Nehad Selaiha enjoys watching the devil humiliated in Sameh Mahran's latest play Sameh Mahran is a highly intellectual, highly provocative playwright. In all his plays, and they number over a dozen so far, he assiduously challenges patriarchy and questions the basic assumptions of Arab culture. Invariably the action is motivated, dominated, propelled and channelled by a father figure, who dramatically materializes in several guises -- as a real, natural parent, alive or dead, present or absent, a ghostly doppelganger who haunts the hero, a tyrannical king or military dictator, an old, predatory and androgynous boatman, or a petty local official who rises to power by wily intrigues. Though the conflict in his dramas is invariably one of ideas, rather than passions or characters, the ideas, however serious, are usually imaginatively transformed into lively metaphors and vivid stage imagery and processed through animated, witty dialogue that bubbles over with humour. The humour can be dark and bitter, grotesque and bizarre, or even morbid, depending on the play's mood, theme and setting, but it is always original and inventive. But what really Makes Mahran the most exciting playwright of his generation is his adventurousness in matters of form, his skilful knowledge of stagecraft and the multiple languages of the stage and a special knack for welding the real and the fantastical in a seemingly natural and effortless way. And because Mahran's dramaturgy often varies and draws upon a wide range of dramatic traditions, including symbolism, expressionism and the Absurd, as well as farce and popular theatre, and frequently uses literary parody as a satirical strategy, it is well nigh impossible to categorize his works according to the traditional genres. They can, however, be loosely described as manifestations of a form of satirical, magical realism that draws upon many literary and cultural resources and oral folk traditions.Though his most recent play, Habbak Awadein Tamer, currently on at Al-Salam theatre, displays many of the features that characterize his former output, its obvious sunny mood and cheerful outlook seem to set it apart from the rest. Nowhere before has Mahran shown such genial, warm-hearted tolerance towards the objects of his satire, such enjoyment of the pageant of human folly and wickedness, or allowed his wit such free reign for fanciful playfulness. Though it opens in a somber vein, with a funeral in which Habbak, the eponymous hero, mourns his dead father and consists of a series of confrontations with the forces of evil, the whole thing is conducted in a lighthearted vein and the verbal texture constantly bubbles over with carnival laughter, subverting the traditional rules of making sense and, with them, traditional perceptions of reality. After a realistic beginning, the play comes across almost as a fairy tale, not unlike "Jack and the Bean Stalk", and carries echoes from the first scene of Ibsen's Peer Gynt and the adventures of Robin Hood. But Habbak is neither Peer nor Robin; he may be as whimsical and useless as Peer, but he is not without moral scruples, and though he cons the rich out of their ill-begotten wealth to distribute it among the poor, he is not half as brave, or romantic as Robin. An obvious clue to Habbak's character is, perhaps, his full name, which makes up the title of the play. While 'Habbak' means 'plotter' and, together with 'Awadein', strongly indicates a man of the lower classes, of rural origins and most probably uneducated, the last (family) name, 'Tamer', not only solidly places the character in the urban, educated middle classes, but, when coupled with 'Rasha', the name of Habbak's mother (the last name you would expect a woman of her station, birth and education to carry), also suggests a parody of a famous scene in an often televised popular comedy. Thus, the main character is a funny and curious blend who speaks in the broad dialect of Upper Egypt but can suddenly quote from Hamlet and use computer terminology, while his mother, who also speaks the same dialect, can suddenly fly on the wings of fancy to posh sea resorts on the Mediterranean, disorient and baffle her interlocutors by treating the metaphors embedded in proverbs and daily conversation as literal, and speaks of fictional characters in folk tales and popular, television soap operas as real people whom she has known. The same blend of realism, capriciousness and covert parody characterizes the delineation of Mohra (literally, a filly), Habbak's spirited and forward fiancée. Though she chases after him to fix a date for the wedding and literally throws herself at him in a most un-maiden-like way, when she learns that he has seen her in a daydream bare-legged and kissed her in a field of sugarcane she earnestly accuses him of having impregnated her behind her back, hopelessly sinking the dividing lines between dream and reality and subtly mocking similar scenes in old movies. Indeed, the love scenes between Mohra and Habbak are amazingly fresh, delightfully cheeky and boldly erotic in their language and physical action and are among the funniest in the whole of Egyptian drama. For once in Mahran's dramatic world there is no oppressive father figure to cast a long shadow over the action and cripple the characters' wills. Habbak's father here is conveniently and summarily dispatched to the other world before the action begins; moreover, as soon as we see his wife, Habbak's plucky mother, who constantly berates him for his laziness and seems forbiddingly heartless, we realize that he must have been the underdog in this relationship. This is the reason, perhaps, why this play is Mahran's most cheerful and optimistic and why it has such a festive atmosphere. Though the father's death leaves his resentful wife and lazy, unemployed and daydreaming son penniless and at a loss how to provide for themselves, it seems, in the light of what follows, as a liberating force that releases Habbak's imagination from its bondage to mundane reality, frees his creative, artistic energies and enables him to use them to resist and outwit other representatives of patriarchal authority. The sense of liberation extends to the form. After the father's death, the play renounces the traditional laws of dramatic structure, including plot and unity of action, and merrily unfolds as a series of episodic adventures, very much like a picaresque novel or a pilgrim's progress. Each adventure consists of a strange and dangerous encounter. First Habbak meets two farcically fierce Islamic terrorists who try to recruit him to their cause with the promise of money, offering him 10,000 Euros for the head of a foreign infidel, 5,000 for the head of a Muslim who fraternizes with infidels, and 2,000 for the head of any Muslim who pays taxes to the infidel government. Habbak stalls, pleads cowardice and asks for time to prepare himself. But no sooner does he get rid of these terrorists than he finds himself face to face with Beelzebub in a smart suit and with a briefcase stuffed full of money. Beelzebub is delighted when Habbak, after much resistance, succumbs to his temptation to shoot him and steal his money and promptly carries him on his back to visit one of his old and distinguished clients in the hope that the client would convince Habbak to sign a pact with him. The meeting with the corrupt businessman takes place in a prison cell, luxuriously furnished and decorated to look like a suite in a 7-star hotel. Within a few minutes we realize that the whole scene is a comic take on the recent, widely reported court trial in which an Egyptian tycoon was accused of having instigated the murder of a fledgling pop singer when she jilted him for another lover. Here the dialogue, in which the tycoon describes with gloating relish the murder and its victim and reveals the many forms of corruption that penetrate all levels of Egyptian society and make a travesty of the law, takes on a lurid aspect and carries exaggeration to the limits of absurdity. However, the meeting, or 'workshop on the art of wickedness', as the tycoon calls it, briefly succeeds in persuading Habbak to adopt the teachings of the devil and his disciple. Back in Habbak's home, the devil collapses (as he usually does) at the mention of the name of Allah, whereupon Habbak and his mother steal his suit and the gold he wears round his neck and bury him deep into the ground. The devil, however, appears again, this time in the shape of a huge, 3-meter high rag doll with visible breasts and tells them that he has armed himself against any mention of the name of Allah or any verses of the holy Quran by stuffing cotton into his ears. Habbak realizes that if he and his mother carry on the way they are, the devil will keep growing in size and decides that the only way to make him diminish until he disappears is by beating him at his own game and proving that he is more artful. Habbak, however, will not use his wits, his imagination and the art of trickery to promote evil in the world as Beelzebub does, but to fight the wicked and help the needy. He decides to take up playacting, form a small troupe with his mother and fiancée and go among the people, but, unlike professional actors, without letting anyone into the secret. The second part is a veritable feast of con tricks and theatrical disguises. First, Rasha and Mohra disguise themselves as witches on brooms to persuade 'Sheik El-Ghafar' (the local chief of police), whose son harasses Mohra to marry him, to wed this son to the daughter of the 'Omdah' (Chief or Mayor of the village). Next, Habbak plays on the Omdah's greed and tricks him into believing that a certain cow drops gold pieces instead of dung and gives it to him in exchange for 20 pregnant cows, which he distributes among needy families. When the Omdah discovers the trick and asks for his cows back, Habbak claims that they were in fact princes turned into cows by a witch's spell and that he broke the spell and sent them home to their various countries of origin. When the Omdah refuses to believe him and orders his Chief watchman to shoot him, Habbak promptly comes up with another ruse, pretending that the tail of an animal that he takes out of his pocket can bring the dead back to life. In preparation for this ruse he had earlier pretended to stab his mother in the course of a heated argument and now he swings the said tail over her body and, lo and behold, she is alive again. The gullible, power-greedy Omdah is taken in again and pays one million pounds for the magic tail. Finally, dressed as a woman, while his mother and fiancée are disguised as a block of stone and a tree by the road side, Habbak persuades the Omdah that the wicked and ruthless Sheik El-Ghafar is plotting to rob him of his wealth and power and suggests to him to shoot him then bring him back to life with the magic tail by way of chastisement. When the Omdah discovers that he has been tricked again, he howls for Habbak's blood, has him tied and put in a sack and orders two of his guards to hurl him off the top of the highest mountain. Luckily for Habbak, the guards put down the sack for a while and go away to rest and the two terrorists, whom we had seen earlier, fortuitously appear on the scene. Knowing their eagerness for the delights and pleasures of paradise, for which they are ready to kill and rob, Habbak pretends to be arguing with an angel who insists on taking him up to the Garden of Eden. When the two terrorists hear this, they are eager to replace him inside the sack and fight over who should have this privilege. They end up one dead and the other inside the sack, waiting to be hurled off the mountain. Back at home, Habbak discovers that his art and good deeds have caused the huge rag doll representing Beelzebub to shrink to a tiny size. Confronting it, he says: "See how small you have become! You're really nothing. It's people who make you big and fat and cause you to put on mounds of flesh. But your flesh is mere garbage, like the garbage you feed on and that keeps you alive." Director Galal Osman did his best to match the imaginative power and effervescent spirit of Mahran's text and came up with a production that reflected in almost every aspect its charm, festive air and fairytale atmosphere. Abdel-Mon'im's designs for the sets and costumes took their inspiration from folk art and children's drawings and were at once simple in outline, heavily ornate in texture and literally bursting with colour. Ali Sa'd's music, Mahmoud Gom'a's lyrics and Magdi El-Zaqaziqi's choreography were equally simple and lively and similarly drew on Upper Egyptian and rural folk sources. But the most powerful element in this production and the one that really did full justice to the text was the acting. Mohamed Riad (as Habbak), Layla Taher (as Rasha, his mother) and Samah El-Sa'id (as Mohra, his fiancée) gave a dazzling ensemble performance, like a trio of seasoned, expert musicians playing different instruments in absolute harmony. They performed with zest, obvious enjoyment, technical virtuosity and immaculate precision, fully entering into the spirit of the play and giving the right feel and tone of every scene. As Habbak, Mohamed Riad had the bigger part of the burden, and he carried it with amazing competence, stunning stamina and masterful control, revealing the real scope of his great talent as he has never done before. Khalid El-Nagdi (as the jailed tycoon), Magdi Subhi (as Beelzebub), Yusef Dawood (as the Odmah), Gamil Aziz (as Sheikh El-Ghafar), and Ahmed Yusef and Mahmoud Hassan (as the two terrorists) assisted this wonderful trio, giving vivid, finely tuned performances. This would have been really a fabulous show had not Galal Osman overdone the musical element that seemed at points to obstruct the rapid flow of the comedy and slow down its galloping rhythm.
