Nehad Selaiha had a theatrical treat before the year came to an end It seems 2009 was reluctant to depart without giving me one final, delightful performance by way of a farewell present. That this delightful performance took place at the most unlikely and least propitious of venues only added to the excitement. I would never have thought that a low budget production of an Egyptianized version of Friedrich Durrenmatt?s The Visit could work so well on a rough, makeshift stage, set up in the open air, in mid December, in an obscure, out of the way, draughty theatrical hole, with only the most primitive of technical equipment. Granted Egyptian winters are mild; still, sitting on a stiff and hard chair for over 2 hours in the late evening, in the open courtyard of Manf hall in Agouza, is not exactly what one would call a pleasant experience, or one conducive to good theatrical reception. Nevertheless, in this particular case, one soon forgot the cold and creeping numbness, the poor and shabby surroundings and the tatty stage sets and completely surrendered to the magic of the performance. Rendered into Arabic for the first time in 1966 (by Anis Mansour who first introduced Durrenmatt to Egyptian readers with a translation of Romulus the Great in 1964, followed by The Visit and The Meteor in ?66, then The Physicists, An Angel Comes to Babylon, Hercules and the Augean Stables, The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi and Play Strindberg in subsequent years), The Visit was staged the same year by Samir El-Asfouri for the ?World Theatre? company that has long disappeared. It surfaced again in 1992 at the Opera house, in an adapted version by Yusri Khamis, directed by Mohamed Subhi. Unfortunately, I was abroad at the time and missed it; but by all reports and on the evidence of the many rave reviews it received, it seems to have been a sumptuously spectacular, fat- budget production in which the great Sanaa Gamil starred as the vengeful old millionairess Claire Zachanassian who, nemesis-like, descends upon her old hometown after years of absence to seek retribution for a past wrong and, Mephisto- like, seduces its people into bartering their souls for worldly goods, while former Comedie Francaise actor Gamil Rateb played Alfred Ill, the old lover who disgraced her and jilted her in favour of a richer wife, becoming the object of her revenge. Their two performances were summed up as simply riveting. Though the current Cultural Palaces production of the play, directed by Mohsen Hilmi for the Cairo-based El-Samer company, cannot begin to compare in terms of budget, facilities and casting with the 1992 one, which had the whole Opera house technical arsenal behind it, it is also an adaptation, this time by Mahmoud Gom?a (who also provided the lyrics). As such, it embodies, as one supposes all adaptations do, a particular reading of Durrenmatt?s 1956 text and it would have been interesting to compare this 2009 take on the play with the earlier 1992 one and gauge their topical relevance to their respective historical moments. Sadly, I cannot tell what the general mood was like in El-Asfouri?s and Subhi?s versions, or what message, or messages, it ultimately transmitted from the stage; but in Hilmi?s case the spirit of cynicism was rampant, deepening the gloom of this black, bleak comedy and giving laughter an acrid, bitter taste. The adaptation here did not stop at making the changes one usually expects when a story is transposed to another country and/or culture, like the change of location from Durrenmantt?s Gullen to an equally, if not more impoverished small town in rural Egypt and replacing the names of places and characters, the local references and the titles of the leading townspeople with modern Egyptian equivalents. Though it stuck to the plot, kept the same scene order more or less and loosely followed the general drift of the parts of the dialogue that were kept, the adaptation cut out some scenes, abridged or merged others, removing many details and moral deliberations in the interest of condensing the action into two hours, quickening its pace and, above all, foregrounding the directorial conception. This policy, not unexpectedly perhaps, resulted in simplifying all the townspeople in varying degrees, robbing most of any human depth or sympathetic traits they might have had in the original, and generally turning them into grotesque caricatures. Indeed, from the very first scene, this adaptation seemed intent on taking Durrenmatt?s characters several moral pegs down, divesting them of any saving graces and focusing their inherent greed, corruption, bigotry, hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. And no where was this more apparent than in the character of Alfred Ill (here called Sayed) who comes across as a crooked businessman and unconscionable opportunist, in cahoots with the greedy and thoroughly corrupt local administration, particularly the head of the local council whose cast-off mistress he marries in exchange for shady business deals and being given a free hand in the market. Soon enough we realize that the town to which the rich Zachanassian (here called ?Sumayya?, with the honorary title ?Hanem? obsequiously added by the townspeople) comes back in this Egyptian version is already a moral cesspool that deserves what is coming to it and where no one is worthy of sympathy. Rather than a town being corrupted by a visitor from the past, the spectacle we watch in this adaptation is of a world completely overrun by evil beyond any hope of redemption ? a world in which only mock sacrificial rituals are possible, and where the human sacrifices offered at the altar of Mammon are themselves ardent Mammon-worshippers and former officiators at such ceremonies. This bleak vision, as much the director?s as the adaptor?s (Mohsen Hilmi is known for collaborating closely with dramaturges over any adaptations he directs) was ironically underlined by the words of the string of short songs that punctuated the performance during the set changes, acting as a commentary on the action. These songs, set to music and earnestly delivered by Salah Mustafa, spoke yearningly of a distant time in the past when people were kinder and more humane ? presumably a time that predates the injustice committed against Sumayya Hanem and her stoning out of the town while pregnant by its ruthless inhabitants. Given what was happening on stage, before one?s very eyes, and what was being revealed about this town and its people, it was almost impossible to imagine that such a golden age ever really existed, and the incredulity served to deepen the irony. Besides the songs, Mohsen Hilmi also inserted some dances, choreographed by Ahmed Yunis, to add more local colour and process his gloomy comment on Egypt today in the form of a popular musical. This approach is typical of Hilmi as director.Popular theatre is his fort, but a popular theatre with a difference. Throughout his career, which spans close on thirty years, he has tackled serious political and existential issues using a variety of Arabic and foreign dramatic texts and turning them into lively popular spectacles that draw on a medley of theatrical traditions, including expressionism, Brecht?s epic theatre, Egyptian folklore and old comic conventions. His productions of Mahfouz Abdel Rahman?s Arees li Bint Al-Sultan (A Bridegroom for the Sultan?s Daughter), Saadallah Wannus?s Rihlat Hanzala (Hanzala?s Journey), Mohamed El-Fiel?s Daqit Zar (The Zar Beat), Alfred Farag?s Al-Nar wa Al-Zaytoun (Fire and the Olive Branch), Brecht?s The Three Penny Opera, which he reset in Alexandria between the Wars, not to mention his production of Peer Gynt, which ran through the summer of 2007 in Alexandria, drawing huge audiences, then moved to the Balloon theatre in Cairo in early November the same year for a further 3-week run, are all enduring masterpieces to which we can safely add this recent production of The Visit. Smoothness, ebullience, variety and meticulous coordination are hallmarks of Hilmi?s style, as well as careful casting and harmonious ensemble acting. He works hard on getting the best out of his actors, even in the silent parts, and gives minor characters, and even the extras in crowd scenes, as much attention as the major ones, insisting that they come across visually individualized and vividly detailed. This is why he needs no stars and can put together a wonderful show using whatever actors are available, even if they are amateurs or semi-professionals, so long as they can fit the part and are willing to submit to his rigorous guidance and put in the amount of hard work he demands. In the present production, except for the parts of the millionairess and her old paramour, for which he contracted Azza El-Husseini and Mahmoud Mas?oud (both extremely competent and experienced actors but hardly what you would call stars), all the parts were played by members of El-Samer Company, all of whom are virtually unknown. And they did very well indeed, with Mohamed Haggag, as the head of the local council, and Tariq Anwar, as his sycophantic assistant, forming a curious comic duet, at once hilariously funny, bitingly satirical and deeply, disturbingly menacing, Mohamed Zakariyya, Alfred Kamal and Mohamed El-Farran, as the trio of timid, ineffectual, corrupt officials, providing choral accompaniment to them and Magda Sha?baan as Ill?s (or Sayed?s) loudmouthed, ruthlessly self-seeking and slyly scheming wife. In the scene that leads to the public meeting where her husband is coldly murdered in the town square Magda Sha?baan was positively frightening in an uncanny sort of way. Another virtue of Hilmi?s is his ability to make a little budget go a long way, suggesting simple but effective solutions to his stage-designers and manipulating the lights to cover up the cheapness of the sets and invest them with emotional tone and atmosphere. The sets in this version of The Visit (the work of stage-designer Mohamed Hashim) are ample proof of such resourcefulness and artistic ingenuity. Building the stage in front of the two majestic trees in the courtyard of Manf hall provided a suitable rural background, and an enchanting one at that, without the cost of a penny. For the rest of the scenes, a curtain that could be drawn at a touch, a light, mobile cubic construction, a few written signs and some props sufficed to indicate changes of location. The rest was left to his lighting plan. Watching the work of the director in this show, the way he orchestrated his actors and turned disadvantages into assets was quite invigorating; by effectively reaffirming the power of artistic dedication it counteracted the pervasive cynicism and gloomy pessimism of the offered vision, leaving us with a tiny ray of hope at the end of a bloody and violent year.
