Nehad Selaiha finds plenty of sad irony and some sparks of hope in the Ninth Encounter of the Free Theatre Groups, this year dedicated to the victims of the Beni Sweif fire which took place on 5 September 2005 Late morning on 2 August 1990. The place, the breakfast-room of a small beach hotel in Al-Munastir, a beautiful, all-white coastal town in Tunisia and the birthplace of its national hero, Habib Bourguiba. The occasion was a mini theatre festival -- one of the many that invariably sprout all over Tunisia in summer. I was toying with an egg when suddenly a head popped in through the door shouting: "Iraq has invaded Kuwait." I don't know how long I sat there before Aziz Khayyoun, an Iraqi actor and director and old friend, sauntered in and made his way to my table. As he poured his coffee, I heard myself blurting out, "Iraq has invaded Kuwait." The pot nearly dropped out of his hand and he went all white. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I checked with the receptionist and called Cairo; yes, it is true," I said. The swarthy, stalwart figure, with the strong baritone voice, who had often thrilled me with his old Iraqi songs, or Muwashahat, on the banks of the Nile or the Tigris, seemed to shrink in his seat; we were due to leave the following day and you could read the fear of conscription written all over his face. The Iraqis had just got out of a long and bloody war with Iran, which claimed thousands of lives and plunged the country into years of continuous mourning. All the plays he had directed, written or acted in had been cleverly camouflaged, violent protests against Saddam's reign of terror. "Not another war," I heard him whispering and could say nothing to comfort him. I knew it would be a long time before we would meet again or before I could get news of him. He looked like a man about to walk into a great mass of darkness, into the shadow of the valley of death. Back in Cairo, I learnt that the 3rd Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (CIFET), which was due to start on 1st September, had been cancelled in sympathy and solidarity with the Kuwaiti people. Contrary to the expectations of the Ministry of Culture, however, this politically courteous decision triggered a wave of violent protests among young theatre artists and a heated controversy centering on the role of theatre in times of crises. On 23 August, a meeting was held at the Acting Professions Syndicate downtown under the rallying cry: "war or no war, the show must go on." To cancel the festival, they argued, bespoke a denigration of theatre, a contemptuous view of it as a flippant, disposable, marginal activity which formed no part in the vital fabric of social and political life and served no purpose other than simple entertainment. Funny I should be hearing the same arguments this August, 16 years later, and by more or less the same people who voiced them in 1990. A war and the cancellation of an official festival had brought the independent theatre movement into existence in 1990. Its birth was celebrated in the small hall of the Opera house where the opening of its first Free Theatre Festival took place on 1 October and lasted ten days. That 16 years later, the same movement, now supposedly mature, could not open its 9th encounter on the 1st of this August as planned and publicised on account of a decision by the minister of culture to cancel all festivals and celebrations in sympathy with the victims of the war in Lebanon, is a painful irony and bespeaks a failure to establish real independence and cut loose from the government. More humiliating was the fact that the ministry had gone ahead with its 1st National Egyptian Theatre Festival despite the eruption of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel, had not attempted to stop the Opera House or the Cultural Palaces Organisation carrying out their summer programmes, and when it was embarrassed by Tunisia's cancellation of its major, annual theatrical event, Les Journees Theatrales de Carthage, into making a show of sympathy with the Lebanese people, it made it at the expense of the weaker independent groups, picking out their festival as the cheapest sacrificial offering on hand. The organisers of the event came under heavy fire from the 23 groups scheduled to take part, many of whom did not know about the cancellation at all, or only until a few hours before the opening. On 1 August, in the foyer of Al-Hanager, the major sponsor of the event and venue for many of the shows, I heard the same angry protests I had heard on 23 August 1990 at the Acting Professions Syndicate. Thanks to Hoda Wasfi's consistent support of the movement since its incipience, many of the groups have come to regard Al-Hanager as their own space and tend to conveniently forget that it is an official body, part of the Ministry of Culture and bound by its edicts. Though the minister's decision to halt all festive events was published in the papers a few days before the opening, Wasfi had received no formal, written confirmation of it and, therefore, told the organisers to go ahead with the preparations, hoping she would get away with the festival. On the morning of 1 August, however, the orders arrived and there was nothing Wasfi or her protégés could do about it. It was too late to shift the opening to any of the other non-governmental co- sponsors and hosting venues (Al-Gezira Arts Centre, the Townhouse Gallery, the French Cultural Centre in Alexandria and the Jesuit Centre in Minya) or reschedule the performances, let alone inform the groups or the public about the changes. Nonetheless, and against all odds, the Ninth Encounter of the Egyptian Free Theatre Groups has materialised; it opened on 10 August, 10 days later than originally planned. How the 'cancellation' was turned into a mere 10-day 'postponement' is not quite clear to me, but I suspect that Wasfi had a lot to do with it and that the furious resentment of the groups carried some weight in the matter. In any case, a compromise was reached: the opening would take place at Al-Hanager on the 10th, and, hopefully, the final ceremony; the programme of the other venues would then carry on as normal, since it was originally planned to start on 12 August. This would take us to 1st September. As for the nine performances originally scheduled at Al-Hanager, to tell us, as Hani El-Mettenawi -- a founding member of Al-Shazia (Shrapnel) group and top organiser of the festival -- did, that they would be playing there starting 1 September, is a bad joke. The 11-day long CIFET starts 10 September this year, since Ramadan, the month of fasting, arrives on the 23rd, and there is no way any state-owned venue can wriggle out of being part of the preparations for it. This means that out of the 23 groups originally intended to participate, seven would be left in the wilderness, neither performing at Al-Hanager or any of the other venues. Once more, the meaning of 'independence' and the relationship of the independent theatre groups with the state have come into urgent focus, as has the question of the role of theatre as political forum, existential action, as protest and imaginative cathartic expression and spiritual medium to alternative realities. Sadly, the opening on 10 August was poorly attended. I recalled former years when you could not find a foothold in the auditorium of Al-Hanager and had to watch whole shows standing. Had people stayed away in sorrow, in disgust, in protest, or, simply, because they didn't know? All I know is that the auditorium felt cold, despite the sultry August heat outside, and that the words echoing from the stage sounded dismally pathetic, as if falling on dead ears or blindly addressing an absent audience. I felt old and forlorn as I remembered better times and happier days. Though the 'kids' had grown older, they hadn't grown wiser, I thought. Nevertheless, they still believed they could reach humanity through theatre and that what they did was vitally important. It was a heart-rending thought. After the limp apologies, confused, faltering explanations from the four festival organisers, Blood Red started, making ample compensation for what came before and after. Al-Mahrousa (The Protected) group's stage rendering of Samuel Beckett's Catastrophe was given a vibrantly relevant political reading. An eloquent, physical expression, freely envisioned by director Reda Hassanein, masterfully choreographed and performed by Mohamed Habib, together with Mohamed Fawzi (who also arranged the musical accompaniment), with assistance from Jihan, Mahmoud Taha and Wa'el El-Sayed, Blood Red came across as a subtle, poignant configuration of movement, words, music and lighting, expressing pain, fear, cruelty and horror. But the show also carried a feeling of hope, born out of sheer desperation. Beckett's God/Director/all-mighty tyrant could strive all he can to reduce humans to lifeless rag dolls; but a spark of defiance remains, protesting to the high heavens even as it falls. Though Blood Red had no tint of red, not a single hint or shade of it, it brought to mind all the blood wantonly spilled in the holy lands of Lebanon and Palestine. And it did it so quietly, abstemiously, and with such dignity of suffering that one needed no slogans to tell that those performers had their hearts somewhere, far away, in Lebanon. A pity the show had such a poor attendance and that the opening of this very important festival was tainted with an air of timoursness and confusion.
