Inspired by the stamina and dedication of regional theatre troupes, Nehad Selaiha nonetheless has some dark forebodings With tens of thousands of bearded, white garbed and fierce-looking Salafis thronging Tahrir Sqaure, ferried there by buses from all over the country, accompanied by hordes of Mutanaqibat (women completely covered in black, including their hands and faces), all violently waving religious symbols and roaring chants that hoarsely denounced liberals and secularists as 'the enemies of God', a large, prominently placed poster, menacingly sporting photos of the leaders of Al-Qaida, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood, huge banners carrying fiery slogans, threatening doom gloom to all opponents of Salafism and a virtual forest of black and other alien-looking flags filling the sky over Tahrir Square, 29 July (originally intended and billed as a "Friday of Unity" among all political factions) was simply a black Friday, worse than a nightmare. One particularly sickening, ominous banner, in the form of an Islamist version of the Egyptian flag, with the golden eagle removed from the centre of the middle, white strip and replaced with an inscription of the Islamic shehada (the profession of Islamic faith that: "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet"), seemed to hijack not only the revolution, but the whole country as well, unconstitutionally, arbitrarily and quite flagrantly stripping non-Muslim Egyptians of their national identity, history and rights of birth and giving them no choice but to depart or convert; leave, or believe, was the message. In this shocking, criminal banner was visually and vividly echoed what many Salafi Imams have been preaching, with impunity, from pulpits all over the country for months �ê" indeed, since the 19 March referendum on the constitutional amendments. Having religiously manipulated the voting among the poor and illiterate in favour of a Yes vote that would lead to immediate parliamentary elections, which they believed would bring them to power, nicknaming their campaign 'Ghazwat Al-Sanadeeq' (raid of the ballot boxes), they willfully went on to misinterpret and misrepresent the referendum result, which, more than anything else, really reflected the fear and anxiety of the silent majority �ê" those whose lives had been disrupted and livelihoods threatened by the revolution, counter-revolution, collapse of security and subsequent lawlessness and, therefore, ardently wished for a quick return to normality, law and civic order �ê" as a clear mandate from the population to establish Islamic rule in Egypt. The performance of the Salafis on that black Friday was terrifying to watch �ê" a rude. naked show of force and muscle-flexing that dispelled the last remnants of any illusions any self-deluded Egyptian liberal or secularist might still have foolishly harboured about possible compromises with the extremist Islamic political factions and raised grim forebodings, not only about the future of culture and the arts in Egypt, of freedom of thought, belief and expression, but also about the rights of women, Copts, minority religious groups and freethinkers. For weeks afterwards, the religious mania displayed on that day and the bleakness of the future prospect it so frenziedly forecast seemed to paralyze me, infect every activity with fear, doubt and a sense of futility and swing me between extremes of anxiety and despair. I bitterly thought, remembering some lines from John Donne's The First Anniversary, that while 25 January "drew the strongest vital spirits out', it, unfortunately 'succoured them with" nothing better than "a perplexed doubt." With John Donne's poem still on my mind, it struck me as ironical that I should feel at a time when the light of reason seemed in danger of being soon snuffed out just as he had felt at the dawn of the age of science and enlightenment; but I did. Like him, I felt that all was "in pieces, all coherence gone." There was a difference however: while he had believed that "no man's wit" could "well direct him where to look for it", meaning his lost sun and earth, I, with my woman's wit, knew where I could look for light and warmth. Where else but at a play! Unfortunately, however, it was nearly the beginning of Ramadan, when theatres normally shut for at least two weeks, if not for the whole month. Nor had I seen any theatre since the middle of July. Two days before it was due to start, the National Egyptian Theatre Festival scheduled for 17 to 27 July was peremptorily cancelled for security reasons on orders from high above. I was not surprised; the annual Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (CIFET), the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's Creative Forum for Mediterranean and European Independent Theatre Groups, the French Cultural Centre's Festival des Jeunes Createurs, the Modern Dance Theatre Festival, Al-Hanager's Independent Theatre Season and the Youth Theatre Encounter had all been cancelled this year; why should this one be an exception? Within a few days of black Friday, the trial of Mubarak and his sons started, broadcast live on television, and suddenly, people with little or no interest in or knowledge of theatre, or who had never seen a play live in their lives were spouting off about it in theatrical terms as if it were a stage performance. Every move and gesture �ê" be it Mubarak picking his nose, one of the sons smiling, or the other waving his hand �ê".was closely watched and analysed, its appropriateness assessed and the effect it was presumably calculated to produce on the spectators dwelt on in very much the same way a theatre critic would treat an actor's performance. The set too, the cell, was extensively discussed in theatrical terms, whether in the stages of preparation, or in the final form; and so were the costumes and accessories �ê" who was wearing what and of what colour, why Mubarak had his shoes on while on bed and why the other 2 characters in the cell had no handcuffs. In short, most commentators treated this trial as a staged and televised court-room drama, and mind you, all trials are, in a sense, staged, though usually conducted in a slovenly way from an artistic point of view. But dramatic and gripping as this kind of 'reality theatre' may be, it can never be a substitute for real theatre or have its unique impact. By openly admitting, in its very structure and conventions, that it is not 'reality', that it is an artificial, ephemeral fabrication �ê" a play, dramatic theatre achieves a kind of aesthetic hyper-reality that excites the mind and moves the heart in no way or measure reality can do. While theatrical drama explores and illuminates reality, revealing its many facets and paradoxes and delving in its depths, sometimes offering alternatives, theatricalised reality, however well staged and expertly masked, can only be grotesque, can only confuse, befuddle, irritate and frustrate. Involving, as it does, issues of justice, honour, life and death, Mubarak's trial �ê" whether well or badly staged �ê" is no 'play', and it is an insult to both justice and theatre to treat it, discuss it, or write about it as if it were one. On 10 August, help arrived from the provinces, thanks to the Cultural Palaces Organisation. Its 37th annual closing regional theatre festival, so far the only theatre festival to survive this year, brought to Cairo the best performances produced by cultural homes, palaces and provincial national companies all over the country in the past 12 months, And they numbered 14. What bliss! For 14 nights in succession I would have a haven from reality, I could escape to theatre. Though the venue where the festival would take place was extremely primitive in all respects and very trying for both performers and audience �ê" a make-shift stage, erected in the open air, on the site where the old El-Samir theatre once stood before it was foolishly pulled down over 15 years ago, purportedly to make room for a modern, multi-storey theatrical complex that never materialized �ê" I embraced the prospect whole heartedly. Of the 14 scheduled performances, 4 were provided by the Cultural Palaces of Rod El-Farag (in Cairo), Al-Mansoura (north-east of the Delta), Komombo (in Upper Egypt) and Borg El-Arab( west of Alexandria), 5 by Cultural Homes in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Fuad (north of Port Said), Qoas (in Upper Egypt) and Quilleen (in the Delta), and 5 by the national companies of the governorates of Fayyoum, Damietta, Suez, Aswan and Al-Beheira. The 10 performances I have seen so far had common features, which, I dare say, the 4 remaining ones will also share. With the exception of (The Generation with an Elephant's Trunk), a new play by Ragab Selim, written after 25 January, all performances were adaptations of well-known, well-trodden and tested texts, including some classics of modern Arab and Egyptian drama, like Munamnamat Tarikhiya (Historical Miniatures) by the Syrian Saadalla Wannus, Mansour Mikkawi's Al-Mahr (The Dowry), Bahig Ismail's Al-Ghagary (The Gypsy) and Nabil Badran's Bye Bye Arabs, as well as Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and El pescado indigesto (Indigestible Fish) by Guatemalan playwright Manuel Galich. All adaptations involved a great deal of cutting and re-writing in eager pursuit of political topicality and relevance to recent history and the current situation in Egypt; all were thickly overlaid with songs and group dances that focused on the suffering of the people under Mubarak and the many ills of his regime and celebrated the popular uprising that brought it down; and most of them had elaborately conceived, but cheaply and shabbily executed sets, pathetic costumes and poor lighting. But though original texts were sometimes adapted out of all recognition to make them say what they could not possibly have originally intended, the forced intrusion of revolutionary rhetoric and political innuendo (even in A Midsummer Night's Dream) sometimes threw the action off track and was extremely irritating, and the songs were sometimes too many, too long, and crudely invective, the energy of the performers and their zest made up for all faults and deficiencies. Mostly young, poorly trained, with haggard faces and emaciated bodies, working in almost inhuman conditions for next to no money and expecting no financial awards at the end (they were cancelled this year for lack of funds) they displayed a stunning vitality and absolute joy in what they were doing. More inspiring still was the strong presence, in most casts, of female performers �ê" usually hard to find in provincial theatre. Veiled or otherwise, young or mature, with some acting experience or treading the boards for the first time, they seemed to send a message of defiance to the Salafi puritanical views of theatre and women. Artistic proficiency or acting competence was not the issue here. Whatever the quality of their acting, and some seemed naturally talented indeed and were really very good, what was of real significance here was that they defied repressive traditions, clung to their rights to public speaking and performance and affirmed it in action, without fear or shame, and believed that they were doing something good and honourable, of value to themselves and the community, pleasurable to all and not offensive to God. I looked forward to the day when the veiled young actress from Quilleen will not feel so disconcerted and thrown off balance by her head scarf slipping back to reveal her hair, as happened in The Dowry, and when the taboo on male/female touching on stage will be lifted, sparing the veiled actress, who played Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream and many others like her, the irksome trouble and embarrassment of manipulating the two ends of a long scarf, draped round her neck, as substitutes for her hands whenever they were called for �ê" an exercise that put her in mortal danger of strangulation at one point. For 4 or 5 days, the 37th Regional Theatre Festival offered the only theatrical fare to be had in the capital. Then, a sudden eruption of theatre all over town. As if touched by a magic wand, most state-theatre companies and many independent troupes sprang to life. The 2 floating theatres in Giza came into action, with the Comedy presenting Nothing to Laugh About in the big hall, and the Youth, The Boat and the Bad Guys in the small one; so did Al-Ghad, opening The Conquest of All Conquests, Yusef Idris Hall, at Al-Salam theatre, with Features, Manf Hall with Tricks in the Bag, the National, at Miami theatre, with Tales of the 1919 Uprising, Al-Tali'a and Al-Arayes companies, with a joint production called Salah Jahin's Eyes, and the Itinerant company, with a new show, the name of which escapes me now, in an open-air space in the Opera grounds. On the independent front, Abeer Ali and her Al-Misaharati troupe presented their Mr. X on a makeshift stage in front of Al-Hanager, Laila Soliman opened her Lessons in Revolution at Rawabet, downtown, and Lenin El-Ramli staged his Perfect Crime on the roof of the Cultural Palace for Cinema in Garden City. With so many performances to choose from, I was in a perfect glow. Yet, delighted as I felt, I was gradually assailed by a strange kind of anxiety; with black Friday still on my mind and the Salafis growing more defiant and challenging the government over the proposed adoption of a set of guidelines for drafting a new constitution after parliamentary elections later this year, intended to safeguard the civil identity of the state, I found myself anxiously hoping that this sudden burst of theatrical energy, quite unusual in the month of fasting, was not the sudden flaring up of a flame before it finally goes out,
