Nehad Selaiha mourns the passing away of a cherished place and dream On 28 February, 2008, I wrote: "Over the years, Al-Hanager, under the direction of the indefatigable, enlightened and widely respected theatre academic and critic Hoda , has built a prestigious international reputation as a forum for new, daring experiments and an active incubator of new talent. At many points in the course of the past 18 years, since it opened, when theatre in Cairo dwindled and seemed about to give up the ghost, Al-Hanger acted as a vital life-supporting system, keeping it alive, almost single-handedly, by pumping new blood into it and a stream of powerful, stimulating productions. At other times, when theatre seemed hopelessly trapped in a vicious circle of hackneyed texts, sloppy adaptations and shallow, lackluster and half-baked musicals, you could always go to Al-Hanager and be sure of finding something exciting and thought- provoking there." "What other theatrical institution," I went on to ask, "could take on in quick succession such intricate and topically relevant classics as Brecht's Galileo and Mother Courage, Buero Vallejo's The Double Story of Dr. Valmy, Shakespeare's Othello, Max Frisch's Fire-raisers and Jean Genet's The Balcony and, at the same time, introduce three new writing talents (Mahmoud Nessim, Sameh Maran and Sayed Mohamed Ali) as Al-Hanager did between 2002 and 2005? Where else could a young, unknown director, in his twenties, get the chance to stage Tawfiq El-Hakim's Ahl Al-Kahf (People of the Cave), Harold Pinter's Old Days, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Edward Bond's Lear, Jean Genet's The Balcony, and Saadalla Wannus's Ahlam Shaqiyya (Anguished Dreams) one after the other? Mohamed Abul Su'ood, one of the most brilliant products of Al-Hanager is the director in question, and 's diligent nurturing of his talent extended to sending him abroad, to Italy, for a year, for further training and experience, and allowing him to stage his own plays when he flowered into a gifted playwright. Abul Su'ood is only one example and Al-Hanager boasts many others -- artists who, like Khaled Galal, Effat Yehya, Abeer Ali, Khaled El-Sawi, Nora Amin, Hani El-Mettenawi, Ashraf Farouk, Tareq El-Dweri and Amr Qabil, among others, found their first feet at Al-Hanager, then went on to establish their own independent troupes or work at other theatres, becoming some of the best young theatre-makers on the market." "Indeed," continued my tribute/testimony, "Al-Hanager's output of plays over the past 18 years is stunning in number, range and variety, and its series of theatre workshops, conducted along the way by illustrious Egyptian, Arab and European masters, were quite unprecedented anywhere in the Arab world and helped to shape the sensibility, direction and imagination of a whole generation of young artists and hone their artistic skills. This generation owes a lot to Al-Hanager and has, in turn, helped to build the reputation it enjoys today. However far they travel, and some of them, like Effat Yehia and Nora Amin, have gone as far as Brazil and the United States, they always come back to their original home and birthplace in that modest building in the Opera grounds. With such a glorious performance over the years, one would have expected Al-Hanager's budget and working space to have grown and expanded. Not only did this not happen, but Al-Hanager has lately been rendered homeless. The building through which it functioned has been out of use for over a year now, depriving many independent artists of a vital venue. Prior to that, it was shut down for a few months on the plea of securing it against fire hazards after the Beni Sweif inferno of 5 September, 2005, which claimed the lives of over 60 theatre people. When it reopened, its use was severely restricted to the extent of putting it completely off boundaries during the 2006 CIFET despite the vehement protests of local and foreign artists. If it was still unsafe, as it was claimed, then what happened to all the money that was poured into it to make it safe? And before one could get a shade of an answer to this question, the building was suddenly dismantled, literally gutted out, this time on the pretext of restructuring and overhauling it from top to bottom. It now looks as if a bomb has ripped through it -- a mess of dangling wires, flapping tatters, broken furniture and strewn rubble, and the sight of the stacks of beams lying in pools of dirty water outside it, waiting patiently to be used and slowly rotting in the sun is enough to make you want to cry. When you ask why renovation has not started, you are told that the whole operation was stopped after the corruption scandal at the Cultural Development Fund and cannot begin until this ugly business has been sorted out." In that same article, written to celebrate the 1st season for independent theatre launched by at Rawabet on 18 February, 2008, and entitled "Nothing can defeat her" (see Issue No. 886 of the Ahram Weekly, 2008), I passionately emphasised that Al-Hanager was not simply a building: it was people, a living idea, a set of values and shared beliefs, and a mode of operating based on sharing, nurturing and mutual support. That was why it had kept alive and active even when deprived of its theatre, gallery, offices and cafeteria, I said. As always, insisted that artists keep on working under its umbrella, helping them to squeeze money out of the government and to find alternative rehearsal spaces and venues. In 2006, Antigone in Ramalla, one of her productions, which rehearsed in what was left of Al-Hanager's gallery and went on to represent Egypt in the international contest of the Cairo Experimental Festival, performed at the theatre of the Supreme Council of Youth and Sports then toured in Thailand and Algeria on 's own initiative; and in 2007, Abul Su'ood's Would You Forget Your Country played at Al-Ghad hall and Azza El-Husseini's production of Maria's Picture, by Croatian writer Lydia Scheuermann, was hosted at the theatre of the Creativity Centre. had met with so much trouble securing these spaces which allowed her only two nights for each production that at one time she seriously considered erecting a makeshift tent stage opposite Al-Hanager. Sadly, as I recorded, by the end of 2007, could see that the building she had occupied for the past 18 years would not be available for yet another year or more, and had to reluctantly admit that certain quarters were only too glad of the interruption of her work and would be only too happy for Al-Hanager never to open again. But , an indomitable woman who never concedes defeat and goes on fighting for what she believes in to the last breath, did not give in. Obstacles seemed to fuel her energy and fire her imagination. Determined to keep Al-Hanager alive and very much in the picture, she came up with what some thought a crazy idea: to sponsor and fund a whole season of new productions by the leading independent theatre troupes Al-Hanager had nurtured. Money, as usual, was a problem, but not an intractable one; years of dealing with people at the ministry of culture have taught how to wheedle or bully them into loosening the purse strings. The real challenge was securing a suitable venue for two whole months without interruption either free of charge or at a reasonable rent. The best the state theatre organization could offer her were a few nights here and there, with long intervals in- between. Such an arrangement would effectively put paid to the idea of an uninterrupted season. Besides, to perform the new independent productions commissioned by Al-Hanger's head in spaces owned by the state theatre organization would be tantamount to playing into the hands of this organisation which has long resented Al-Hanager's success and popularity and secretly longed to subsume it under its own umbrella. also realized that this arrangement would make a mockery of the idea of independence sported in the title of the project and could be construed by some as a selling out to the state theatre. Though itself a state institution, Al-Hanager has acted from the start as a meeting point between the state and the independent groups, adopting a collaborative policy which guaranteed state funding for them and spaces for rehearsals and performance without interference in their work or erosion of their individual artistic identities and names. In a move which amounted to a virtual slap on the face of the state theatre organization, decided to house her season at Rawabet, a completely independent space, renting this converted garage for 56 consecutive nights. Not only did this foreground the idea of independence and boost the reputation of this venue, but the rent she paid could also be used in improving it, making it more comfortable and better equipped. All round, it was a perspicacious decision that only a passionately devoted theatre-maker could hit on. The 1st Al-Hanager season for independent theatre was launched at Rawabet on 18 February, 2008 with a riveting production of Eric- Emmanuel Schmitt's masterpiece, Oscar and the Lady in Pink, by Hani El-Mettenawy's Society for Theatre Studies and Training Troupe. Within 8 months, on Thursday, 16 October, the enchantingly, exhilaratingly obstinate , defying strict official orders, was hosting at the dilapidated and viciously gutted out Al-Hanager building Dalia El-Abd's Forming as part of that year's Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. On 23 October, in Issue 919 of the Weekly, I wrote: "The event was both a protest and an act of defiance. That night, in the office of center's artistic director, and before many creditable witnesses, Hoda got a call from the assistant of the official responsible for allocating venues to performances during the festival, telling her that 'they' had finally found a 'safe' space for the performances entered under the Center's name and asking her to cancel that night's show. 'Tonight is out of the question,' responded. The theatre hall she had hastily repaired at her own expense was already full. 'Tomorrow' she would follow orders and move her shows to where they E demanded. All that afternoon she had had to battle with the industrial security forces who kept on terrorizing the actors until she signed a document taking full legal responsibility for any damages her venture might entail." On 20 March the following year, 2009, opened the Centre's second independent theatre season; it ran until June 22, offering 10 new productions, totalling 80 performances, with only a 2-day break separating one work from the next. "Judging by the titles," I reported in the Weekly on 2 April, 2009 (Issue No. 941), "it is going to be quite a feast with lots of artistic variety, plenty of topical relevance and a pronounced political accent." Of greater significance, however, I noted, "the fact that this second season, unlike the first one, which was hosted at Rawabet last year, will take place at Al-Hanager's own headquarters, in defiance of officialdom and its suspicious and quite unwarranted insistence on keeping it closed, is in itself a significant political act of protest and has drawn to the opening hordes of angry young artists and sympathetic supporters." Throughout her career as artistic director of Al-Hanager, has done more to support the independent theatre movement, promote cultural exchange and enhance theatrical knowledge, expertise and experimentation than any body I know of. With deep discernment and practical resilience she fashioned an original policy that allowed the independent troupes to make use of governmental resources without being totally sucked into the establishment. Artistically and administratively, the artists working at her centre would be free to do as they liked and, to boot, they would be financially supported and the names of their companies would appear on the posters and flyers, in equal print-size, side by side with the name of Al-Hanager. 's shrewd, conciliatory policy bore many fruits and has introduced into the Egyptian theatrical scene many a brilliant director and some really unforgettable productions. Indeed, at many times, Al-Hanager seemed to offer the only palatable stage-fare on hand and the most brilliant promise of theatrical survival and rejuvenation. And now to think that this is all over! That the old Al-Hanager building has been disfigured beyond recognition and that its moving spirit has left it! Al-Hanager officially reopened on 5 January. However, for 3 weeks preceding that date, it had been unveiled and revealed itself in a dismal new look to stunned eyes. When the corrugated iron fence that had surrounded its site for years was removed, you saw a vast, flat expanse of grass and smooth black and white ceramic tiles leading up to a long, low building, with a characterless row of white framed glass doors, topped by grimy, mud-coloured gables, with bits of sickly, thick yellow and oily blue bits of walls in between. Gone was the cheerful, friendly old building, with its red door frames, its red tiled cafeteria and bathrooms and cosy, intimate atmosphere. Gone were the thick hedges, green shrubs and little trees that shaded the narrow flagstone passage that led to the gaily coloured entrance and gently hugged the whole building. Everywhere you looked, you palpably saw the imprint of the military who executed it. With its cold, neutral, soulless spaces, bare white walls, shiny black tiles, forbidding dark blue and grey metal doors and generally hygienic and sanitary air, it looks more like the reception area in some posh hospital, an airport, or military base. Guided by the literal meaning of the name of the place and forgetful of its function, the military engineers who undertook the renovation job ended up producing the nearest thing to a military hangar. Indeed, the landscaped space in front of the building looks very much like some emergency military landing space for helicopters. Gone too was the traverse stage, with its 2 auditoriums on both sides --the only one of its kind in the Middle East. It has been divided, with one part of it turned into a traditional, Italian Box stage, and the other transformed into a cinema. It is true, as some would argue, that the traverse stage was rarely used in performances, that the second auditorium had mostly served to give enormous depth to the performance space in some shows, and that, therefore, the ides of turning this mostly disused auditorium into a movie house was not such a bad idea. However, rather than plan this cinema as a venue for quality movies and the works of avant-garde film makers, the head of the Cultural Development Fund has made it clear that it should be used commercially as a source of revenue for the Centre. Hating the new Al-Hanager building as I did, I still went to the opening, hoping that, in time, the exciting activities it would generate would help me tolerate it. Within a few minutes, however, I heard that Hoda had already handed in her resignation and would be leaving as soon as a new director was nominated. The body of Al-Hanager had been destroyed, I thought, and now its life and soul was about to depart as well. On a slippery parapet in a dark corner, I sat down and wept. A wonderful chapter of my life had come to an end. In a telephone call, later that evening, Hoda told me that she loathed the new building, was disgusted with the new commercial plans mapped out to exploit Al-Hanager to bring in money, felt that she would no longer be allowed to pursue her own enlightened policies and act on her own noble convictions. "The time has come for me to go," she said, with a catch in her voice. She would have left earlier, she said; but had felt it her duty to stay until the Centre reopened; then, and only then, she could make a clean break. Dutiful and conscientious to the last, she has set in motion a number of performances to keep the centre going until such time as it has a new head. The documentary film tracing the career of Al-Hanager over the past 20 years and prepared for that occasion fell far short of its real achievements, bypassing many memorable events and triumphs and, worst of all, made the unforgivable mistake of omitting to make any mention of the former minister of culture, Farouk Husni, the founding father of Al-Hanager. He may be now under a cloud, but this is no excuse not to give him credit or to falsify history in a documentary film. Hoda was not responsible for this; the film was produced by the Cultural Development Fund and they imposed their views, allocating some footage to the current minister of culture who has never had anything whatsoever to do with Al-Hanager since it came into existence. Do you wonder decided to leave? But at least she could choose the performance on that evening. Those of us who attended the launching of Al-Hanager in 1992 will remember that the opening performance then was a popular, political satire called Al-Muhabazatiyyah (Street-Players), directed by Mohsen Hilmi. That chose for the reopening of Al-Hanager and her own exit in 2012 another popular, political satire staged by the self-same Mohsen Hilmi was not without significant, It was as if this wonderful, brave, honest lady was neatly bringing things full circle and closing a glorious chapter in the history of Egyptian theatre.
