Puzzled, shocked, bemused, or so Nehad Selaiha finds most of the Egyptian shows taking part in this year's CIFET Click to view caption Why should anyone want to watch a modern dance show where all the dancers are for the most part carefully hidden under a huge green cloth and only fitfully seen in silhouette? Only Walid Aouni could dare do such a thing and get away with it. The first time I saw his Underground, I kept expecting the dancers to cast off this slimy looking green thing and emerge into the light. They never did; the only thing one saw of them, apart from their swaying, rising and falling bodies under the cloth, were arms, thrust through little holes and waving serpent-like. Occasionally, a rag doll would emerge, or the hands would turn into little palm trees, or sprout pistols pointed at the hidden heads, or hold up miniature models of the world trade centre in the face of a barrage of little paper airplanes shooting from the wings. The sight of stage hands, dressed like monks, with a faint suggestion of something Pharaonic about their postures and general demeanour, was a welcome relief. What could Aouni be thinking of carving a show out of absence? Was it another sadistic manifestation of the age-old hatred of directors and choreographers towards actors and dancers? Or was it a sign of infinite love? Of that impossible dream of making the dancer into the dance? A line from T S Eliot's East Coker in The Four Quartets floated in my head: "The dancers are all gone under the hill." Was it this that made me revisit Aouni's Underground? I honestly do not know. It is one of those rare shows that puzzle and irritate you and yet keep tugging at your nerve cells. There was something about that big green sheet, the rag doll and paper rockets which took me back to the distant, long- forgotten world of the nursery. The sense of security one enjoyed under warm bed sheets... the protection, and the many games we played. And the echoes of big disasters, menacing but not fully comprehended, which sent us scrambling under those sheets. Was Aouni giving us a view of what we must have looked like to all those grown-ups around us when we were children? When at the end of the show Aouni threw himself on stage and squirmed his way under the green cloth to join his dancers it was a moment of overwhelming pathos. The child in all of us, who never leaves us however old we grow, was there and opting out of our murderous, insane grown-up world. "O dark, dark, dark. They all go into the dark." another Eliot echo. Was Underground a swan song? But Aouni is nearly 50. Why should Hani Ghanem, who is still in his early 30s play a variation on the same theme? His Natural Man is yet another of his reworkings of Peter Handke's Kaspar which has obsessed him since the beginning of his career as actor, dramaturg and director in 1990. This is his third version of the same play and by far the best in terms of subtlety, cunning allusion, immaculate rhythm and poignant imagery. The boy lost in the forest, who grew up with animals, is hauled into civilisation to be destroyed. A simple story, but the way Hani presented it makes it into an absurd and at once heart-searing epic of the history of humanity. The setting is again a parody of the last supper, ironically manipulated. This is an image which seems to haunt Hani; but the table here is a symbol of civilised living, where the forks and knives should be properly placed, as the hilarious soundtrack, in five different languages, pontificates. Christ is evoked through a mock baptism ritual when a trap door in the middle of the table is suddenly opened and Hani dips into what sounds like a water filled basin. Baptism or ablution, it works both ways. Then the table turns into a rail track as Hani lifts the top boards and wheels in a double potter's wheel, with a lump of recalcitrant clay, and ends up, himself, being wheeled around like a piece of clay. But what is it about Peter Handke that seems to attract young Egyptian theatre makers? Abeer Ali's The Square: A Sketch, a close runner to represent Egypt in the festival contest, was based on a recently translated Handke play, published in the Egyptian theatre magazine. Of the original play Abeer took only the concept and general framework. What you get to see is a devastatingly funny cartoon strip of Egyptian life viewed from a street café. The musicians and singers sit next to you; you are allowed to smoke if you like, drink tea or coffee and chat with your neighbour while the actors flit in and out in the big square, giving you satirical snapshots of a wonderful variety. The laughter, however, has a dark edge to it and a bitter, acrid taste. Sitting at this café can land you with a case of chronic depression. Sherif Subhi's Shakespearean Intimations was a mind-boggling pot pouri in which Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth were kneaded together to form a not too palatable pie. For the three plays we had three Hamlets, three Othellos and three Macbeths, all echoing each other while the chorus dangled and swung on ropes and trapezes. On the other hand, Sameh Mahran decided to deconstruct King Lear in a play called The Last Rehearsal. Lear was the star of the show, ogling all his daughters, particularly Cordelia, who, rather than marry the King of France, teams up with a seedy intellectual from down town Cairo and comes back to get her revenge. Lear's fool was, who else? The director (played by Sherif Subhi of the dreadful Intimations) and Edgar, Edmund, Glouster and the rest were rolled into the figure of a down at heel impresario. And since the topic of the festival's symposium this year was the western dramatic model (as prescribed by the much maligned Aristotle) and its beneficial or pernicious influence upon theatre worldwide, it was quite expected that you would get a lot of Egyptian shows that delved into the sacrosanct heritage, trotting out the Qaraqoz, the Ghaziyya and the Muhabazatiyah (street players). In this direction Saleh Saad's A Bag of Tales, Ahmad Halawa's When The Cock Crows, and Mohamed Mahdi's The Suitcase were brave attempts.
