What follows is the result of an idea to connect the field of philosophy and thought with the world of drama. Let us choose sentences to ponder from the statements of the members of the philosophical group, which are archived in the “Chistiha Blog” (http://chistiha.blogfa.com); and after manipulating the concepts of those statements, and doing a brief exercise and editing, let us create a dramatic idea that will continue to form another dialogue, another concept, and another thought.
In the principles of drama writing, “ideation” and “drafting” have a specific method; but we tried to be one step before the idea and the plot. At the same stage of mental spark or, in our own words, the “study” stage, where the writer’s hand is open to writing down any image, concept, or point. Here, we have not limited ourselves to not mentioning the technical instructions, performance arrangements, dialogue, staging, and other matters, and left them for more detailed plans; on the contrary, we have completely written down whatever came to mind at the moment.
During our group meetings, we came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to obtain refined and precise plans from our conversations. It was only necessary to immediately edit and record everything that came to mind in an instant as a “study.”
And now we share the same with you. May these exercises and sketches be the beginning of a path to step on a bridge between philosophy and drama.
Ideas on the Bridge from Philosophy to Drama: Etude One Hundred and Seventeen
Note: These sketches have been registered with the Islamic Culture and Guidance Department. And the intellectual property belongs to the author.
These sketches are only allowed to be republished on the “Chistiha” site.
Idea one hundred and six
Etude 106
Stage show
Time: Present
Place: A developing country
Scene: All objects change as necessary. Only a few pieces of scrap wood that resemble a secretary’s desk, a podium, a conference table, and benches for meetings. The rest of the objects will be variable. And everything serves to combine the future and the past.
People:
Present tense:
– Dr. Sabunchi, sociologist, 48 years old
– Ms. Maghsoudi, secretary of the meeting, 25 years old
– Dr. Yaghmaei, deputy minister of health, and several other key positions, 45 years old
Future tense:
– Those three people, along with many other people
At the beginning, Dr. Sabunchi arrives. With an umbrella and a wet jacket. And after him, the secretary comes to sit at his desk. And he signals the doctor to stand up. The doctor does not recognize the secretary. The new and slightly dumb secretary introduces herself as the replacement for Ms. Hayati, who has gone on maternity leave. Dr. Sabunchi, astonished by this meeting, gets up and sits on another chair. And the secretary gets busy with her work. And starts typing; and…
We gradually realize that this is a special office; at the top of the mountain part of the city, which must be reached by cable car. And in fact, it is a think tank; for a special group of the country’s leaders. The most important plans and decisions are made here; then it enters the government and parliament. That is, the entire country forms its basic decisions and policies in this think tank.
Meetings have been held in this same place for several years. And now it is a cloudy day when it starts to rain and the weather will gradually get worse.
Sabunchi is not feeling well. He keeps sneezing. And he is dizzy. He takes his pills, and waits for Dr. Yaghmaei. Because he is suffering from one of the rarest diseases and is undergoing treatment.
The whole story is in the hands of Dr. Yaghmaei, who is apparently now the Deputy Minister of Health. But he is versatile. And we will not see him until the end of the play. Only his voice is heard from the speaker of Dr. Sabunchi’s mobile phone. And of course in his dream.
The time of the play in the first and last parts of this play is the present with a real situation. But the middle part is completely abstract and related to the future.
In the conversation between Monshi and Sabunchi, we also learn about other members of the meeting. People like Professor Pirnazar. And Engineer Javanshir. Monshi only knows Engineer Javanshir, who introduced him to this job. And he has not seen anyone else until today.
Then we learn about old resolutions such as vaccination in the city and the village. And other things.
And in all cases, it seems that it was Dr. Sabunchi who was compassionate like a social reformer and was tormented by conscience about what would happen to the nation. And now more than ever. He is ready to die and not sign today’s resolution.
Today’s agenda is about three-year official marriages. Which can be changed and replaced! Since this secretary is talking, Dr. Sabunchi wants to ask him a little sociologically and find out what the secretary thinks? But the secretary gives an answer every time, completely opposite to his previous answer. And this is crazy for a questioner and researcher. Sabunchi decides to go to the cable car and see why his friends are late. He wants to go after them. That is his goal. But he doesn’t go.
He doesn’t tell the obvious about himself. In fact, he doesn’t know who he is. His confusion is exemplary. For example, he doesn’t even know if he has ever had a love experience. And he doesn’t know if he is married or not. Either she has a child or not. The only thing he said right from the beginning was that Mrs. Hayati had gone on maternity leave. And now he was sitting in her place. And from the hour and minute he came, he was insured. That’s it.
Gradually, due to the stupidity of this secretary who misunderstands everything and has a vulgar understanding, Dr. Sabunchi becomes quite confused and in one moment he doesn’t pay attention and takes the wrong pill. And his mood changes so much that he falls into a deep sleep. Before he falls completely asleep, it seems to him that the room is getting bigger and bigger. It seems to him that the secretary is moving the walls and moving them back. It seems to him that there is a hand at work to put him to sleep.
Since his goal was to go outside to reach the cable car and wait for his friends, therefore, he enters sleep with this motivation. The next places in his dream all start from this mountain.
The structure of the play is such that we enter the doctor’s dream as we continue the ramblings and folk memories of the secretary’s description. Here, the storytelling model of Shahrzad in One Thousand and One Nights comes into play. In this dream of Dr. Sabunchi, like the structure of One Thousand and One Nights, irrelevant and abstract stories with strange characters are intertwined and everything is intertwined.
The people who enter the scene are each ridiculous in terms of their clothing and attire, and all relate to the future.
And what has happened in the future:
The future, affected by the erroneous decisions of this think tank, has undergone changes in society that are no longer reversible. Nothing can be done.
These people are generally lost in every way. In terms of immorality, ignorance, laziness, identitylessness, irresponsibility, carelessness, indifference, indifference, indifference, negligence, indifference, and the like.
In the future, no one will bother to bury the dead anymore. Because the family structure has been destroyed. Children have experienced several fathers and several mothers throughout their lives. And no one feels the responsibility of having to go and bury the dead. They don’t even care anymore. That they should go after their legal work at all. And all the time they are looking to hack IDs and import goods from a distant place or a neighboring country at a cheap price and sell them for many times more. And everyone knows that the other is lying, but they are not the ones who are doing it. Cities are being destroyed one after another because everyone is a product of laziness. Television networks are down and their bosses are not doing their job. Gradually, radiology equipment and so on will also need to be repaired, and so on.
Cars are all broken and few people are willing to accept mechanical work.
Suicide rates are reaching 40 to 45 percent. And no one is worried. Because they have no faith in God. Everyone is born and raised with deep-rooted despair.
Divorce is meaningless because absolutely no one gets married. And the children in between are not in a dilemma because insurance coverage and birth certificates are meaningless. The names of the parents are removed from birth certificates and the name of the child is completely arbitrary, at the request of the other party.
The motivation of the people who enter this area is different. Each has a strange motivation. This is always a place. It is a bar, a restaurant, and two people come and talk to each other. And they leave. They sit at a table. And they also enter into a conversation with Dr. Sabunchi. He is still a consultant and the one who advises different people on the street and alley and hotel and tennis and golf clubs and arcades and every other urban place. Even the non-urban plains. And on the side of the road, who is consulted by two people whose car broke down and other ambiguous events.
[The plot in this part can be a good model. For the sequence of events].
Gradually, as the effect of the pill wears off, Dr. Sabunchi feels that he has come to the same place in the mountains. And he is still waiting to go and look for his friends.
While in reality, the weather has become quite dark. And it is raining heavily.
The secretary, who has been the constant foot of those different roles in all the dreams, is now bringing water to splash on the doctor’s face.
And he recovers. The doorbell rings and the key turns in the lock. Dr. Yaghmaei enters. He is also completely wet. But happy and smiling. His face tells everyone that he is unaware. A newbie in every sense of the word. And fun. And powerful in every way.
Gradually, he wants to get the resolutions of the meeting signed by Dr. Sabunchi. Sabunchi’s mood has changed.
Every resolution that is read, it seems like the stories he has seen are associated with him. And in the continuation of those stories, he remembers the stories inside the restaurant and the tennis and golf club, and other places. And he says the same things. Dr. Yaghmaei is surprised. He looks at the secretary. He is also devastated by the extreme confusion.
Anyway, he gradually realizes that Sabunchi has changed. He has completely opposed all the signatures he has had in this think tank over the years.
Dr. Yaghmaei is disappointed in him and is actually afraid of him lest he let him go and reveal all the stories. Therefore; he orders the cable car operator to tell Sabunchi that if he comes, he will not take him on the ride.
He wants to cleverly devise a plan with the help of the secretary that could even somehow kill him with the wrong pills. Even to the point of death. The secretary also agrees that he should be killed.
Finally, when Sabunchi wants to escape from the intensity of the headache and all the contradictions that have arisen within him, Dr. Yaghmaei wants to implement the plan by telling the secretary to send a message to the cable car officer to prevent him from leaving. And maybe in Dr. Yaghmaei’s disguise, he can go and throw him off the mountain. In this confusion and mental doubts of Yaghmaei, they realize that Sabunchi is gone. And the secretary, who had told the officer, we understand from her crazy laughter that she saved Dr. Sabunchi. And when Dr. Yaghmaei returns from outside, wet and destroyed, he sees that she is laughing. She was the one who saved Dr. Sabunchi. Now it is the turn to expel this woman. She must go.
Dr. Yaghmaei stays and his decisions in this thinking room. And all those people who were in Dr. Sabunchi’s mind come in silence and sit in different places on the stage. And we recognize them. And all of them, in different ways, are strongly affecting Dr. Yaghmaei’s nerves. Because first with whispers and then with sentences that all refer to those resolutions. That were said behind the podium. The future has been entangled in the past. Dr. Yaghmaei can’t stand it anymore and leaves this room in the dark and screams and goes outside. Those futures are sitting in different places in the room like metamorphoses and don’t move. And that’s it.
Author: B. Khosravani
It is recalled that any copying and extraction of these ideas, from an ethical and legal perspective, is only possible by mentioning the address, and use for performance will only be possible if the author’s written consent is obtained.