At the start of 2018, the Egyptian theatre scene was in need of a great leap forward in comparison with 2016 and 2017. At the end of the year, we can comfortably say the state theatre venues managed to achieve full houses and significantly raise income, but was there a real leap forward on the artistic level? And what were the main topics and aesthetics offered by Egyptian theatre in 2018? A quick flashback might help us retrieve some of the most important stops: Happened in the Lands of Happiness, Hadra Hurra, I will Die in Exile, Dormant Feminine, The Last Hour and Crime in Maadi. The Egyptian stage is apparently torn between the serious endeavour to produce a kind of political theatre with a certain epic or historical dimension (like Happened in the Lands of Happiness, directed by Mazen Al-Gharabawi, and The Last Hour, directed by Nasser Abdel-Moneim), and the compulsion to recycle old musical recipes (like The Comedy of the Miserables, directed by Marwa Radwan) or remodel Western fairy tales without acknowledging their origin or copyright (like the National Award-winning Snow White, directed by Mohsen Rizk). On 9 August I wrote, “With all due respect to the artists who made Snow White, there are at least two points to be made. The first is that ‘Snow White' is a trademark owned by Disney Inc, and covers everything apart from literary works, and so this production very probably constitutes a copyright infringement punishable by law. The playwright-director Mohsen Rizk makes no mention of his source [in the Brothers Grimm 1812 fairy tale, for example], though the publicity clearly states that it is ‘authored and directed by Mohsen Rizk'. Nor did the state theatre consider giving the piece a different title, which is the most blatant breach of international law. When such a production wins the two highest prizes, this may well be a green light to emerging theatre artists to commit the same mistake. It looks like festival is legitimising, even promoting, copyright infringement as good practice.” Hadra Hurra But while state bodies awarded such a production, they also supported a genuine and politically driven production of The Last Hour's calibre. It is a powerful production you can only leave with an indelible sense of shame about the universal history of mass destruction, as portrayed in the horrific war crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On 24 July I wrote, “As Egyptian spectators we confront a history of dictatorship, a universal one, and history of objectifying and de-humanising people for the sake of politics… The supremacy of their nation's order dictated that they should serve. Theirs was a Patriotic Act, and performing it they were pronounced heroes. Nobody stopped to question that supreme order, nobody thought of distinguishing duty to the homeland from the political leaders' commands. Somehow those political leaders managed to convince everybody that they were the sole guardians of patriotism, the only teachers of heroism in existence. In fact, they were the nation's disgrace, and the US still puts down the national flag every year on the anniversary of Hiroshima. The Last Hour bravely puts Egyptian theatre on the map of political criticism. This is no facile approach nor simplistic vision. The performance manages to hold onto political criticism while psychologically analysing the personality of the hero-criminal and contextualising the whole story within its factual history. It touches directly on the very sensitive issue of the criminal believing he was a national hero.” Another genuine success of 2018 is Happened in the Lands of Happiness, in which the young director Al-Gharabawi manages to create a grand production tackling the theme of dictatorship and revolt while providing a very ambiguous, even enigmatic discourse. On 22 November I wrote, “Happened in the Lands of Happiness is a big production carrying a high standard of artistic creativity in all its aspects, a production worthy of being extended for its aesthetic and artistic excellence. Ashraf Tolba, the prominent actor and artistic director of Al-Salam Theatre/Modern Theatre deserves our gratitude for supporting a brilliant young director like Al-Gharabawi. This is not an easy production, nor does it follow a fashionable recipe, it is made with perseverance to stimulate discussion and to stress the ambiguity of our lives and histories. History must always be conjugated in the plural, just like the interpretation of a theatre production must be translated into the multiplicity of its spectators, and into the vast field of the unknown internal and external censorships and hesitations. Just like the master scene where Kouka and Tikha are opposing each other with fast sentences and opposite orders, as spectators we will remain in the middle of this hypnotic pendulum, within the rupture as the play insinuates and accused of being forever self-muted. But we are probably muted by the horrific pendulum of power and its representations, representations of the oppressed seeking reconciliation with the oppressor.” The Last Hour Besides the two aspects of state theatre's newly regained momentum, independent Egyptian and Arab productions — the latter shown in Egypt during the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theatre — provided a different order of experience. The Egyptian production The Dormant Feminine by Nada Thabet deals with women living with illness and the challenge of raising special-needs children, removing the stigma and traditional shame associated with such experiences and releasing the heroines' authentic voice. On 13 September I wrote, “The three actresses used a natural acting style which shifted away from the dramatic attitude that might be expected because of the nature of the stories to one that stresses verisimilitude without theatricality so as to guide us towards understanding the outer reality in a more profound and humane way. The monologues they delivered were carefully designed as a collage of all the real stories intertwined. The simple movements and the images created by Thabet perfectly served to create the situation of a human encounter, a sharing moment and a testimonial style. Everything was so subtle that we ended up feeling those stories were not so much women's as society's, which women are usually prevented from telling. They are stories of discrimination — that is not far from racism, and of shaming, staining and elimination made towards women by a society that is gradually losing its sense of humanity. Again, this is not the problem of women, it is the problem of a whole society. Without the work of artists like Thabet the Egyptian theatre scene would not have much space for performances based in social and societal issues. Her work is a genuine model of the artist's responsibility towards issues of development, social and psychological awareness, and human justice in general.” The Syrian-German dance production Hadra Hurra, choreographed by Mohamed Diban, was, on the other hand, was a much-needed aesthetic vision. It fills a gap for the Egyptian and Arab spectator and represents a style still missing in the context of Egyptian theatre-making. On 4 October I wrote, “Throughout the one-hour performance, you cannot disconnect from that powerful feeling of belonging. For some spectators it could be belonging to a community, for others to a specific country or language. For me it was belonging to a worldview that retains a measure of beauty, bonding and humanness. The homeland can be a space in time. For the performance tells us not to follow its narrative — it has many narratives, or none — but rather to follow our hearts. The performance functions as a gateway onto what we — the spectators — see and long to reach. And like spiritual rituals, Hadra Hurra relies on our belief in the ritual, and rewards us with a journey, a transformation and a revelation… The unforgettable Sufi chanting, the Oriental rhythms and the video projections fused with live moving bodies created an alternative world that was so complete and mesmerising it lifted us softly and powerfully onto a transcendent plane. This transcendence is certainly one of the principles of Sufi practice, including Mevlevi whirling. But in this situation it also became a principle for healing the pain that emanates from Syria's deep wounds. Although Syria is never directly mentioned, since this is a physical, not a verbal performance, no one could escape the dramatic presence of the Syrian tragedy. This is due to the fact that the young troupe have nourished every scene and image with their souls, producing a testimonial performance in which even non-Syrian performers partook in the same feeling. When the strongest scene took place, and you could see the whirling dancers convey their ecstatic message, we were already in tears, probably because the whirling had become synonymous with being home.” Happened in the Lands of Happiness Likewise I Will Die in Exile by (and with) Ghannam Ghannam: it brings into the picture the power of the solo performer/storyteller and the story of Palestine as the fabric connecting all the countries of the Arab region. Presented at Al-Sawari International Theatre Festival in Bahrain, the performance celebrated the biography of the family of Saber Ghannam and the value of testimonial theatre. On 27 September I wrote, “At the age of 64, Ghannam transforms himself into both a memory and a grave digger. The situation of the live performer performing his own imagined future death is haunting. It is so strong it symbolically transforms the whole performance space into a graveyard. The performance space becomes a symbolic graveyard in which all those who died on the road of political struggle are buried. The spectators suddenly transform into mourners gathered around the grave of Ghannam, and I am personally shaken by the scene. The performer ends his piece by indirectly telling us that it is only possible to retrieve our homelands in the graveyard where our birth place is engraved and where our families can gather again from the diaspora and into one common land, the land of the graveyard. Ghannam almost says that we can only belong again in death. He also makes us feel the theatre can be that kind of graveyard where our identities are expressed, our collective memories stored, and our homelands reconstructed: Theatre as a victorious graveyard.” That third path would not have been possible without the power of international festivals and the endurance and perseverance of independent theatre makers, those now facing the most difficult challenges in Egypt. The surprise 2018 offered towards its end was having the famous theatre and movie actor Ashraf Abdel-Baki as a new contributor to the alternative Egyptian theatre scene: producer and theatre director Abdel-Baki's Crime in Maadi inaugurates a new channel of theatre-making that can be financially rewarding while avoiding the stupid formulae of commercial theatre. A very well-designed production that is brilliantly conceived and directed by Abdel-Baki, who invents a new artistic life for himself, it is a popular thriller/comedy performed by a group of young actors who prove demonstrate that fame is not only for the stars and that the history of Emadeddin Street — as a space for outstanding entertainment — can be re-born again. Crime in Maadi is the first play I will write about in 2019.
