“Have you forgotten the rosy hours of Mazenderan?”
GASTON LEROUX, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1910)
“Yes,” he replied, in a sadder tone, “I prefer to forget them…”
A secret is not a secret without one that holds it. The holder of that mystery sometimes lurks in the shadows or takes the truth to their grave. Sometimes that truth is held high above, its knowledge kept beyond our reach. And sometimes, the holder of this knowledge is forgotten to history, lost in translation by the storyteller.
Such is the fate of the Persian.
In 1986, Andrew Lloyd Webber melts down the Persian and infuses him into the character of Madame Giry.
In 1925, Universal Studios masks the Persian in a last-minute title card change, turning him into a member of the Secret Police.
In 1990, Arthur Kopit’s TV miniseries starring Charles Dance and its eventual musical, Phantom, that came later (but was written first), turns the secret holder into the opera manager and (spoilers) the Phantom’s father.
When I set out to write Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, I don’t want to hide the holder of the Phantom’s secret behind an amalgamation. And presenting the character this way ends up revealing a lot about the Phantom and adds a depth to the mystery I hadn’t seen there before.
Gaston Leroux bases the character of the Persian on a real-life patron of the opera, Mohammed Ismaël Khan, who came to live in Paris during the 1840s. Paris’s then-obsession with orientalism, finds his long beard and Karakul hat to be exotic and quickly nicknames him “The Persian.”
Ismaël passes away in 1868 so would have never actually set foot in the Palais Garnier, but he makes a perfect expositional character for Gaston Leroux. In the book, Ismaël becomes the Persian, or as Erik calls him, the daroga – the chief of police of Mazenderan. Not much is revealed about the daroga in the book, just that after Erik constructs a grand palace in Mazenderan, his death is ordered to conceal its secrets.
“The execution of this abominable decree devolved upon the daroga of Mazenderan. Erik had shown him some slight services and procured him many a hearty laugh. He saved Erik by providing him with the means of escape…”
GASTON LEROUX, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1910)
Though the daroga covers his crime well, he is banished from Mazenderan and goes to live in Paris, later learning the truth that Erik had escaped to the Opera House. These scant details give me free range to expand the daroga’s relationship to Erik.
During rehearsals for the original 2016 production, Matt Walker and Scott Baisden take the characters’ shared history and inject it into their performance. What comes out is an almost military bond, forged from respect and mutual trauma.
This bond follows the characters to the end of the play, shown in a small moment, easily missed. During the final confrontation, Christine agrees to marry Erik as long as he removes his mask. He does so, but in Scott’s performance, he decides to first look toward the Persian. For help? For permission? The Persian knows Erik’s face. Knows its horrors. Yet still, Matt looks away. The Persian looks away from his own reflection.
This reflective moment strikes me so much that, in my subsequent drafts, I decide to write that reflection into the character.
“The Sultan ordered his execution, but I could not go through with it. I saw something in Erik, something I saw in myself. I had once been the Sultan’s personal assassin, his slave, winning my freedom through murder. So, I faked Erik’s death and allowed him to escape.”
From the Next Stage Press publication
In my play, I still leave many details about the Persian vague and mysterious. He is, after all, still the holder of many secrets. And a secret is not a secret without its mysteries being left unsolved. There are still things lost in translation by the storyteller, but now that we all hold the secret, the Persian can look into his reflection without fear of being forgotten.
- Original production stills by Chris Kotcher.