The Aporia of Reality/Imagination: Uncertainty in Selected Iranian Monodramas and Surrealist Dramas

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Performing Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Department of Performing Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

3 PhD in Theatre, Department of Performing Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

This research explores how the aporia of reality and imagination functions as a rhetorical tool that renders drama as self-deconstructive. Aporia, understood as a moment of undecidability leading to interpretive impasse, enables the deconstruction of binary oppositions—most notably, reality versus imagination and objectivity versus subjectivity. In this context, reality is not positioned above imagination but is shown to contain and depend upon it. Similarly, so-called objective reality is revealed to be a construct shaped through subjective perception, thereby destabilizing the opposition between subject and object. This aporetic dynamic is particularly evident in monodramas focused on a single character and in surrealist dramas. This study focuses on those monodramas in which the actor plays only one character. In other words, the issue under study is the dramatic manifestation of the individual's mentality and psyche, not monodramas in which an actor gives life to different characters. In monodramas such as The Anniversary Present by Afshin Hashemi and Where is This Place? by Naghmeh Samini, the characters’ internal perspectives constitute the entirety of their world. Reality becomes a subjective construct, and external world ceases to exist independently of the character’s mind. As a result, the object/subject opposition collapses. Moreover, the audience is left unable to distinguish which elements of the characters’ narratives are based on ‘reality’ and which on “imagination”, thus deconstructing that binary as well. A similar logic applies to surrealist dramas such as Khanumche and Mahtabi by Akbar Radi and Sleeping in an Empty Cup by Naghmeh Samini, where reality and imagination are so deeply entangled that any clear boundary between them dissolves. At times, one character’s reality is perceived as another’s imagination, reinforcing the notion that these categories are not stable or separate but mutually constitutive. The interactions of reality and imagination in surrealist drama becomes aporetic in a way that reality and imagination must be accepted simultaneously. In both subgenres, aporia serves not only to challenge binary logic but also to foreground the distinction between “truth” and “reality.” While reality refers to observable phenomena, truth emerges through subjective interpretation—perceived, processed, and reassembled within human consciousness. Attention to “imagination” in monodrama and surrealist drama transcends traditional boundaries and enters a world of universal truths, a concept that seems to present intuitive knowledge in a dramatic form, and in this way invites the audience to think critically about the concept of “truth.” Furthermore, these aporetic monodramas and surrealist dramas present reality as impermanent, flexible, and deeply dependent on the inner states of the character. From a broader theoretical perspective, monodrama and surrealist drama offer insight into the nature of truth and human connection. By blurring the lines between reality and imagination, and between objectivity and subjectivity, these forms invite critical engagement from the audience, who must navigate meaning without relying on fixed oppositions. Instead of affirming one pole of the binary over the other, spectators are prompted to inhabit both simultaneously. This approach generates new interpretive possibilities in drama and, by extension, in life. Consequently, these dramatic forms emerge as fundamentally aporetic and self-deconstructive.

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