Nora Armani is talented, determined and ready to strike back: Youssef Rakha joins her on the multinational couch The last newsworthy event in Nora Armani's life took place in mid- June last year. Both before and after this date, the Armenian-Egyptian actress received attention in the Egyptian press. Yet it was not until December, during a brief sojourn in her birthplace, that Armani's theatrical activities became relevant to the Egyptian stage. The idea is simple: to bring her acclaimed, one-woman show, hitherto performed successfully in both French and English, to Cairo. Carrying it out, a process in which she is currently engaged, is rather more complicated. It involves both translating the text into an approachable colloquial and locating one or more suitable performance venues. Contacts are being made, as yet unspecified plans are underway. Notwithstanding the personal, nostalgic motivation behind that last visit, Armani's presence in Cairo was focussed on facilitating the project. "Once I can," she insisted, "I will." And so, one feels, she should. Judging by reviews, reports, commentaries and Armani's own expansive account, On the Couch with Nora Armani, the performance in question (written and directed by Armani herself) -- even if it requires a significant modification or two -- will readily lend itself to Egyptianising. Itself a distillation of an Armenian human being's life journey, the play crystallises both Armani's ongoing, multifaceted career in performance and, in its own oblique, fictionalised way, the circumstances of her life. Armani had performed widely, often in specifically Armenian contexts, participating in American, French, Czech, Lebanese and Egyptian films, many of which were screened at festivals and/or won awards. She performed in European and Egyptian classics (Shakespeare, Tchekov, Molière, Tawfik El- Hakim) as well as popular plays, including the (Egyptianised) musical, The King and I, starring Mohamed Sobhi. In 2000 Nannto Nannto, her own concoction of words and music, was successfully launched at the Theatre des Dechargeurs, in Paris, travelling to Venice later in the year. On the Couch sums up a predicament very like Armani's own. Themes of identity, displacement and the ever-present search for a viable home predominate this humourous tale of love and history, relying as it does on the concept of audience interaction. A middle-aged émigrée, in the course of reminiscing about her early life, has suddenly spotted her lover -- a spontaneously selected member of the audience -- in the vicinity; they have been separated for 15 years. The search for identity assumes the guise of a series of love affairs, through which the woman -- a Cairo-born Armenian from the Diaspora -- attempts to locate herself, finding an emotional home. This particular man is a Scots aristocrat, and in stark contrast to the woman's his lineage extends, uninterrupted, 900 years back. At one point, addressing him, jealous of his stately, historically rooted family identity, she decides to construct, on the spot, a comparable family tree. Yet Armani's lineage is as geographically varied as her sense of self is indefinite; and her story, while managing to be interesting and absorbing, is the story of the Armenian Diaspora dressed up as that struggling, laden and multinational actress. Autobiographical in essence, On the Couch starts with Armani growing up in Cairo, the culturally vital atmosphere of the 1960s. Progressing from the American University in Cairo, she completed her degree in sociology and theatre at the University of California at Los Angeles, struggling to install herself in Hollywood, where, it turned out, she did not seem to fit into any category on the cast lists of 1970s directors. An MSc, subsequently earned from the University of London, brings the London of the 1980s into the picture. But Armani's wanderings do not end there. Instead she traces her forebears' journey from Istanbul to Anatolia. Pursued by Turkish forces, who perpetuated the Armenian genocide, Armani's grandfather boarded the first ship he could; and it landed him, by accident, in Alexandria. Failing to "find herself" in the Scottish Highlands, Armani eventually moved to Paris -- or back to London, depending on where the performance happens to be taking place. Indeed it was on the New End Theatre stage, in London, that Armani's success was confirmed. On the Couch was immediately hailed as "an insightful if understated piece of theatre," "written and performed with tremendous energy" that manages, with no props except for the unassuming couch of the title, to "fill the stage"; in it Armani gives "an enlightening performance". It was at this time, in June, that news of the play, previously staged in French, began to reach Cairo. By December, the idea of creating an Egyptian version was firmly established in its author's mind. "It makes perfect sense," Armani explained, "because so much of the subject matter happens here. People would immediately recognise the references and the atmosphere." Cairo may not be the only home, she conceded, but it is the first home; certainly insofar as it is possible to be anything other than a displaced Armenian Armani feels herself to be Egyptian. And a large part of the attention she was paid in the Egyptian press derives from the conviction that this hour- and-a-half-long performance really is relevant to Egypt. Armani's grandfather and grandmother, wrote Ahmed Youssef, reviewing a Paris performance in Al-Ahram Al- Dawli, "found in Egypt a climate that welcomed Armenians, among whom were celebrated politicians who played a vital role in Egypt's contemporary history, the most famous being Nobarian whom we know as Nobar Pasha... Nora presents in her play... the warmth of these days, the accumulation of images and thoughts in the minds of Egyptian- Armenians who are forever trying to play a part that would demonstrate their genius... In the field of art we have Nelly and Lebleba down to Anoushka, and in the press we have Saroukhan and others. Nora speaks for all these against the backdrop of Um Kulthoum's voice at the height of the Suez War, the Tripartite Aggression following the nationalisation of the Suez Canal". Unlike other minorities, many Armenians stayed on during the reign of Nasser. It was not until the rise of Sadat's open- door policy in the 1970s that Armenians like Aramani began to flock to the West; in Armani's case, at least, it was as much in search of a more liberated framework for practicing art as, desperately, of identity. And it is in this sense that it seems merely logical, if remarkably poetic, that, having achieved such success in France and England, Armani should want to bring her performance to Cairo. While she flicked from one meeting to another, teasing security people, observing the transformations that beset favourite settings since she had last been here, she seemed confident that an Arabic On the Couch would be well received. What remains to be seen is whether the as yet rather restrictive dynamics of the Egyptian theatrical world will permit the plans in which she is currently engaged to fall through. Once here, On the Couch will likely stand up to the challenge of provoking emotions and engaging minds. Whether the interaction will in the end prove more positive than negative or vice versa, however, only remains to be seen.
