Nehad Selaiha is overwhelmed by the amount of anger aired at the seventh El-Saqia theatre festival Over six days, from 23 to 29 July, El-Sawy cultural centre, better known as El-Saqia, hosted 27 productions by amateur and independent theatre groups in its annual theatre festival. Leaving the question of artistic merit apart (it drastically varies from year to year), this festival provides a priceless opportunity for the diligent and indefatigable spectator to keep abreast of the shifts and changes in the mood and morals of young people in Egypt today, gauge their response to the stresses of life and get a feel of their sensibility and a glimpse of how they view the future. This year, the guest artists at El-Saqia seem to have unanimously agreed to throw caution to the four winds and air their grievances and frustrations as loudly and violently as they could, regardless of any artistic considerations. Festivals of this kind may not give you a great deal of aesthetic satisfaction; but as socio- political events they are invaluable. Of course they serve as safety valves, as many cynics would say, and are perhaps meant and designed to do just that, which could explain why they are tolerated by the authorities. Nevertheless, for students of theatre and culture, or any one who regards theatre as a social phenomenon, inseparable from its historical context, it can shed a great deal of light on many aspects of the present and provide valuable insights into the directions in which it is moving. Besides, such events are invariably exciting and vivacious and infect you with a thrilling sense of urgency that you cannot find in more 'artistic' festivals. I went to this festival, as I do every year since it started, braving the afternoon July heat on 6 successive days (the shows started at 5pm and finished at midnight), not for the sake of aesthetic pleasure (I did not expect much of that), but to feel the pulse and temperature, as it were, of our young artists. On this occasion, both were feverish. No wonder out of the 27 productions I watched (they should have been 30 but 3 withdrew at the last minute for technical or financial reasons) only 8 used ready- made texts, that is, previously acted/published dramatic texts by acknowledged writers, while the rest came up with their own. Moreover, all of the 8 'old' dramas used were untraditional, and all were adapted by the troupes to suit their own purposes. The oldest of these and least meddled with was Saad El-Din Wahba's Antar's Stable a farcical, political satire featuring a lunatic ward, nicknamed 'the ward of history', where the inmates impersonate different characters from Arab history, including Akhenaton, Salah El-Din, the conqueror, and Sheherazade, to expose its failings and comment on the present. It was vigorously performed by the 'Kew' troupe, established by director Ahmed Seif in 2002 with a group of students from the faculty of commerce and business administration at Helwan University, and since the production did not completely ignore the requirements of art in favour of politics, it won the second best performance award. Yusri El-Guindi's The Shoemaker Becomes King, a political fantasia which draws on one of the best known tales of The Arabian Nights, and which was adapted, or rather compressed, by Tariq Hamdi to fit the one hour time limit for each performance stipulated by the festival, and directed by Sa'id Abu Seif, was not so lucky. To be honest, the text itself is rather limp and pallid and requires spectacular sets for it to work on stage; and even in the presence of such sets it can be a sorry experience, as the expensive production it received at the National two years ago amply proves. With next to no budget, all the troupe could afford in the way of scenery were a few bits of differently coloured cloth, draped at the back to mark the changes of location. Shorn of all props, the text's faults became glaring and no amount of work on the part of the actors could save it. Mustafa Saad's intriguing, absurdist text, Limaza Haza (What For), set in a tawdry hotel room and featuring an encounter between a prostitute and a customer, which gradually turns into a gruesomely hilarious nightmare, with a cadaverous looking hotel owner, a frenzied police inspector and plenty of cadavers that keep appearing and disappearing, fared much better with the predominantly young audience, and its sexually bold dialogue and occasional bawdiness were quite refreshing. That the whole mystery turns into a metaphor at the end a metaphor for all the figurative corpses that besiege the young hero in his daily life and seek to smother the life out of him gave this seemingly fanciful comedy, directed by Ibrahim El-Sheikh for the troupe of the Society of the Champions of Acting, a sharp, critical edge that the audience did not fail to grasp and won Nihal Fahmi, who performed the prostitute with delicious abandon, a well-earned joint best-actress award. Of the ready-made texts, there were also Saleh Saad's Yama fil Girab (Look What's in the Bag), a political satire on the Arab/Israeli conflict, processed through a lot of Egyptian and Arab folklore, and presented by Al-Hadaf (The Target) troupe; Ibrahim El-Husseini's Akhbar, Ahram, Gomhoriya (the names of the three main national Egyptian dailies), a topical, political/social satire, written in the tradition of the 'Living Newspaper' theatre, directed by Mohamed Gamal and acted with gusto and dazzling energy by the Misr troupe; Mahmoud Abou Doma's The Castaways, a beautiful poetic parable about an innocent, fishing community seduced and corrupted by a crafty stranger thrown up by the sea, condensed and rechristened The Blind Soothsayer by Mohamed Mabrouk and directed by Ahmed Abdel Fattah for the Hayaat (Life) troupe; and three plays by Lenin El-Ramly, who is quite popular with young theatre makers. The 3 El-Ramly plays were: Al-Kabous (The Nightmare), a one- act black comedy about the disintegration and final collapse of a middle-class family, inspired by, and very much reminiscent of Eugene Ionesco's The Future in Eggs ; Efreet li kul Muwatin (A Genie for Every Citizen), a longer, social black comedy in the realistic mode, with a strong infusion of expressionism, about the damaging psychological effects of rampant social and moral corruption on the mind of an upright individual; and the full-length Wighat Nazar (Point of View), in which Egypt is metaphorically transformed into a home for the blind, run by a thoroughly corrupt and ruthlessly exploitative administration. All three plays were abridged and 'adapted' in various degrees and two of them acquired new names: while Point of View, by Al-Masrahgiyya (Theatre Makers) troupe, was rechristened Hiyya Kida (This is How Things Are) and a good thing too since the so called 'adaptation' botched the play, replacing stretches of El-Ramly's witty dialogue and subtle humour with long and tedious tirades denouncing the status quo, the version of A Genie, which director Mahmoud Fuad Siddiq produced for his Pergola troupe a version which played up the psychological/expressionistic element at the expense of the realistic/comic one, turning a frothy, sparkling play into a lugubrious sermon was called Ana wa Al-Ana (meaning I and My Ego, I guess). There were also other adaptations of new or unknown texts, never staged before, by writers of little fame or none whatsoever. Mahmoud El-Tookhi's Bakrah (I hate), which I had never heard of before though the author's name seemed to ring a bell, was one of them. Adapted by director Rami Abdel Maqsoud for his troupe, Rumooz (Symbols), it was cast in the form of a play within a play performed by an inept theatrical company in a farcical manner, retitled The Dress Rehearsal and made into a vehicle for showcasing the two main problems that cripple our youth today namely unemployment and sexual frustration due to the inability to afford marriage. Other social ills, like nepotism, bribery, graft, the widening gap between rich and poor and our muddled and fast deteriorating educational system also came in for a lot of comic thrashing and the adaptor/director made a meal at the end of the fact that, when written, 'bakrah' could be also be misread as 'bukrah', meaning tomorrow. Another such adaptation was Al-Tashreefa (Official Reception), a political satire by someone called Ahmed Afifi, directed by Mahmoud Attiya for the Imbaba troupe, and set in an indefinable historical past in order to comment on the present and lambaste the brutality and corruption of rulers and their security apparatus and intelligence service. The same theme and setting were taken up again in Yasser Izzat's adaptation of Abdel Fattah El-Qal'aji's Bab El-Farag (The Gate to Freedom), but rendered in a somber, often melodramatic vein, with a lot of thrashings, physical torture and endless moans and supplications. Of the same group was Wafaa El-Salih's Gezeerat Al-'eImian (Island of the Blind), adapted by Peter Iskander for a troupe called Haddutah Masriyyah (An Egyptian Tale). As in Lenin El-Ramly's Point of View, blindness was the central metaphor here, but rather than a home for the blind in contemporary Egypt, as the setting was in El-Ramly's play, the blind population here inhabit an imaginary island, worship a god of darkness, are ruled over by a dark, devil-like priest in black, and the whole atmosphere reeks of the Arabian Nights. Indeed, the action is framed by the presence of Sheherezade and Shahrayar at the beginning and end and unfolds as a tale in which, for once, the legendary king who only listens in the Nights takes on the role of narrator. Munir Yusef's reworking of Thawrat Al-Marionette (The Marionettes Rebel), another play by an unknown writer called Hazem Mustafa, was more sturdy and down to earth, a welcome change from the mushy romanticism of the Island and its sentimental songs and black-and-white characterization and colour palette. As in George Orwell's Animal Farm, where the animals, led by the pigs, stage a revolt against humans and end up being enslaved by their leaders, the puppets here rebel against their puppet-master, but once they overthrow him, the leader of the revolution takes his place, turning into a worse oppressor. Director Munir Yusef vividly recreated the boisterous, colourful atmosphere of a puppet show in a traditional Moulid (the celebration of the birthday of a saint) and the actors of his Marionette troupe made a feast out of miming the movements, postures and gestures of string puppets. Wading through all these adaptations I could only find two based on foreign texts: director Abdallah El-Sha'ir's adaptation of a play called The Night Guard, by Nigerian playwright Femi Osofisan, for his Teatro troupe, which he stuffed full of African dancing, hardly leaving any space for the text, and Abdel Hamid Zakariya's version of Eduardo De Filippo's Qesti Fantasmi (These Ghosts), which looked and sounded so distant and foreign that it felt quite out of place in this kind of festival. Indeed, the performances that were most in tune with the spirit of the festival as a forum for the young to air their views and make their protest were those where the text was: 1) either collectively put together from different sources, as in (It Looks a Mess) by the Grab (the Sack) troupe, directed by Doaa Te'ima, or: 2) was penned by a member of the group, as in the Diotema (have no idea what the word means) troupe's Khamsa Fadfada (Let's Take Time to Get it off our Chests), written by Mohamed Te'eima and directed by Wisam Medani, the Sa'a Li 'Aqlak (An Hour to Exercise Your Mind) troupe's Foul bil Beid (Beans and Eggs), written by Abdel Fattah El-Beltagi and directed by Fathi El-Kufi, Mohsen Yusef's Nafs El-Makan (The Same Place), written for Al-Gozoor (Roots) group and directed by Sherif Samir, and Mohamed Taha's 'Alamet Istifham (Question Mark), in which Ahmed Ali directed a troupe which calls itself Yemkin (Perhaps), or: 3) was composed by the director himself, and there were many of those, including: Girgis Fawzi's Al-Gamila wal Sarab (Beauty and the Mirage) for Al-Funoon (Arts) troupe; Amgad Imam's Sellem Kahraba (Escalator) for Lilfan (For the Sake of Art) troupe; Sherif Nabil's Ru'oos bila 'Uqool (Brainless Heads) for Afamina (and don't ask me what it means) troupe; Mohamed Zohair's Gareemat 'Aql (A Crime against the Mind), inspired by an Album by the Queensryche American Rock group, for Lao Battalna Nihlam (If We Stop Dreaming) team; and Mohamed Mabrouk's Al-Harah (The Alley) for his Soo' Tafahom (Misunderstanding) troupe. More often than not, these freshly composed texts consisted of a string of sketches or skits, dealing with different social problems or aspects of daily experiences, interspersed with songs and dances, and loosely connected by a general theme, or a thin narrative line. As such, they constitute a variation on the traditional form of the revue a form extremely popular among our young theatre-makers nowadays, whether on the fringe, or in the main stream. As a free form that embraces satire, shuns illusionism to a large degree, endorses direct contact with the audience and makes room for improvisation, the revue allows plenty of space for young theatre artists to express themselves and vent their ire in an enjoyable way. The success or failure of a work of this genre, however, and, indeed, its effectiveness as protest will depend on the artists' knowledge of their craft and their ability to transcend their personal anger and transmute it, through their artistic imagination, into something that can be shared with others in a positive way into a communal experience that induces a sense of solidarity among all present. In this respect, sincerity is not enough, nor is enthusiasm; and plain-speaking, however passionate, can be embarrassing to the audience, if not boring, and is only of cathartic value to the actors and makers of the show. This explains why Amgad Imam's musical Escalator, Mohamed Mabrouk's multicoloured Alley, or Mohamed Taha's spry and dynamic Question Mark shone like jewels compared to the loud and vehemently hectoring Brainless Heads, or the clumsy, halting and lackluster Beauty and the Mirage. It was not a question of subject matter: they all projected more or less the same crushing problems that the young intensely feel and resent unemployment, lack of money, sexual frustration, drugs, the widening gap between rich an poor, the devaluing of the educated middle classes and the rise to power of an ignorant, parasitic, moneyed class, the corruption of morals and human relations through the worship of Mammon, etc. Not was it a question of one troupe having a bigger budget than the other; all the troupes worked on a pathetically small budget. It was first and last a question of talent.
