Dramatic Structure of Tumār -e Naqqāli-e Sām Nāme

Although Naqqāli(Iranian Traditional Dramatic Storytelling) has been inscribed on Intangible Cultural List of UNRESCO, like other Iranian traditional theatre forms, has not been surveyed enough. One important aspect in Naaqqli is Tumār (Scroll) that is the Master Naqqāl’s written form of his repertory of the tale.Namely, Tumār is a dramatic version of Persian tales, harmonized with the performance conventions of Iranian traditional theatre. Like every other dramatic texts, every Tumār follows a dramatic structure, in this case the structure has not been depicted. Discovering the mentioned structure can be useful not only in safeguarding Naqqāli but for creating innovative plays by young generation of playwrights. The case study in this paper was Tumār -e Naqqāli-e Sām Nāme, the dramatic version of a lyric-epic work by an unknown poet. It was analyzed by Etienne Souriau’s approach to drama that is focused upon the dynamics of theatrical function and producing dramatic situations. The survey revealed the whole text was built upon one main dramatic story and two dramatic sub-stories. Each mentioned stories were made by several episodes whose arrangements in main story and sub-stories enchant audience to follow reciter in a labyrinth of events. Episodes do not show any organic relationship with each other; however their beginnings and endings rooted somehow in main story or sub-stories. The structural attachment of the episodes to the stories guaranteed the contiguous of the stories.