Nehad Selaiha follows the life of a shop dresser at the Falaki Centre For its annual presentation of an Arabic play (a popular event launched many years ago), the Performing and Visual Arts Department of the AUC had always opted for the classics of the Egyptian theatre--works by such renowned dramatists as Tawfiq El-Hakim, Saadeddin Wahba, or No'man Ashour. This year, however, it has varied this practice, staging for the first time a new play by a contemporary playwright. Mannequin by Mohsen Misilhi (a professor of drama and criticism at the Theatre Institute of the academy of arts and fine translator and critic) is his eighth dramatic venture and the first to premiere outside the official theatre channels. Not that Misilhi ever got royal treatment at those channels. The state-theatre organisation has so far ignored him and apart from Muhakamat Al-Kahen (The Trial of the Priest, adapted from a short story by Bahaa Taher and directed by Nur El-Sherif at Al-Hanger in 1995) and Getting off at the Next Stop (produced by the Television Theatre in 2003), most of his earlier plays, starting with the unforgettable Darb Askar in 1985, were produced in the mass culture sector and aired through such untraditional venues as Wikalat Al-Ghouri. In other words, as a dramatist, Misilhi belongs to the fringe rather than to mainstream theatre, which makes the AUC's initiative in launching Mannequin all the more creditable and a significant step on the road to more cooperation between the Performing Arts Department and local dramatists. Of Misilhi's earlier plays my personal favourites are Darb Askar and Elli Bana Masr (He Who Built Egypt, 1994). In the former (conceived in collaboration with Hassan Atiya and Sami Abdel Halim and starring Abla Kamel in one of her earliest stage appearances), Misilhi used the process of theatre-making as both subject matter and metaphor, projecting it through a rich, historical vista which extends from the time of the Napoleonic campaign on Egypt to the present. The artistic, ideological and logistical aspects of staging plays are foregrounded through a complex thematic structure, consisting of many episodes and levels of meaning, and featuring a web of interconnected conflicts: between art and authority, popular and European theatrical modes, imitation and reality, and tradition and modernity. The constant breaking of dramatic illusion, the frequent temporal and spatial shifts and the proliferation of masks are at once dizzying and exhilarating and have the effect of gradually subverting traditional, rational logic and commonsense, substituting for them a quasi- surrealistic, artistic logic, based on contrapuntal repetitions and variations. Elli Bana Masr uses an equally untraditional form which projects the past from the perspective of the present and progresses through a series of contrastive spatial revelations. The action is triggered by a fantastical event: one fine morning, the statue of Tal'at Harb, the great patriotic industrialist who founded the first Egyptian national bank (Bank Misr), the first National Spinning and Weaving company and the first national cinema studio (Studio Misr), among other things, comes to life and leaves its pedestal in the square down town which carries his name. The disappearance of the statue causes a big hooha in official circles and initiates a nationwide search to find it and capture the thieves who are assumed to have stolen it. Meanwhile, Harb wanders around, falling into many comical quandaries and discovering in the process that his dream of an independent, thriving national economy, the dream he had lived and worked for, had been systematically and ruthlessly eroded. As the funny episodes and consequent revelations accumulate, the satire grows harsher and darker so that Harb's decision at the end to quit life and resume the blissfully unconscious immobility of his former state as statue seems an inevitable tragic conclusion. Mannequin is another socio-political satire triggered by inanimate objects coming to life. Nousa (Noha Mikkawi), a penurious, down at heel shop dresser, unmarried and nearing middle age, has been in the employ of Hajj Ahmed (Magdi El- Disouqi) all her working life and has shared with him the vicissitudes of the market as the country passed through the socialist economic policies of the 1960s, to the boom of the laisser-faire 1970s, then to the depression of the 1990s onwards, and watched with him the changing fashions from one period to the next. Though Hajj Ahmed has coveted Nousa's body throughout, first offering her marriage in the seventies, then jawaz urfi (a form of secret cohabitation supposedly approved by God but with no legal status or bonds) in the eighties, then the position of a kept mistress in the nineties, he has had finally to discharge her from his service to save up on the running costs of his store. For old times sake, however, he agrees at the beginning of the play to employ her for just one hour -- nearly the time the play takes to watch. This makes performance time almost coincidental with dramatic time -- something which would have pleased Aristotle no end. As Nousa sets to work, the shop window suddenly takes on a double identity as both realistic and mental space and the mannequins she dresses spring to life to enact scenes from her previous life and some of her day dreams. The flood of painful memories-- of frustrated love, thwarted desires, failed hopes and patriarchal oppression--is punctuated with marked shifts in the sartorial fashions displayed by the mannequins, and these changes become visible indicators of changing mores and morals. Indeed, the way Misilhi uses the switch from the mini skirt of the sixties to the veil in the nineties is a brilliant stroke and transforms the display of fashion into a display of history. For the first time in my experience of theatre I find shop windows dramatically and theatrically used as markers of social change and vehicles for barbed satire. Like the mannequins, Hajj Ahmed changes his attire to suit the times, graduating from a sixties' hippy look (flared jeans, flowered shirt and long hair and sideboards), to a caricature of the eighties' nouveau riche businessman (with a paunch, in a garish checkered suit and waving a cigar) and, finally, to the stereotypical image of a nineties' hajj in a galabiya and abaya. Nousa, on the other hand, never changes her simple, faded costume and her practical, neutral appearance acts as a point of stability in the flux of visual change, marking her as a tragic oddity and preparing for her shattering, final opting out. Up until the very end too, the headless mannequin. wearing a wedding dress, and symbolising the bride she is never to be, and the little girl mannequin, representing the child she is never to have, remain fixed elements at the centre of the scene. At the end of the hour allotted to her, Nousa realises that she too has to move with the times if she is to cease to be a social and moral misfit; and the only way she can do that is to join the world of the mannequins. She changes into a revealing, sequined evening dress and, in a desperate gesture vividly reminiscent of the final scene in Elli Bana Masr, mounts the steps to put herself on display. But painful as this is, it is not all. Misilhi, keen on driving his satire ruthlessly home, works the knife deeper into the wound, transforming the mannequin of Nousa into a grotesque embodiment of the moral schizophrenia that, in his view, characterises Egyptian society today. When the real, human Nousa disappears, Hajj Ahmed walks into the shop window to add the final harrowing touch. He climbs up to where Nousa stands, smacks his lips at the sight of her bare arms and bosom, then covers her head completely with a black veil which, against the dark background, makes her look as headless as the dummy in the wedding dress. This final scene was a veritable coup de theatre and it could not have been achieved without the creative contributions of Hazem Shebl who designed the set and lighting, Dina El-Sheikh's costumes, Hisham Gabr's musical score and Mohamed Shafiq's choreography. Director Hanaa Abdel-Fattah's sagacity in choosing his artistic crew extended to his choice of cast. Though much younger than the character she plays, Noha Mikkawi gave us a very convincing, moving Nousa, and Magdi Disouqi as Hajj Ahmed was absolutely delightful since the part allowed him to showcase his admirable ability at caricaturing types and varying his voice and body language to suit each. Amna Farahat as Tooha, the sister who graduates from the miniskirt to the veil with enviable resilience and equanimity, and Sherif Farahat as Mimi, Tooha's boyfriend who later transforms into the rigidly censorious Sheikh Mahmoud, displayed plenty of talent and the ease with which they switched roles revealed an inherent stage aptitude. Yehya El-Diqin as Sayed, Hajj Ahmed's assistant and underdog who pathetically dreams of owning a store one day and is prepared to wave aside all moral scruples to achieve this end, was alternately vain and obsequious and consistently lively and comical, and Imad El-Tayeb, as Abdel-Aziz, the smug and snooty civil servant and former suitor of Nousa, was fittingly pompous and overweening. The rest of the parts, though they gave the actors little room to exercise their talents, required lots of discipline. Apart from a few movements, Alaa Shalabi, as the father, Rana Salem as a dummy and Ahmed Khalifa as the police officer, the representative of the law Nousa appeals to on many occasions and urges to interfere and put a stop to the fast social deterioration, stayed rigidly in the same positions throughout, making us often forget they were human. The weakest link in the cast was Ayaat Abu Basha who was simply too young, much younger in appearance than Noha Mikkawi, to take on the part of Nousa's aged mother. But, on the whole, the performances of the cast proved what a good acting coach director Hanaa Abdel-Fattah really is. The production was a credit to him, to the author of the play, to the young actors and technical crew, and, above and beyond all, to the AUC Performing Arts Department and its adventurous head, Frank Bradley.
