Where did Scheherazade get the stories of 1,001 Nights? There is a neat theatrical logic to the idea that they came from other women, some of whom must have been fearfully awaiting their fate, should her stock run dry and the king start looking for another bride. In this co-production between the Globe and Tamasha, writer Hannah Khalil and director Pooja Ghai conjure up five of them who lounge around in a candle-lit ante-chamber, consoling each other with ever more fanciful yarns, which they smuggle out to her through the hatch that delivers their food.
Three musicians play in a gallery above, as the five archetypal characters – a dancer, a warrior, a writer, an ingenue and a sage – pass the candle of narrative between them. Their selection concentrates not on the derring-do of men, but on the rivalries, frustrations, passions and ingenuities of their own restricted lives. Word comes back that their bawdy tales are not the sort of fare that will continue to catch the imagination of the king – “he’s not just a cock,” scolds Scheherazade, who is apparently suffering from Stockholm syndrome – but what can they do except continue to embroider what they know?
There is an arch awareness that the story cycle was brought into anglophone culture by male orientalists. Repeated reminders of this, along with a detour into story theory – dreamed up by “some old white guy” who thought there were only seven sorts – place a veil of preppy sarcasm between the women and the audience that does them no favours.
This matters, because – as they repeatedly point out – the stories are not just flights of morally improving fancy, but get their shape and power from the personal experience of the tellers. A yarn about a hubristic sparrow was told to one by her mother to warn her off school, while another insists that a gloriously filthy story of a voluptuary who accidentally kills the king’s puppy in the throes of an orgasm is an enactment of her own frustrated life.
Gradually the women emerge from the shadows, from the sardonic warrior (Laura Hanna) to the sensuous dancer (Houda Echouafni). When they do, they are fluent, witty and graceful; it’s just a shame they take so long to find their shape.
• At the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London, until 14 January
