comparative study on dramatic ending strategies in past decades plays of iran*

the eighties era (the equivalent of first decade of the twenty-first century) has an important role in the history of contemporary iranian playwriting for its diversity. by evaluating the plays written in 1380s, on the one hand, some important information is achieved about the latest patterns, techniques and the styles of writing iranian drama and on the other hand, many guidelines can be provided to enhance the quality of dramatic literature of iran. by the same token and considering the effective role of dramatic ending, this research reviews the functional forms according to elements such as information transmission strategies in drama ending, variety of endings and major aspects for the method of ending in dramatic texts in 1380s. it seems that despite the different approaches existing in contemporary drama, what recent critics such as martin esslin and manfred pfister, put into consideration for explaining the structure of plot especially the ending provides a new way to discuss methods of collecting information about final act of iranian plays. the authors have tried to identify the characteristics of various plays in terms of pattern of ending story using a constructivist approach and recognize its major form. it should be noted that this study suggests analyzing the dramatic works of the last decade only in order to know the common forms their ending. so instead of case study and analysis of dramatic relationships on the structure of individual plays of the decade, the authors try to understand the discussed pattern comprehensively and expose its results to the readers` judgment for more reflection. although it cannot be claimed that the findings have certainly the qualitative validity due to limitation in evaluating the dramatic data but according to presented evidences it can indicates (signifier) kind of significant structural feature on how to organize their narrative information. in total, nearly 35 dramatic works of the 1380s have been reviewed that a third of them are discussed with more emphasize in the body of the present study. obviously, valid results of this research will be extensible to a larger statistical population by the incomplete induction method and at least it can be expected to get a comprehensive understanding of the modern performances and abilities of dramatic literature in iran. the findings show that an aspect of tendency to empiricism can be seen in different levels of drama structure through evaluating iranian dramatic data based on given tables and charts during 1380s. reflect of this major tendency can be found in the late iranian playwrights’ narrative styles the innovation existed in their writhing techniques. on the other hand, despite patterns and different issues for creating dramatic works, in the last decade, playwriting often focuses on experiences such as unfinished, semi-finished or completely open endings which at the same time include many structural similarities among these works. accordingly, in spite of tendency to empiricism in other parts of the drama, this indicates a kind of repetition and stop in models of using closure while ignoring the repetition in ending of plays in 1380s (2000s).