Osama Kamal visits an idyllic children's world and finds it is not all that far from home wiss writer Peter Stamm, 49, and Egyptian storyteller Abir Soliman, 34, may live thousands of miles apart, but they have one thing in common: an interest in the children's book Heidi. Stamm wrote a modern version of the 19th-century children's story, and Soliman adapted it for an Egyptian audience in a play performed recently at the Rawabet Theatre in Downtown Cairo. The Rawabet has become a familiar place for producers and audiences of alternative theatre. Situated near the Takeiba Cafe, a thriving downmarket intellectual haunt, Rawabet avoids ostentation and focuses instead on originality and creativity. Heidi was written by Swiss author Johanna Spyri (1827 �ê" 1901) in 1880. The story of a mountain girl living in the Swiss Alps, it is a timeless favourite of children growing up around the world and has been translated into most major languages. Heidi is an orphaned girl who lives with her grandfather in a small mountain village. She spends most of her time with the blind grandmother of her friend Peter, entertaining her and reading to her. One day, Heidi's aunt comes to the village and takes Heidi back with her to town, where she lives with a rich family and entertains their crippled daughter, Klara. The two girls, Heidi and Klara, become close friends. Heidi, however, is having trouble adjusting to city life and greatly misses her home, and eventually she becomes ill and is sent home to her grandfather. After Heidi leaves Klara is so lonely that her family decide to send her to stay with Heidi in the country. Heidi has been made into 12 films, one starring Shirley Temple, and several television dramas. In Soliman's adaptation all the names have been changed except that of Heidi. The grandfather becomes Saleh, Peter becomes Ali, and Klara becomes Nour. Soliman says that Heidi appealed to her because of it is full of sentiments children to which can relate: love, longing, and bonding. In a way, Soliman herself is inspired by Heidi. "Like Heidi, I had to fight hard for my choices. I am a girl from a small village near Tanta who chose not to get married but to live alone in Cairo; who decided that art, in various forms, would be her life's calling," she remarks. Soliman has already made a name for herself as a writer. Her blog, Yawmiyat Anis (The Spinster's Diary) was brought out as a book of the same title and published by Al-Dar in 2010. New episodes of the diary are being published in the Cairo-based daily journal Al-Dostour. "The diary shows that I am unattached to any man and living a life of freedom that rises above the antiquated ideas of society about spinsterhood, especially in that I have the things men look for in a woman but I nevertheless decided to live without a man to prove that spinsterhood is a state of mind," Soliman says. In Egypt, men and women who remain unmarried become isolated because of the society's rigid notions. This is precisely what Soliman is struggling against. Society's dogmas about marriage, divorce and spinsterhood, must be resisted, says the writer.-turned-storyteller "I adore the art of storytelling, and this is an art that calls for complete devotion," she adds. Soliman has staged storytelling performances including Al-Onf fi Al-Said (Violence in Upper Egypt), which she wrote, Qatala bil Fetra (Natural Born Killers) and Al-Sinima'i (The Film Star) by Makkawi Said, as well as Layali Alf Leila wa Leila (The Arabian Nights) by Naguib Mahfouz. Soliman changes venues from one story to another, and sometimes centuries too. Some stories are inspired by tales about Europe a century ago, and others are about Arabia five or six centuries back. This does not seem to bother her. "Storytelling is a journey between two points, one in which you summon your skills to bring the audience into another world of secrets and intimacies. In Heidi, I have one hour to relay one of the most beautiful children's stories in the world. A literary work of more than 130 pages is condensed, and yet shouldn't lose any of its vitality." Soliman says she had no trouble adapting the Swiss text for Egyptian audiences. "Children everywhere are similar; they experience astonishment in the same way, and their desire for discovery is similar. The feelings that Heidi experienced in her mountain village are shared by millions of children everywhere." Veteran puppet designer Hani El-Masri, with 25 years of creative work behind him, imparted a truly Egyptian feel to the drama. Ahmad El-Sawi's musical score and Mohamed El-Saidi's stage direction added much to the charm of Soliman's performance. Heidi lived the life she chose, and Soliman -- through an enchanting enactment of a children tale -- is telling us to do the same.
