Shahrazad, Heads or Tales

Synopsis: Magic leads to mayhem in this tragic-comic musical tale of misogynists, love, lust, power and madness, adapted from the classic "1001 NIGHTS." If her magical stories don't transform a murderous Sultan back into the magnificent man she once loved, Shahrazad knows that one of them will be dead by morning. Synopsis Shahrazad, a renowned story teller who is the young daughter of the Sultan's Grand Vizier, has been in love with the young Sultan since childhood. When the Sultan's wife betrays him, he becomes a maniac, wedding, bedding and beheading 45 virginal wives on 45 successive nights. Hoping to cure his madness through the power of her love, Shahrazad weds him and is about to be beheaded herself when her promiscuous, fortune-telling sister, Dinarzad, emerges from hiding under his bed. She tells the Sultan that although he is fated to die for his actions, Shahrazad can save him through the power of her stories. He agrees to give Shahrazad one chance to do so. Dinarzad hides a dagger under the bedcovers for the unsuspecting Shahrazad to use to protect herself, if needed. Shahrazad calls forth fantastic characters in a succession of stories, each of which provides the Sultan with a helpful physical item, including a magic sword that will defend him from his enemies. The stories include the travails of two extremely jealous brothers, AMIR and his brother, a KING, who visits Amir for solace after being betrayed by his faithless wife. Amir brags about the women of his city, only to discover his own betrayal. The men meet a female GENIE, who keeps her lover imprisoned in a glass box. Shahrazad convinces the Sultan that her love for him is true, until he discovers the dagger left by Dinarzad. Incensed, he attempts to kill Shahrazad with the magic sword, which freezes on his own throat, as he is his own worst enemy. Telling the Sultan one last story, Shahrazad brings back the fictional King and a MAIDEN, whose expression of love returns the mad King to his senses. Although the fictional King turns from a madman into a deliriously happy lover, the Sultan is unmoved, so Shahrazad enters the story and removes the fictional King's heart, forcing it into the Sultan's chest. Immediately, the Sultan becomes a joyous lover who promises complete gender and religious equality for everyone in the Sultanate; however, the King in the story is now a heartless fiend, literally and figuratively. Without a heart, he is free to rape, murder and follow is worst instincts. As he is killing the maiden from his story, Shahrazad enters the story to stop him, only to discover her power doesn't work on the heartless. The King follows her out of the story, kills her beloved Sultan and commands Shahrazad to tell him a story. END OF ACT 1 In Act 2, the entire Sultanate blames Shahrazad for making the King heartless, as he murders and tortures relentlessly, protected by the magic sword. Shahrazad and Dinarzad discuss with them possible ways to kill a King, but to no avail. Finally, she decides that she must somehow get the King to re-enter a story, in the hope that he will remain caught in fiction. For consolation, Shahrazad conjures up stories about her beloved but dearly departed, Sultan, with whom she manages to communicate. To entice the King back into the fictional world, Shahrazad tells a tale about the King's brother, Amir, who meets a DEMON with a gloriously beautiful WIFE. Amir and the Demon's wife, who has managed somehow to remain a virgin, kill the Demon in self-defense and proceed to enrapture each other with exquisite lovemaking. When the wife gives Amir a huge sack of diamonds, the jealous King stomps into the story to give Amir a wedding gift, a sword, which he plunges into his chest. Discovering he is trapped in the story, the King threatens to kill the Wife, hoping that Shahrazad will re-enter the story so that he can follow her out. Shahrazad brings back the powerful Genie, who proceeds to put the King in her glass box, where he is destined to be her miserable love-slave for eternity. But Shahrazad is still distraught, missing her beloved Sultan. She asks Dinarzad to watch and write down one more story for her, and then enters the story herself, where she and the Sultan are reunited for all eternity.

Notes: Prior readings: Century City Theatre, Long Beach Theatre, Theatre Building Museum, Covent Garden (for Mercury Musicals). Finalist in PlayFest! 2008.