Drama that speaks to a community

Brief

This lesson asks you to identify and describe ways in which drama and theatre contribute, or have contributed, to social, cultural and economic life in different times and places. The museum links a record of one nineteenth-century dramatist; your class will add other times and places. ¹

Who gains from a play?

Look at the expectation: it asks about contributions to social, cultural and economic life. Choose a play or a theatre tradition you know and ask who gains from it, and in what way.

Go deeper

A complete edition of his plays appeared at Tiflis in 1859, and a second in 1938 for the 125th anniversary of the birth of Mirza Fath 'Ali Akhund-zada. ² His plays were translated into Persian and into several European languages. ³ He was called the "Caucasian Gogol" or the "oriental Molière". ³ The Encyclopaedia of Islam adds that he also wrote treatises on political science against absolutism and theocracy. ³

Think about it

His plays were printed in two complete editions and translated into Persian and several European languages. Who might gain from a play travelling so far, its audience, its language community or its author, and why?

Into the museum

Mirza Fath 'Ali Akhund-zada: his plays, their editions and their translations.
Tiflis: the town where he worked, as the museum's older records describe it.

Try this

Read Mirza Fath Ali Akhund-zada. Write two sentences: what his plays were about, and who first performed them in their original language.