Evergreen

Nehad Selaiha basks in the sunny presence of a great diva at the National
In her 600-page memoirs, published under the title Zekrayati by GEBO in 2004, Samiha Ayyoub, or the queen of the Egyptian stage as she has been dubbed by critics long ago, records the crucial moment which determined the course of her life and launched her on an acting career. "One day at sunset," she writes, "I was sitting at the dining table in our flat in Shubra doing my homework -- I didn't have a desk then; suddenly I heard an announcement over the radio inviting young, unmarried, female students to join the theatre institute. The girl who passes the entrance exam, the broadcaster added, will get a grant of six pounds per month. I stopped studying and sat thinking of those six pounds. What a girl could do with such a sum! How I wished I could apply; but, alas, neither of my parents, let alone the family, would allow me to even suggest the idea. I put it aside and went back to my books."
Before that day, the idea of taking up acting had not crossed Ayyoub's mind. Rather, she had dreamt of becoming a ballet dancer; she had watched Red Shoes from a balcony in her home which overlooked an open-air cinema and for a long time afterwards the image of the heroine haunted her dreams. Such dreams, however, were heavily overshadowed by the figure of her mother, a strict, formidable woman who interfered in her reading and would not let her visit her school friends or invite any of them to her home. Ayyoub, however, eventually managed to join the theatre institute thanks to the timely intercession of an enlightened, artistic uncle who wrote poetry and published several collections. Though she does not mention his name, one of many vexing lapses in the memoirs, Ayyoub seems to owe her whole career to this anonymous good man. He fought with her parents, and when they proved adamant, took her to live with him in his villa in Zaytoun, assuming full responsibility for her maintenance and education. Ayyoub mentions how he accompanied her on the first day of term to the door of the institute (then housed at Al-Dawawin Secondary School off Lazoghli Square), waited for her at a nearby café till the end of classes at 8pm, hired a private teacher to give her lessons in classical Arabic to help her catch up with the older students and continued to support and care for her until her family relented and took her back.
But though she joined the institute, Ayyoub didn't manage to lay her hands on the cherished six pounds that had dazzled her. She was only 15 when she applied, and though they made an exception in her case and allowed her to attend classes, she was not eligible for the grant for another year. That was in 1946; and under the protective wings of the founder of the institute, director Zaki Tulaymat, and in the company of such redoubtable colleagues as Faten Hamama, Farid Shawqi, Na'ima Wasfi, Shukry Sarhan, Abdel-Rehim El-Zurqani, Hamdi Gheith, Nabil El-Alfi, Omar El-Hariri and Said Abu Bakr, among others, Ayyoub's talent began to flower. While still in her first year, she was cast for a part in a production of Molière's L'Avare mounted by Tulaymat, the founder of the institute, at the old Opera House (in Ataba Square) to introduce his star pupils to the public. The play was a success and Ayyoub got good notices; in one of them, she was complimented on her strong "stage presence" -- a term she had never heard before but which was later to become almost synonymous with her name. As a reward, Tulaymat had the minimum age requirement for the grant waived in her case and she started getting her six pounds a month before she was 16. That made a difference in her mother's attitude and boosted the budding actress's self-confidence and sense of independence.
In her second year, Samiha found her way into radio drama, starring opposite Zuzu Nabil (the most sought-after radio actress at the time who became a household name on account of her role as Sheherazade in a serial that ran for many years). The work was an operetta called The Vernal Maiden and Samiha played the eponymous heroine -- named Azaar after the month of March -- who is carried away by the Spirit of Beauty and whose yearly return to the earth to visit her mother is made to mark the beginning of spring. On her mother's insistence, Ayyoub had used a pseudonym -- Samiha Sami -- and bitterly regretted it afterwards when The Maiden proved a popular hit. From that time on, she decided, she would only use her real name regardless of what her mother thought. Within a very short time she was into movies, playing a supporting role opposite Mohsen Sarhan in a film called Al-Mutasharrida (The Vagrant) for which she got 30 pounds. When another movie followed (an unnamed Egyptian-Tunisian co- production) and her fee was raised to 50 pounds, and with more radio plays in the offing and a promise from Tulaymat to include her in his proposed Modern Egyptian Theatre Company, Ayyoub seemed confidently set on the road to a successful career.
Eros, however, arrived untimely on the scene, messing up her plans and landing her in an unhappy marriage which barely lasted two years, leaving her at the end with a baby boy on her hands. Mohsen Sarhan, who had starred in her first film and was now shooting opposite her in her second, fell madly in love with her and used his long experience of women to sweep her off her feet. But because he was much older than she was, had a reputation as a womaniser and was divorced with two children, her family fiercely opposed the marriage; they stopped her at home, beat her up when she objected, and locked her in her room. Ayyoub, however, whose experience as an actress and student had given her a new strength, defied her family and eloped with her lover, jumping out of her first- floor bedroom window at night. For 10 days she stayed with friends of his, a kindly married couple, while her family frantically searched for her everywhere. By the time the lover showed up at her home a second time to ask for her hand, her worrying absence and the scandal it had caused had worn down the family resistance and they begrudgingly gave their consent.
The lovers were married in the groom's flat and before the night was out and the party over, Samiha had got a foretaste of her future husband's tyranny. He was, as she soon found out, insanely jealous, with no confidence in women whatsoever. To guarantee her fidelity, he made her quit her studies and stay at home, kept her literally under lock and key while he was out, and never allowed her to go anywhere, even to visit her family, except in his company, and even that was rare. For two years she lived a prisoner, acting only once in a film, Shati' Al- Gharam (Love Beach), in which he was co- starring, and feeling her life ebb away. After more than 50 years, she still remembers with bitterness how when they were shooting in Marsa Matrouh he would lock her up in their hotel room at the end of the day's work and go downstairs to the bar to carouse with the rest of the cast till late into the night while she sat alone and miserable.
Divorce was inevitable; and to get it and have custody of their son, Ayyoub was willing to waive all financial claims on her husband, including her son's. It was a shattering experience which left many scars: it made her wary of men, a bit cynical about romance and oversensitive where her freedom was concerned; above all it taught her the wisdom of always putting her career and professional ambitions before her feelings and personal life. Only going back to the institute (as a third year student) and burying herself in work could give her solace and help her get over pain and disappointment. Fortunately, Tulaymat formed his company at last; and though all the members had to be graduates, he allowed her to join while still a student. In the company, competition was fierce; but Ayyoub held her ground and quickly made her mark; she had matured before her time, thanks to her nightmarish marriage, and her suffering during those years had given her strength and added depth and passion to her acting. She continued with Tulaymat's company, performing in Molière's Le Malade Imaginaire, Les Précieuses Ridicules, and an Egyptian version of Tartuffe, as well as other plays, while doing some radio work on the side. When Tulaymat was ousted by the new Nasserite regime in 1955 and his company merged with that of the National Theatre and put under the management of Youssef Wahbi, she loyally defended him and, short of resigning, did everything she could to oppose the change. That she did not resign was proof that she had learnt her lesson and never again would let herself get carried away by her feelings. She had a son to support and a career to build and she was determined to make it to the top. Indeed, as early as 1952, when she finally graduated, Samiha seems to have developed that inner hard core which has sustained her since and helped her overcome the disappointment of a second failed marriage (to Mahmoud Mursi), the tragic loss of her first born while in his prime, and the death of her third husband and closest friend and ally, Saadeddin Wahba, after a long and painful battle with cancer.
Looking back on Ayyoub's career one finds a glorious record of brilliant achievements and is stunned by the sheer number, range and variety of the demanding roles she performed: Clytemnestra in Aeschylus's Agamemnon ; Sophocles's Antigone ; Shakespeare's Portia in The Merchant of Venice ; Chekhov's Yeliena in Uncle Vanya and his Madame Arkadina in The Seagull ; Electra in Sartre's Les Mouches and Lizzie in his La Putain Respectueuse ; Blanche du Bois in Tennessee Williams's A Street Car Named Desire ; Marguerite Gautier in La Dame Aux Camélias; Racine's Phedre ; Brecht's Shen Te and Shui Ta in The Good Person of Szechwan and his Grusha in The Caucasian Chalk Circle ; Shaw's Judith in The Devil's Disciple and his Egyptian queen in Caesar and Cleopatra ; Mrs Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts ; Tawfiq El-Hakim's Isis, his courtesan in Li'bat Al-Sultan (The Sultan's Dilemma) and his Mabrouka in Al-Safqah (The Deal); Nefertiti in Alfred Farag's The Fall of a Pharaoh and his Galila bint Murrah in Al- Zeir Salem ; Salma in Abdel-Rahman El- Sharqawi's Young Mehran and the French journalist Aimée in his Acre, My Homeland ; Yousri El-Guindi's Rabi'a Al-Adaweya, a modern rendering of the life of the famous Muslim mystic, and his Witch in two eponymous plays; Samir Sarhan's Sitt Al-Mulk ; Rashad Rushdi's Shamina ; Osama Anwar Okasha's Wedad in The People on the Third Floor and Hajjah Zeinab in At High Noon ; Saadeddin Wahba's Salma, the gypsy, in Al-Sibensa (Third Class), Khadra, the peasant, in Kubry Al-Namous (Mosquito Bridge), Sousou, the actress, in Sikket Al- Salama (Road to Safety), Aziza in Bir Al-Sellem (The Stairwell), and the mysterious woman in The Talking Wall -- the list seems endless and, apart from her abundant work on radio, television and, to a lesser extent, in films, sports scores of the best plays penned by the most prominent writers in Egypt from the 1950s onwards, including many comic parts. It is enough to remember only a few of those stage performances to realise, with something approaching awe, the real stature of this actress.
In her mid seventies, Samiha Ayyoub is every inch a grand dame and as regal, resounding, straight-backed, and commanding as ever. She is currently playing the grandmother in Mahmoud Mekki's Arabic translation of Alejandro Casona's 1949 romantic, twilight comedy, The Trees Die Standing at the National. But delighted as I was to find her name topping the cast list, I was puzzled by the choice of play. Why on earth unearth a soft, soppy play like this one when the mood in Egypt, and indeed worldwide is far from romantic or conciliatory? And why change the poetic title to something as silly, embarrassingly obvious and depressingly prosaic as Qarib...wi Gharib (A Near Relative...and a Stranger)? Was the original title deemed ominous in view of the ripe age of the two leading actors whose history makes them seem like two magnificent, ancient oaks? More irritating still was the thorough, ponderous realism adopted by the director and stage-designer which weighed heavily on the show, making it seem like some antiquated museum piece. Looking at Salah Hafiz's elaborate, over-dressed, over-coloured and meticulously detailed quasi-Spanish realistic sets, which seemed intent on dwarfing the actors, swallowing them up and eroding their presence, I remembered some very old movies running along the same theme: planting a stranger in disguise in place of a beloved, absent relative in order to cheer up a bereaved mother, as in the vintage musical movie Four Girls and an Officer (where the mother was Amina Rizq), or a grandmother or aunt, as in the present case.
As the aged Balboa who kicks out his delinquent grandson (made a nephew of his wife in the play as a courtesy to Ayyoub) when he catches him raiding his safe, then tries to comfort his wife by sending her fake letters, supposedly written by the grandson, telling her how he has reformed, built a brilliant career as an architect and married a beautiful woman to boot, veteran comedian Abdel-Ramhan Abu Zahra looked alternately deeply concerned and hopelessly befuddled and was consistently deliciously hilarious. When his scheme backfires and the prodigal grandson (or nephew), who has developed into a criminal on an international scale, sends word that he is coming home, and this is immediately followed by news that the steamer he boarded was wrecked at sea, killing all on board, Balboa is desperate. Believing the news would kill his wife, he seeks the help of a "personal problems" agency. Its director (Gamal Abdel-Nasser) and his assistant, a former client he has just recruited (Rania Mahmoud Yassin), agree to impersonate the absent grandson and his imaginary wife and succeed, with the help of Mr Balboa, in deceiving the aged Mrs Balboa and worming their way into her affection. Soon enough, however, the real grandson (Shadi Sorour) turns up like the proverbial bad penny and sets about blackmailing and threatening the grandfather and his two hired assistants who, meanwhile, have fallen in love. When the old lady discovers the truth and sees her grandson for what he really is, she kicks him out. And rather than resent the deception practiced upon her, she sees it as a mark of care and affection and is grateful for the momentary illusion of happiness it has given her. She determines to play the game till the end and pretends to the two kindly strangers she knows nothing, preferring to let them depart believing they have really helped her and made her happy.
To make us swallow such corny stuff, director Nabil Munib (who hasn't done a play for nearly 20 years, preferring to stay far from the madding crowd and quietly teach at the Theatre Institute) needed the comic prowess of Abu Zahra, the beauty and elegance of Rania Yassin, the youthful charm of Abdel-Nasser and, above all, the charismatic presence, solid experience, infectious vigour and magnificent stature of Samiha Ayyoub. She walked in beauty, like a fairy queen, transforming everything as if by a magic wand, injecting life into the dullest of scenes and sending forth waves of energy which charged the air around her with a strange vibrancy.