Take your pick

Nehad Selaiha previews shows on offer at the 13th Cairo International Festival (CIFET) for Experimental Theatre which opens on 1 September
Facing the CIFET timetable, which lists over 60 productions from countries as far flung as China and Argentina squashed in 10 days, and with some sporting enigmatic, quizzical, or beguiling names, meant to trap the novice or unwary festival-goer, one usually feels at a loss where to go and what to see. If you decide to seek help from the festival catalogue (that is if you are lucky enough to get one), you will find yourself wading through a morass of vague or highfalutin verbiage that tells you little of what you are likely to see -- things like, "this performance takes you through a journey that delves deep into the human soul as well as the realms of the universe," or "this performance depicts cases of internal fragmentation in all the characters," or "this play is an artistic reaction against the vocabulary of the new world order called globalization presented from an experimental perspective which destroys all known dramatic techniques throughout history!" No wonder a lot of festival-goers prefer to play it safe and opt for shows from world famous companies (though we rarely get those), or from countries with long- established or exotic theatrical traditions, or works with familiar titles, like Hamlet or Macbeth, even though many of them know better by now than to expect anything remotely resembling the original. For one who is not the adventurous sort, or too polite to leave a show halfway through and dash out to catch the last 15 minutes of another, tips can be helpful and are usually sought. However, they are never 100 per cent safe and it is, therefore, always wise to remember that tastes can wildly differ, and that one man's meat can be another man's poison. It is with this warning in mind that you should receive the tips I am about to give you.
Of the Egyptian shows I was able to see in rehearsal, I can safely recommend three. Al Hanager's Phaedra, or The Lady of Secrets (originally, Meta- Phaedra), is a new anti-patriarchy, anti-US reading of the old Greek myth in which the father is a vain philanderer who, in one thunderous, megalomaniac harangue, identifies himself as the sole, super, mightiest and richest power in the world. Unlike king Theseus in the myth or in Euripides's Hippolytus, he dies while away from home; but just as Phaedra, who chafes at the marriage bit and finds him thoroughly disgusting, is about to breathe a sigh of relief, he pops up again, like the proverbial bad penny, on a short leave from the underworld to punish her and his son. Phaedra kills herself with poison not out of fear, shame, or guilt, but, rather, because she finds life with the likes of her husband in charge unbearably dull and boring. As for the son, Hippolytus, rather than have Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea destroy him on the father's orders as happens in the myth, Mohamed Abul Suood leaves the audience to decide his fate. Opening with funerary rites and a quote from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, asking them to rise for the final judgment, the play ends with Phaedra's old nurse, presented as a clairvoyant, asking the audience, having listened to the characters innermost thoughts, to give their verdict by offering each member, in turn, a choice between a dagger and a candle.
Though deeply rebellious in outlook and intent (subversive, some would call it) and, by Egyptian standards, shockingly outspoken about sexual passion and flagrantly iconoclastic about marriage and the family structure, Abul Suood's Meta-Phaedra is very poetic and lyrical. Made up of a string of internal monologues, or soliloquies, interspersed with the nurse's comments and incantations, it has no dialogue in the real sense. But as the monologues rise and ebb, flow in and recede, intersecting, overlapping and counterpointing each other, a subtle dramatic tension of the kind we experience in music is generated and delicately builds up to the rhythm of the sea. Visually absent from the set, the sea is nevertheless vividly evoked in the text and its pervasive presence (a clear throwback to the legend and to Hippolytus's horrible death on the rocky shore) lends a sombre atmosphere to the setting, like an enveloping sense of doom, constantly sounding a tragic note in the background. Though time and place are left deliberately vague, the characters keep their original Greek names, which link them firmly to the past, while making pointed references to the present: Hades, or the underworld, exists side by side with McDonald's, Marlboro cigarettes and coffee machines. The performance soundtrack, arranged by Tamer Said from a number of CDs provided by the author, including the Kurdish Astrakan Café by Anouar Brahem, the French N'oublie pas, by René Aubry, Japanese music by Kitaro Moudilla, and Indian music by the Supramaniam troupe, as well as music from North Africa, is equally ambitious, encompassing many cultures and ages, and is quite fascinating in an eerie sort of way. As a director- turned-playwright, Abul Suood has been wonderfully thorough, scripting the movement, music, set and props in his text, down to the smallest detail. While such texts which seem to cover every aspect of the performance usually incense directors, making them feel redundant, Hani El-Mettenawi, a gifted actor and dancer who has worked with Abul Suood for many years, helping him found and run his Shrapnel independent theatre troupe and starring in many of his productions, seems happy enough to follow the author's instructions in his debut as director. But this is far from being slavish following; it is, rather, an instance of deep friendship, mutual understanding and shared sensibility, bolstered by years of working and fighting together to create the kind of theatre they like.
With a strong cast, featuring Nora Amin as Phaedra, Hanan Yusef as the nurse, Mohamed Shindi as Theseus and Hani El-Metennawi as Hippolytus, an effective colour-scheme ranging from cream to brown and exploding into deep wine-red in Phaedra's revealing dress, an austere economy in props, and an intimate set (by Ibrahim Ghareeb) shared by the actors and audience, and consisting of a small room with dark walls and only one door and one window for openings, Meta- Phaedra is likely to prove a rich, provocative and emotionally charged experience. But if you decide to go, try to be there in plenty of time before the show starts, since Phaedra's room can only accommodate 60 spectators at a time.
Ahmad El-Attar's A Trip to Nowhere: A Cairene Tour for Tourists and Lovers is also a safe bet and promises you not only theatrical excitement, but an actual tour of Zamalek on a real bus as well. This is not the first time El-Attar and his Temple independent theatre troupe set a play in a bus, using it as both performance space and auditorium. They did it a few years ago during one CIFET and got a rave review from a British critic who declared their show, which played on the festival fringe and was not even listed in its schedule or catalogue, the best in the whole festival. The first time, however, the bus remained stationary. The decision to get it moving this time was neither a gimmick nor a sensational stunt, but a dramatic necessity and an essential part of the story. The play is about time and change in contemporary Egypt and how they affect places and human relationships. As the bus moves round Zamalek, the female guide will point out to her passenger-audience some places and buildings, talk about their history, revealing the changes that have come over this part of Cairo in recent history and its social connotations. But together with the history of Zamalek, the audience will gradually discover the personal history of the guide and the male driver who were once in love but were unable to cope with the difficulties and complications which beset the majority of young Egyptian couples when they decide to get married. The two histories, the local and personal, will intertwine and offset each other with the aid of video projections on two television sets on the bus, flashing images of the same people and places in the past. It is a brilliant conception in which the physical movement of the bus effects the transformation of the real into the theatrical by making the streets part of the dramatic world, the virtual reality of the play and its setting and makes the audience at once real passengers on a guided tour, and festival-goers, playing at being passengers, and driven around and guided by two people who share the same dual real/imaginary status. You cannot get closer to blurring the barriers between fact and fiction, reality and theatrical fabrication than that. A few years ago, a 10-minute play, taking place in a car, with two actors in the front seats and three spectators squashed in the back, looking on over their shoulders and literally breathing down their necks caused a sensation at the Louisville theatre festival held annually by Jon Jory's Actor's Theatre. Could that be the next step for El-Attar and his Temple troupe?
Khaled Galal, who was once an active member of the free theatre movement, formally announced in 1990, and had his own independent troupe, Encounter, before he was snapped up by the Ministry of Culture, sent to Italy for a year and a half, then put in charge of the state Youth theatre company, also has something promising. With a natural predilection for parody and burlesque, shared by many of his generation, and a knack for vivacious visual effects and lively stage business, he often gravitates to the classics, particularly Shakespeare, producing delicious parodies which rather than denigrate or reduce the originals, reveal a profound admiration and love for them. His earlier Shakespeare One Two, which encapsulated four tragedies -- Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet -- into vivid, brief sketches, like portraits painted with a few, bold brush strokes, was particularly impressive in the Hamlet sequence. It was a highly imaginative visual and aural composition which presented the play as one might experience it in a nightmare, with the characters splitting into two or three replicas, then merging or suddenly changing identities, the same scene replayed by different actors, the grave-diggers, no longer clowns, present all the time on stage, the murder of the king replayed in flashes over and over and Ophelia repeatedly dragged screaming to the grave, and all this to the sound of screaming, howling, manic laughter, unearthly groans, clanking chains and echoes of jumbled bits of the dialogue and of Hamlet's soliloquies.
In the present work, Hamlet Junction, Galal reverts to his favourite Shakespearean play, but in a lighter mood, projecting the hero in different ages, ranging from medieval times to the future and in places as widely varied as Denmark and Upper Egypt. It is Hamlet seen through the eyes of a group of actors in the present who are not above using music hall numbers and routines, modern dance, cinema, the shadow play, the puppet show and the traditional art of the popular story-teller to present their various readings of the play and views of its hero.
Of the other Egyptian shows, and I know of at least another 18, likely to swell to 20, Intisar Abdel- Fattah's The Bridegroom of Dust is worth looking at. It is another of his polyphonic, ritualistic, music- dance-and-poetry pieces, based this time on the Greek legend of Antigone -- a story which revolves round two burials (beginning with Antigone's attempts to bury her brother's corpse and ending with herself being buried alive by Creon for her disobedience) and, therefore, allows him plenty of scope to exploit the long and rich Egyptian tradition of mourning, lamentation and burial ceremonies and rituals. As in his previous Faust, which won the relatively unknown Sami El-Adl, who played Mephisto, the best actor award in the 1999 CIFET, Abdel-Fattah entrusted the choreography to the gifted Samya Allouba and has roped in for the speaking parts two prestigious actors, Hassan Abdel-Hamid, who got a mention from the jury in a previous CIFET for his part a King Lear in a musical version by Abdel-Fattah , and Samira Abdel- Aziz, who starred in Kohl Pillow, which won him the best performance award in another CIFET. Also worth a look is Walid Aouni's Life Jacket Under The Seat, performed by the Opera Modern Dance Company, unless of course you have already seen it in the spring, during the French/Egyptian modern dance festival at Gumhouria theatre.
Of the guest shows, I am sure many will want to see China's Farewell My Concubine, based on the novel by Lilian Lee which also inspired the film version directed by Chen Keige which won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1993. If you have seen the film, you may wonder like me how such a rambling epic, which spans 50 years, using the entire modern history of China as a backdrop to a complex relationship between two Peking Opera stars, of whom one is a homosexual in love with the other who is married to a prostitute, can be tailored to fit the stage. One may not like it after the film, but it can never be a complete washout. Whatever the quality of the adaptation, one can always enjoy the music and revel in the visual splendour of the traditional Chinese elaborate costumes, make-up and stylized dance and movement. A feast for the eyes, it is sure to be; but for the content, one has to wait and see.
Another guest show I wouldn't miss is Denmark's The Castle of Holestebro, an internationally famous one-woman show from the repertoire of the prestigious Odin Teatret, written and acted by Julia Varley and directed by the Odin-founder, the great Eugenio Barba himself. Having seen the Varley and Barba Dona Musica and her Butterflies at the Wallace earlier this year when the AUC invited the couple to do a workshop with its theatre students and Egyptian artists and present a play, I was completely enchanted with their brand of theatre and said so on this page at the time. Mr Peanut, a puppet created by Varley many years ago, representing a cynical old jester with a skull for a head, burst upon the scene at the end of Dona Musica, sporting an enormous blue butterfly on his chest, and grinning and dancing; the effect was fantastic -- a real, thrilling coup de theatre if there is one; it recovered for me something I had been badly missing in the theatre for a long time -- a sense of wonder. Mr Peanut will be coming with Varley to share her magical castle of Holestebro, and I just cannot wait to present myself there.
Varley's other contribution to the festival is in the field of directing. Seeds of Memory, is another one- woman show, from Argentina, written and acted by Ana Wolf and directed by Varley who passionately supports female theatre artists and will help them anywhere in whatever way she can. I saw this show in Germany last summer; it is a very moving autobiographical play about a young woman (Ana herself) who remembers her childhood which was haunted by the shadows of so many people -- relatives, friends and neighbors -- suddenly disappearing after being taken away by the police during the worst years of military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s. She uses a few simple props (candles, a sheet of cloth, a tape-recorder, black garbage bags in which she stuffs her head, and a couple of still projections) to reenact stirring scenes from her childhood and early youth, and in one scene evokes the silent march of the bereaved mothers of the missing round the palace of the dictator, stamping their feet and wearing white scarves. The pain and anguish permeating this scene was almost unbearable, burning itself into the mind. Every thing was genuine and every word had the ring of truth. One sentence, however, made me literally gasp; it said that the military have managed to achieve the impossible: they have succeeded in killing death. It was too cruelly ironical, meaning that those who disappear can neither be ranked among the living or the dead and their mothers and friends are forever deprived of the comfort of mourning them or the hope of meeting them again. Ana tours with this show a lot in places similar to Argentina in those horrible days and tells me it touches a deep chord everywhere. I am sure it will do the same here.
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