Dramatic Potentials of Nasayih Al-Atfal for Educational Theater from Lacan’s Psychoanalytic Perspective

“Nasayih Al-Atfal” is a written version of the story of “The Little Sheep and the Wolf” which was transcribe by Mashhadi Mirza Zarnab in the Qajarid period. This story teems with dramatic potentials, as a result adaptations from this story for children’s literature, especially children’s theater is widespread. A considerable portion of children’s literature has always been concerned with educating children through literature. Among all literary forms, theatre fulfills this responsibility more effectively because it can bring direct experience to the child. Many different folkloric stories, has great potentials to educate children in their psychological growth. The separation of children from their mother which is a step towards growth and maturation in psychology is the dominant theme of this story. By taking into account the very fact that children’s theater has essential differences from adult’s theatre, the writers of this paper investigate contemporary theories of children’s theater and theories of child education, proposing that this story can only practice its psychological experience in an educational theater that moves away from its classical definitions. To this end, the article also investigates the elements and structure of the story according to Lacan’s theories of the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real, trying to show how the story enacts an experience of separation from the mother for the child, preparing him/her for similar real life experiences.