Paul Friedrich in a highly influential paper, "The Symbol and its Relative Non-Arbitrariness" (Friedrich 1975, 1979) argues that "the symbols of language are quintessentially non-arbitrary, on two grounds: the objectively systematic character of language and the subjective intuition of the speaker." (Friedrich 1979:3). I would like to extend Friedrich's argument to the realm of what I term performative symbols, these being tropic structures in culture that are realized only when actively performed. Friedrich's two grounds for the non-arbitrariness of symbols are even clearer when applied to performative symbols. One reason has to do with the hierarchical and systematic nature of tropic structures in culture. This is effectively revealed in the Peircean semiotic analysis in Friedrich's paper, which I also follow. For performative symbols, the non-arbitrary nature of the signifier becomes palpable when it is seen that it must be established on cultural grounds

For performative symbols the most basic tropic structures are symbols of identity whereby individuals demonstrate who and what they are. As Gregory Bateson once observed: "One of the ways a Frenchman demonstrates that he is French is by speaking French." Because Charles Sanders Peirce used the terms Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness to indicate increasingly complex relationships between signifier, signified and interpretant in complex and varied patterns (Peirce 1898, 1955a, 1955b), I use an additional level-a "zero" level to indicate the performative symbol in its most radically unmarked state, whereby something or someone uses performative means to demonstrate that they are what they are in differentiation from something else that they might be. This is not as complicated as it sounds. In any given culture there are really only a limited number of choices for recognizable categorization. As Judith Butler (1988, 1990, 1993) has admirably demonstrated, the male/female distinction in American society is a clear binary opposition; both males and females must performatively demonstrate their gender to be recognizable persons. However, as I will show, performative symbols allow maleness and femaleness to be indicated even by non-humans or by inanimate objects as one passes into the realms of Peircean Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.

After an extended discussion of the theory of performative symbols, I will analyze the representation of "women" as presented in Iranian traditional theater, one of the areas of my research interests in the field of performance studies. I have chosen this topic as the result of another inspiration from Paul Friedrich: his wonderful study The Meaning of Aphrodite (1978) in which he tries to explain, using the terms of the discussion I present below, the extraordinary lengths cultures use to present and describe exemplary "zero" categories-in this case of femininity.

The performance of identity is a tricky issue that pervades almost every aspect of culture. When addressing specific social situations, including rituals and performance situations, anthropologists and scholars from related disciplines generally take one of two approaches. They view identity from

Both of these approaches are extremely productive and have led to a remarkable expansion in the discipline of performance studies. It also applies to other scholars in linguistic anthropology who may talk about the same issues using the term "discourse" rather than "performance." These include Sherzer (1990), Urban (1991), and Moerman (1988). Nevertheless, the approaches above rarely focus on the mechanisms through and by which content, symbol systems and text become active in the world. In short they leave unexamined the tension between text and action.

Symbolic material is loosed in society through being displayed/enacted/performed. However, the representation of symbolic material must be accomplished by performers. It is not automatically the case that having been displayed, such material will have an effect.

Performance is reflexive discourse--members of society making cultural representations to themselves about themselves. Turner: "Cultures are most fully expressed and made conscious of themselves in their ritual and theatrical performances." Geertz: "The drama is rooted in social reality, not imposed upon it."

But the nature of the performance/presentation itself is problematic. There is a dynamic, qualitative relationship between things performed, and the manner in which the performance is indicated. This dynamic is reflected in Bateson's relationship between signal and report as an accounting procedure. Every action is an account of itself. We signal what we are doing while we do it. For most of life this is mundane. Opening one's mouth, putting food in it, chewing and swallowing all indicate that one is eating.

Some signals tell us that the actions which follow are to be "framed" in Goffman's terms. That is, they are to be taken according to a different set of rules than obtain in everyday life. A playful swat coupled with a giggle can be the start of a pleasurable mock-fight--a game.

Performance frames mark the difference between what Turner calls the indicative mood of culture and its subjunctive mood. The former is the matter of fact mundane report of everyday action. The latter is the "what-if" mode of presentation signaling possibility.

Mimesis is one way we signal the start of a performance frame--by beginning the process of imitation you can let others know that you are performing. This is one aspect of the actualization of symbolic materials and text in performance.

Not all performance is mimetic, nor is all mimetic performance mimetic in the same way. Understanding that there are different mimetic functions in performance helps us to understand how performance and cultural function interrelate.

Non-mimetic performance is performance which features a performer doing something appreciated for its own sake as himself or herself (or even itself, as I will show), not as a character or role. thus sports events, stunts, circus acts, acrobatics, speeches, lectures (like this one), some kinds of performance art, etc. are non-mimetic. They can be said to have a zero-level mimetic function. These are a species of performance which Schechner, as I mentioned above in chapter 1, calls "actuals" (Schnecher 1988: 35-64).

The zero level is essential because it likewise is performative in everyday life, as ethnomethodologists such as Harold Garfinkel and symbolic interactionists such as Erving Goffman have demonstrated admirably. Individuals in society must perform their identitites. They must demonstrate that they are men, or women; that they are adults; that they are of the social standing they choose to be. This is so important a social function that we regularly reward exemplary individuals for their complete and convincing performance of unmarked identity. We have amazing contests to recognize and laud the best examples of every category of human being. We often call these rewards for achievement, but in another sense the achievements themselves are the performative actions that establish the individuals as praiseworthy models of unmarked social categories. We likewise reward things that look like ideal types aside from performative achievements. State fairs reward the best eggplants, the best cows, and the best rhubarb pies. It is odd to think of a nobel prize winner and a blue-ribbon rhubarb pie as the same kind of thing, but in semiotic terms, they are.

Beyond the zero level I would like to suggest that performative mimetic representation into three categories, based loosely on Charles Peirce's categories of phenomenology, which he called: Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.

Firstness is "the mode of being which consists in the subject's being positively such as it is regardless of aught else. (Peirce 1955: 76). "positive quality possibility"... refers to a situation in which an actual identity exists between a sign and its object--the kind of relationship which is reflected in the mathematical equation x=y" (Cornell 1990: 583).

Secondness: "A mode of being of one thing which consists in how a second object is (Peirce: Ibid). This refers to a relationship in which the thing, although qualitatively different from its object is imagined to "share" something in common with this object or leads one to automatically think of it when perceiving that particular sign. This level is called "Secondness" because perception of the relationship between the sign and its object involves a two-stage process ("first x then y"). (Cornell 1990: 583-584)

Thirdness--Symbolism: The mode of being which consists in the fact that future facts of Secondness will take on a determinant general character (Peirce Ibid). The third level of meaning, that properly occupied by the sign as an actual symbol, comprises a three-stage process of cognition and expresses the relation: "first x, then y, so z." Such a sign can act either through itself or through another sign which Peirce called the interpretant of the original sign. (Cornell 1990: 584)

In mimesis, a relationship of Firstness implies identity. It is iconic. Something is not the actual thing but it "looks like the real thing." Secondness implies connectedness. In mimesis it means something "pretending to be the real thing." This is akin to what Erving Goffman called "role distance" and what Brecht elevated to a theater doctrine in his theory of Verfremdung or alienation. Thirdness is a conventional relationship between the signifier and the thing being signified. It is conventional because it requires a social or other convention to work. The best known conventional relationships to anthropologists are symbols, although there are others such as propositions and arguments which are hyper-symbolic in that they not only use symbols but use them according to special conventionally determined procedures to create meaning.

These three mimetic forms are not isolates. Any instance of mimesis in performance can be a mixture of all of these three functions, although usually one predominates.

Let us take a couple of examples of all the mimetic functions in performance:

But such observations are not very interesting unless we can assess why different representations are represented using different mimetic functions. In each case the choice of a specific mimetic function is based on a culturally based set of discourses about the relationship between the society and the object being represented.

In order to do this I want to take a concrete example from Iranian theater--the representation of women in traditional Iranian theater forms, and from this extrapolate a general set of principles which may have currency for all of Asian theater.

It is a well-known fact that most forms of traditional theater in Asia use exclusively male performers even for female roles. Many reasons are cited for this practice, but few researchers have recognized that depiction of females is carried out in many ways in different theatrical traditions. There have been few if any studies which try to analyze the variety of modes of female representation, or the functions that these different modes fulfill.

In this discussion I will examine the practice of travesty in the representation of females in the two traditional Iranian theater forms: ta'ziyeh and ru-hozi, and attempt to show how this practice fulfills functions on several levels. This material is based on ongoing research on Iranian theater forms that I have been pursuing since 1976 (Beeman 1979, 1981a, 1981b, 1982, 1988)

In the discussion which follows I will first provide a general introduction to Iranian popular theater forms. Next I will show how women are represented in these forms. Following this I explore the cultural and theatrical functions of the different modes of female representation, concluding with a discussion of mimetic functions in theatrical representation.

The two principal dramatic forms in Iran are

These two forms have been described at length in a number of publications (Beeman ops. cit.; Beza'i 1970; Chelkowski 1979; Gafary 1980; Ghaffari 1988; Jannati-Ata'i 1955).

Ta'ziyeh is perhaps the better known of the two forms. It centers on ritual mourning for Imam Hosein, grandson of the prophet Mohammad, and contender for the leadership of the Muslim community. The story of Imam Hosein's death is central to the religious beliefs of Shi'a Muslims, occupying roughly the same symbolic importance as the resurrection of Christ occupies for Christians in their religion. Hosein's death at the hands of the Sunni Caliph Yazid after having been trapped with his family and supporters with limited food and water on the plains of Kerbala near present day Baghdad is a story of great tragedy on an epic scale.

Ritual mourning for Hosein developed over many centuries. Perhaps the earliest forms of ta'ziyeh were simple recitations of the story of his death accompanied by weeping and self-flagellation. These ceremonies probably included chanting and simple public processionals. By the 17th Century in the Safavid dynasty the story of his death was depicted in many ways. Professional panegyrists and eulogizers would recite the events for public and private gatherings.

The clergy, who were dependent on public contribution for their livelihood made these events the centerpiece of their sermonizing. Finally, ta'ziyeh assumed a major role in the religious calendar of the population throughout the nation, but as a processional rather than a fully dramatic form.

The processions witnessed by foreign spectators during this period consisted of "floats" upon which the figures of Imam Hosein and his family, Yazid and other villains were depicted. The story of Kerbala had already taken on episodic character, and each float depicted an episode of the drama. The elaborateness of the processions makes it clear that there was already a great deal of public expenditure and preparation being lavished on them. Since the charitable contribution of food is thought to confer blessing on the giver, it is likely that community meals sponsored through religious bequest, or direct contribution of members of the community was an important feature of the event.

We first have evidence of a fully dramatic form of ta'ziyeh performance in the late 18th Century during the Afshar dynasty in southern Iran through texts of shabih's that date from this period. The first European account of ta'ziyeh in its full staged dramatic form was rendered by Adrian Dupre, who was part of the French scientific mission to Iran in 1807-1809.

It was a natural development for the episodic floats of processional ta'ziyeh to be developed into full-fledged drama during this period. One can easily imagine how community leaders, ever eager to improve the splendor of their rituals combined the chanting of the story of Imam Hosein by clerics, eulogizers, and panegyrists with the visual spectacle of procession to create episodic tableaux vivants of great elaborateness. Despite the religious purpose, it is hard to believe that these celebrations did not constitute grand entertainment for the general population during Muharram and Safar, the sober months of formal mourning.

The production of shabih's became an elaborate cultural industry. Texts were compiled by highly literate individuals, who borrowed heavily from classical poets, as well as from sermons and eulogies of the day. The "evil" characters declaimed their lines, but the "good" characters chant using classical Persian musical modes. Eventually distinct modes became associated with particular characters, shabih's and episodes within each shabih, indicating a great deal of craft in the matching of musical expression to literary product. Undoubtedly during the earliest days of this production there was a great deal of experimentation with these artistic dimensions.

Stage conventions were developed during this period which would allow for the productions to take place within viewing distance of an entire community, no matter how large or small. Hence the development of an arena, or tekiyeh as the area of performance, often within a special building constructed for the performance, called a hoseinieh. Since the rhetorical purpose of the drama was to enhance the mourning experience, much textual material and many visual props were imported from the mundane, everyday life of the audience.

In short, ta'ziyeh had moved from being purely a ritual to becoming a community based art form, contextualized within a mourning celebration, embodying a wide variety of aesthetic dimensions which were elaborated in order to satisfy a demanding audience.

Ru-hozi may be as ancient as ta'ziyeh, but we have very little information about its early origins. It must be very old as a theatrical form, however, since it bears close affinity with many other theatrical forms in South and Southwest Asia, such as Bhavai (from Gujarat), Bhand Pater (from Kashmir) and Alkap (from Bengal). Indeed many of the theatrical conventions of ru-hozi suggest that it may be related to European commedia dell'arte.

The principal historical reports of performers in Iran entertaining in a comic mode occur in general accounts of court life down through the centuries. The Sassanian king, Khosro Parviz is said to have supported actors. Shah Abbas (1585-1628 C.E.) employed a famous clown, Enayat, whose exploits live in legend. Miniature paintings from the period depict comic performances in court.

During the 19th Century reign of the Qajar Shahs, comic performance continued to be a feature of court life. The famous jester to Naser od-Din Shah, Karim Shire'i (from shireh, "treacle"), was not only a clown, but was in charge of all court entertainment. One of his comedies was recorded. Given the generic title: Baqqâl-bâzi dar Hozur (Comedy in the Presence of the King)

In the twentieth century comic improvisatory theater suffered a decline. The court no longer supported these artistic endeavors, thus undercutting the financial base for their continuance. Also, Western-style scripted theater became popular in urban areas reducing the support available for the comic improvisatory tradition.

Nevertheless, troupes of entertainers continued to perform in the old improvisatory style in cities and small towns where they were engaged primarily for weddings and local celebrations. A few of the best clowns and performing troupes were able to continue to be accepted in legitimate theaters throughout the country, particularly in Tehran, Isfahan and Mashhad.

In villages today, performances take place in a convenient courtyard or open space in the village. Occasionally the only available place is on the village outskirts. rugs are spread in the center of the playing area for the performers, and the guests at the celebration arrange themselves in a circle around the playing area. Many people sit on the flat roofs of surrounding houses to get a better view.

The central figure in the performance is the clown. He bears the principal burden of comedy performance. He also has the most distinctive makeup. His place within the production is one of studied ambiguity. He addresses the audience and occasionally invades their space. He often articulates thoughts that the audience may have about the overall proceedings. He plays off of the other characters which include Shah, mullah, hajji (an elderly merchant so called because he has made the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca incumbent on all Muslims), juvenile male, woman, vizier, and others. Of these stock characters, the hajji is the most common.

The stories are generally uncomplicated. They may be loose paraphrases of stories from Iranian folklore, or from classic literature already known to the audience. The audience does not need to hear every word in order to follow the plot or the action.

The humor consists of verbal puns and comebacks and physical slapstick routines which can easily be heard out of context and still retain their humor

The two theater forms both use male performers in their traditional representation of women. Nevertheless the nature of the representation of women is quite different in each case. In ru-hozi theater actual women sometimes participate, though this is rare. There are further, two distinct mimetic traditions of representation of women; in ta'ziyeh there is one. Thus in Iranian theater we have zero-level mimesis, and all three of the Peircian forms.

These break down in the following way:

Zero-level mimetic representation means using real women who represent themselves as such, and indeed play up their feminineness to enhance their status as women.

Firstness in mimetic representation consists of the depiction of women through imitation of overt gender markings with great skill, with the intention that the audience can not easily determine whether the performer is really a woman or not.

Secondness in mimetic representation consists of depiction of women through imitation of overt gender markings, carrying out that imitation in burlesque fashion in such a way that the audience can easily see that the performer is actually a male pretending to be a female.

Thirdness in mimetic representation consists of the depiction of women through a conventional semiotic device rather than through the direct imitation of women's overt gender markings: secondary sexual characteristics, voice patterns, characteristic movement and gesture.

These three representational conventions have distinct purposes in the two theatrical traditions, which I will deal with below. First, however, I wish to describe the three forms of representation in more detail.

In ru-hozi women portrayed by men at the iconic or Firstness level of mimesis are always dressed to resemble women. They wear dresses, wigs, head-coverings, and occasionally false breasts or other "enhancements" to their bodies. Their dress is always contemporary with their audience. Thus in the south of Iran in areas where tribal people have settled, the actor playing a woman will use tribal dress features as part of his costume. In urbanized areas, he will use typical urban dress.

The actors also adopt female gait and vocal characteristics, using traditional female expressions in their speech, a higher-pitch to their voices and feminine arm and hand movements. They use make-up: primarily rouge lipstick, and occasionally eye makeup. The actor playing female roles is known as a zan-push "female dresser."

Since all ru-hozi is basically comic in nature, the role of the woman is in comic juxtaposition to the clown and other characters. She is most often the wife of the hajji, thus the mistress of the house giving orders to the clown, who is often cast as a servant. Another common role for the woman is as a princess, daughter of the Shah and a potential love object for the juvenile. In these portrayals the actor must be able to be humorous, but most of all, he must be able to "set up" the clown, who gets the big laughs.

There is a distinction between those actors who try to look and act as much like a woman as possible, and those who try to achieve "distance" from their female role. The former are actors who are engaged in mimetic representation of women. The latter I have termed "pretend mimetic" representation.

The mimetic representers devote a great deal of effort to look as much like a woman as possible. They acquire elaborate costumes, sometimes sewing these costumes themselves. They have collections of jewelry and wigs which aid in the illusion. Their movements and vocal patterns approximate those of a very feminine woman (see figure 2).

The actors representing women through a Secondness-level of mimesis achieve their distancing effect by using exaggerated or ludicrous clothing. If they wear makeup it is designed to make them look ugly or humorous rather than to appear as a normal female. Their movements are more intense than that of a normal female and their voice patterns tend to be harsh, ugly or an exaggerated falsetto (see figure 3).

Thus in ru-hozi theater, audience members recognize actors playing women as women because of their resemblance to real women, whether that resemblance is calculated to emulate real women or to burlesque them.

Semiotization is extremely important in the performance conventions of ta'ziyeh. Much of the drama is conveyed through simple representational conventions. Color is one of the most significant. The forces of Imam Hosein are dressed in green, and the forces of Yazid are dressed in red. This convention is observed even in the simplest village performances of ta'ziyeh where pieces of red or green cloth with holes cut out for the heads of the actors may be draped on the performers in lieu of costumes. Other conventions are equally simple and straightforward. For example, movement in an arc or circle depicts a long journey; movement in a straight line, actual distance. Good characters chant their lines using traditional Persian musical modes. Evil characters declaim their lines in stentorian tones.

There are very few women named in the traditional accounts of the central events of the death of Imam Hosein. Nevertheless, as I will indicate below, the historical women involved in the tragedy are of great religious importance. They include Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Mohammad, Shahrbanu, wife of Imam Hosein, and Zeinab, his daughter. All have central religious roles. It would be impossible to depict the tragedy without them. There are, incidentally, no women presented on the side of Yazid.

The women are portrayed by males dressed in black cloaks (see figure 1) similar to the green and red cloaks worn by the men. In every performance I have seen, they also wear male trousers and shoes. Except for the color of their clothing, the "women" are dressed in virtually the same type of costume as the males, with one exception: they also wear a thin facial veil. Their veil is translucent, allowing anyone to see that the actor is a male and not a female. Moreover, the persons depicting women chant in their normal identifiably male voices.

Veils are worn by women in some highly conservative sections of Iran, but for the most part, Iranian women cover their hair and arms with a garment known as the chador, but do not as a rule cover their entire faces. Moreover, certain other figures in ta'ziyeh also wear veils: The Prophet Mohammad, when appearing in dream sequences; The Angel Gabriel; The King of the Jinn, and all angels. Thus the veil alone does not really indicate female gender. It is the coding of the veil with black dress that indicates that a female figure is on stage.

Thus the females depicted by males in ta'ziyeh are "labeled" as women by their dress, but do not resemble women in their portrayal. The audience knows they are women by semiotic convention rather than through mimesis. This allows them to be "social" women without being "sexual" women. There is a conventional scene in ta'ziyeh performances which depicts the wedding between Qassem, Imam Hosein's nephew, and Zeinab, his daughter. This is a tremendously moving scene which evokes tears. Nevertheless, there is no hint of sexual desire between the bride and groom. They are man and wife in a religious sense, but not in a physical sense.

Incidentally, there is virtually no semiotic coding of figures in ru-hozi except for the clown. The clown is dressed in red, usually in a crazy-quilt costume consisting of jacket and trousers. He is in blackface.

Now I wish to go into some of the reasons why women are depicted in these three forms using these different mimetic conventions. For this part of the discussion I will start with ta'ziyeh.

Ta'ziyeh is as much ritual as theater. It's purpose is to induce weeping and intense mourning in spectators. Its entire purpose as an event is to reinforce the spectators' sense of their moral universe. The bad characters are supremely bad. The good characters are archetypes of good fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, religious and political leaders. Their martyrdom is proof of their goodness.

Nevertheless the status of ta'ziyeh as a religious event is questionable for some religious officials. They oppose it, on the grounds that it is a form which depicts human beings, and therefore is a form of idolatry. This is a matter on which there is some difference of opinion.

The practitioners of ta'ziyeh have been clever in defining the nature of their performance. The standard defense for their performance is that it does not depict human beings. The performers are rather reciting the story of Imam Hosein in costume in order to enhance the feeling of mourning for the spectators. The distinction is a very fine one, but it is reflected in the stage conventions used in performance.

The women depicted in ta'ziyeh are of an especially venerated quality. They are ideal mothers, wives and daughters. Much of their function in the drama is to show the agony of women in the face of the death of their fathers, husbands and sons.

Women in orthodox Islam are treated as protected individuals, who are always capable of inciting desire in men. It is thought to be unseemly for women to appear in public where they might be the object of lustful desires on the part of men. The depiction of women in a public setting is likewise a sensitive issue. The special nature of the women in Imam Hosein's family depicted in ta'ziyeh makes it unthinkable that they could be depicted in any way which would identify them as sexual beings or objects of any desire.

In reality the problem is one of balance between the impossibility of telling the story of Imam Hosein without depicting these women, and the difficulty of representing them without presenting them as sexual beings. The compromise which has clearly been reached is to make it eminently clear that they are being depicted by men. Moreover, they are depicted with a respectful facial veil and absolutely no hit of any secondary sexual characteristics. In this way the depiction of these women is accomplished in a way which is culturally above any reproach.

Ru-hozi theater has a very different purpose in Iranian society. As a comic performance undertaken primarily at weddings, its purpose is to call into question all aspects of human social relations. Questions of status, social prerogative, political relations, economic relations and sexual relations are all fair game for the performers. Weddings are times of special social tension in Iran (as they are almost everywhere on earth). Questions of social status, inheritance, and sexuality are on everyone's mind. Indeed, fights often break out at weddings as old rivalries and community tensions are brought to the fore. Since weddings are also occasions for courting between unmarried members of the community, the atmosphere is often very tense.

Ru-hozi theater serves to confront and dispel much of this tension. The clown fulfills the function of speaking for the everyman in the audience. He says things that audience members are thinking but do not dare say. He gets into situations that reflect the hopes and fears of those watching. The other characters also reflect social archetypes that members of the community easily recognize.

Performers in ru-hozi fulfill many artistic roles. They are musicians as well as actors. Most also dance. The zan-push, who portrays women is usually called upon to dance before the comedy actually begins. Thus he evokes the sexual nature of his role even before the themes of the comedy are presented.

The women depicted in ru-hozi necessarily resemble women because their role requires that they be sexual beings in the comedies they enact. One episode found in several of the comedies, for example, has the hajji going out for a night on the town, and leaving the clown in his place in bed so that his wife will not detect his absence. The clown is uncomfortable with this arrangement, but the hajji insists. The hajji's wife immediately figures out what is happening, and decides to teach both her husband and the clown a lesson. She flirts with the clown in bed. There is a lot of noise and movement under the blankets, ending with the hajji confounded by his wife and the clown getting a beating.

In another comedy, the hajji pretends to be dead in order to see what his wife would do as a widow. She immediately goes out, brings her boyfriend to the house, and proceeds to make plans to go abroad with him. With the help of the clown, the hajji is "resurrected" and confronts the wife and her boyfriend.

In short, the women depicted in ru-hozi are funny women. They are not symbolic or revered figures. The situations in which they are placed are very human and sometimes very racy. Culturally the same prohibitions against the display of women in public are applicable in ru-hozi. It would be culturally intolerable in many settings to have a real woman on stage in some of the stock ru-hozi situations. The fact that a male is playing these roles allows the humorous point of the comedy to be made without offending anyone's sensibilities.

The clear sexuality of the female role is made clearer when it is understood that in a very few instances real women are used by some of the more urbanized troupes in their presentations. It is very lucrative to do this. The troupe is usually paid more, and the woman herself receives a large fee. In one troupe we witnessed during fieldwork a real woman played alongside a zan-push. There is genuine danger in this arrangement for the woman. The crowd may become unruly at a celebration. In the period before the Islamic revolution of 1978-79, alcohol was easy to obtain, and men occasionally became inebriated. In these situations the real women in the troupe would be propositioned or mishandled by the guests on the assumption that they were "available." The female performers had to take elaborate precautions to make sure that their role was not misunderstood. One was married and always had her husband nearby. Another brought her aged mother, and always sat with her when not on stage. A third had a baby, which she would nurse conspicuously. All of these devices were designed to prevent the men in the audience from approaching the women.

Sexuality is also an undertone for the "mimetic" female portrayers. These men, who go to elaborate lengths to look like women, really fool a number of men into thinking that they are women. These actors, who are often young, may have erotic appeal even for those men who know that they are not women, much as has been reported for audience members viewing ludruk, the Indonesian performance form extensively treated by James Peacock (1968). Since these actors, with few exceptions, claim to be fully heterosexual males, this can be an uncomfortable social position for them.

It is partly for this reason that performers who portray women may distance themselves from their representation of females by making it eminently clear that they are men, and neither real women, nor men attempting to pass as real women. There is no way that these actors could become erotic objects. In using clearly exaggerated or ludicrous depictions they are easily able to carry out their comic function without any of the attendant cultural difficulties that might "leak" into their offstage personas. Another reason for choosing the "pretend" mimetic representation may be that the men portraying women's roles may be unable, due to age, lack of ability, or to their obvious masculinity, to ever "pass" as a woman on stage. Given this state of affairs, they opt for comic distancing.

Mimesis is often cited as the basis for performance in Aristotle's Poetics. Still, mimesis is not adequate as an explanatory principle if it is an unexamined concept. Mimesis occurs on many levels. There are non-mimetic aspects of performance, as in ta'ziyeh as treated in this discussion. These non-mimetic aspects are symbolic without being iconic. In ta'ziyeh color schemes and costume serve to differentiate characters. Masked performances also may partake in this quality. A particular mask may be used to represent a god or goddess without having a specific identification with that deity. The association is conventional rather than mimetic.

Abstract mimesis forms another level of representation for performance. A choreographer might replicate "natural motions" from everyday life, abstract them, and recombine them into a dance. The leg movements might be from bicycle riding, while the arm movements are from throwing a football. In the final dance, the elements might not be clearly recognizable.

Asian drama forms such as Noh drama come closer to direct mimesis. They imitate life, but in a highly stylized form. The drama of the Western spoken stage as typified by the "Method" in all of its incarnations is highly mimetic. This can be carried to an extreme in some forms. The actor Spaulding Gray performs a number of one-man plays, which are recountings of his life as a youth in Rhode Island. His performances are masterful studies in the detail of "real" behavior. When watching him, the audience is led to believe that everything they are seeing is Gray's spontaneous musings. Only after they return the next night and see the same performance nearly exactly as it was performed the night before do they realize that the work is entirely rehearsed. This is "hyper-real" or "true real" mimesis--mimesis that cannot easily be distinguished from reality.

Whatever the level of mimetic representation in performance, the content of performance itself relates directly to human social interaction patterns--a point often made by Clifford Geertz. In performance, we get a display of views of human interaction, human situations, human conditions, and human structurings. It is then to be expected that whatever mimetic function is undertaken in theatrical representation will reflect the social interactional sensibilities of communities of performers and spectators.

Added to this, for theatrical purposes, is skill in representation. Performers who carry out their performing functions with greater skill are likely to be able to continue supporting themselves wholly or partially through performance. At the same time, these performers must be cognizant of community standards and norms. If they are offensive to a wide spectrum of the community, they cannot continue their work, even if they are superb in the performance arena.

Mimetic convention takes care of a great number of the problems arising from questions concerning community standards in performance. In Western performing arts, nudity, suggestive or obscene language, and thematic tastes are all issues of controversy. Problems arising from questions regarding these aspects of performance are often settled through legislation or court decisions. Typically, performance that might be offensive to some people is segregated through advance publicity, rating systems or containment in specific geographic areas.

In Iran, all of these considerations are active in traditional theater. The religious sensibilities which are central to ta'ziyeh must be guarded at all costs if the performance is to achieve its desired effect--namely to bring the audience to a heightened sense of their spiritual duty, and their grief at the central tragedy of their belief system. The highly codified system of representation in ta'ziyeh provides a powerful stimulus for the imagination of the audience without offending. The semioticised representation of women allows them to take their proper role in the tragedy, but to remain historical and religious figures without becoming erotic or sexual figures.

Since part of the point of ru-hozi performance is to extract humor from typical social situations involving relations between the sexes, the direct mimetic representation of women is in some sense necessary. However, community standards make it difficult for actual women to participate in the performances. The women of ru-hozi then are more than just symbolic figures. They imply real human interactions, including sexual interaction, in their mimetic representation.

Those men who portray women, however, must live with the possibility that they might be identified offstage with the female role they portray on stage. It goes without saying that this is a problem all actors face, not just those in Iran. The option of choosing "pretend" mimesis allows them their comic function without any of the unwelcome offstage implications that arise from cross-dressing.

It is noteworthy that in both ta'ziyeh and ru-hozi the normal social interaction patterns of everyday life are replicated and maintained, but within different frameworks. Ta'ziyeh sees life in its spiritual and religious aspects, and ru-hozi in its secular aspects. Women have a clear place in both, and by varying the representational conventions through which they are portrayed, they are clearly allowed this portrayal.

Returning to the question of symbols and their non-arbitrary nature, it can be seen that nothing in the Iranian theatrical representation of women can be presented in symbolic form without direct reference to the pre-existing knowledge of members of the society of what a woman is. Friedrich in the essay cited as the inspiration for this paper states a great truth "Language is an ultimate reality for its user, and this user's point of view should in turn be a primary consideration for the linguist and the philosopher of language." (Friedrich 1979: 39). This is no less true of the stock of performative symbolic material available to any member of a given society.

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