the cult of the martyrs Hasan and Hosain secured the official
sanction which it has since retained. Thus the performance of these
_teazies_, and the defraying of the equipment of them, are regarded as
religious, and in a theological sense meritorious, acts; and the plays
are frequently provided by the court or by other wealthy persons, by way
of pleasing the people or securing divine favour. The plays are
performed, usually by natives of Isfahan, in courtyards of mosques,
palaces, inns, &c., and in the country in temporary structures erected
for the purpose.
It would seem that, no farther back than the beginning of the 19th
century, the _teazies_ were still only songs or elegies in honour of the
martyrs, occasionally chanted by persons actually representing them.
Just, however, as Greek tragedy was formed by a gradual detachment of
the dialogue from the choric song of which it was originally only a
secondary outgrowth, and by its gradually becoming the substance of the
drama, so the _Miracle Play of Hasan and Hosain_, as we may call it, has
now come to be a continuous succession of dramatic scenes. Of these
fifty-two have, thanks to the labours of Alexander Chodzko and Sir Lewis
Pelly, been actually taken down in writing, and thirty-seven published
in translations; and it is clear that there is no limit to the extension
of the treatment, as is shown by such a _teazie_ as the _Marriage of
Kassem_, dealing with the unfortunate Hosain's unfortunate son.[54] The
performance is usually opened by a prologue delivered by the
_rouzekhan_, a personage of semi-priestly character claiming descent
from the Prophet, who edifies and excites the audience by a pathetic
recitation of legends and vehement admonitions in prose or verse
concerning the subject of the action. But the custom seems to have
arisen of specially prefacing the drama proper by a kind of induction
which illustrates the cause or effect of the sacred story--as for
instance that of Amir Timur (Tamerlane), who appears as lamenting and
avenging the death of Hosain; or the episode of Joseph's betrayal by his
brethren, as prefiguring the cruelty shown to Ali and his sons. At the
climax of the action proper Hosain prays to be granted at the day of
judgment the key of the treasure of intercession; and the final scene
shows the fulfilment of his prayer, which opens paradise to those who
have helped the holy martyr, or who have so much as shed a single tear
for him. It will thus be seen that not only is this complex and
elaborate production unapproached in its length and in its patient
development of a long sequence of momentous events by any chronicle
history or religious drama, but that it embodies together with the
passionately cherished traditions of a great religious community the
expression of a long-lived resentment of foreign invasion--and is thus a
kind of Oberammergau play and complaint of the Nibelungs in one.
The temachas.
The other kind of Persian drama is the _temacha_ (= spectacle), a kind
of comedy or farce, sometimes called _teglid_ (disguising), performed by
wandering minstrels or _joculatores_ called _loutys_, who travel about
accompanied by their _bayaderes_, and amuse such spectators as they find
by their improvised entertainments, which seem to be on much the same
level as English "interludes." A favourite and ancient variety of the
species is the _karaguez_ or puppet-play, of which the protagonist is
called _ketchel pehlevan_ (the bald hero).
The modern Persian drama seems to have admitted Western influences, as
in the case of such comedies as _The Pleaders of the Court_, and,
avowedly, _Monsieur Jourdan and Musla'li Shah_, of whom the former
steals away the wits of young Persia by his pictures of the delights of
Paris.
Hebrew literature.
There is no necessity for any reference here to the civilization or to
the literature of the Hebrews, or to those of other Semitic peoples,
with whom the drama is either entirely wanting, or only appears as a
quite occasional and exotic growth. Dramatic elements are apparent in
two of the books of the Hebrew scripture--the _Book of Ruth_ and the
_Book of Job_, of which latter the author of _Everyman_, and Goethe in
his _Faust_, made so impressive a use.
South Seas; Peru.
From Polynesia and aboriginal America we also have isolated traces of
drama. Among these are the performances, accompanied by dancing and
intermixed with recitation and singing, of the South Sea Islanders,
first described by Captain Cook, and reintroduced to the notice of
students of comparative mythology by W. Wyatt Gill. Of the so-called
Inca drama of the Peruvians, the unique relic, _Apu Ollantay_, said to
have been written down in the Quichua tongue from native dictation by
Spanish priests shortly after the conquest of Peru, has been partly
translated by Sir Clements Markham, and has been rendered into German
verse. It appears to be an historic play of the heroic type, combining
stirring incidents with a pathos finding expression in at least one
lyric of some sweetness--the lament of the lost Collyar. With it may be
contrasted the ferocious Aztek dramatic ballet, _Rabinal-Achi_
(translated by Brasseur de Bourbourg), of which the text seems rather a
succession of warlike harangues than an attempt at dramatic treatment of
character. But these are mere isolated curiosities.