Nehad Selaiha is caught in a theatrical eddy No sooner had I done with the Arab Theatre Festival which I reported to you two weeks ago and started to catch up on the independent theatre season at Al-Hanager and the thin but steady trickle of performances at Rawabet than I found myself pitched headlong into yet another festival and another spell of intensive theatre-watching. Over 10 days, starting 27 May, the Cultural Palaces Organization held its 35th Regional Theatre Festival at two of its major venues in Cairo, El-Samir and Manf hall, treating us to 15 performances carefully culled by several panels of critics from the 79 productions presented by its various branches all over Egypt in the past 12 months. How I wish I could have watched all of them. But the clear moral here is that theatre is very much alive and well in Egypt, if not in Cairo, in mainstream theatre, at least in the provinces and on the fringe. Before I got caught in that festive, colourful and often egregiously noisy display of regional theatrical talent I had managed to catch the Light troupe's Staying or Going and the Arab premiere of Eugene Ionesco's evergreen La Cantatrice Chauve, staged by Hamada Shousha's independent troupe. Both were part of Al-Hanager's second independent theatre season and whereas the first was collectively written by the group in the currently very popular form of the satirical, topical theatrical revue, ranging in style from the documentary- cum-'living newspaper' to slapstick and in mood from the lyrically poignant to the farcically humorous, the latter stuck verbally to Ionesco's delicious text, adding at the same time a movement-and-gesture parallel text that provided Ionesco's mechanical characters with a credible human dimension and a topical appeal. Each in its own way proved a delightfully relevant and extremely amusing theatrical experience. In between the two festivals I also caught Al-Tamye troupe's Fantasia El-Lagna (the Committee) -- a refreshingly original show made up of a string of real, personal stories experienced by the members of the group in their daily life and enacted/narrated in a humorous vein to the accompaniment of a lute, a flute and a tambourine on a bare stage at Rawabet. Also at Rawabet, I watched Her Father's True Daughter, a satire by another independent group about a traditional and morally upright civil servant having to agree to give his daughter in marriage to a self- confessed burglar for lack of other suitors, while at the Youth Theatre , an adaptation of a Woody Allen piece about the dismal prospects of Egyptian citizens who dare venture outside their homes to take part in public life, proved technically brilliant and acridly humorous. And as if that was not enough, midway through the festival, I willingly dashed off to Mansura, at the tip of the Damietta branch of the Nile on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, to catch a production by the vintage Al-Fellaheen (Peasants) troupe that I was told would not be coming to Cairo. Established in the late 1950s by Sorour Nour (who died in July 2002), it has since stuck faithfully to its original conception as an itinerant troupe targeting peasants and villagers all over the countryside. Sabry Nasif, the oldest member, has been with the company since 1967 and was Nour's right hand until his death. Since then, he has been the company's guardian angel and moving spirit, constantly pumping into it new blood and drawing new, young talents. For the company's latest production Nasif invited director Amr Qabil who has acquired a great reputation in regional theatre since his brilliant project Layali El-Hakim (Nights with El-Hakim) brought Al-Sharqiyya national theatre company in Zaqaziq, the capital of the governorate of Sharqiyya, into the limelight two years ago. The project consisted of a 6-month intensive training programme leading to performances of five plays by Tawfiq El-Hakim presented successively over a month. Apart from the quality of the performances, which was exceptionally high, it was obvious that the training and rehearsal process had succeeded in polishing and developing the talents of both the old members and the new recruits and taught them new skills. Describing this experiment at the time I said: "Unlike other directors from the 'capital' who occasionally 'condescend' to work with provincial companies either to make a bit of quick money or fill in gaps between more attractive commissions, Qabil made it a point of honour to rebuild the company and salvage its reputation. Rather than regard the final production as the sole, cherished end, he treated it as a means to initiate a process of general artistic and cultural rehabilitation" (see "Hakim galore", Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 839, 5 April, 2007). Qabil had heard of Al-Fellaheen troupe and instantly and gratefully accepted the invitation. At the first meeting, he fell in love with the company and over two months poured his energy and knowledge unstintingly into the work, often spending the night at the theatre and rehearsing the company between 8 and 14 hours daily. Judiciously, he chose a play with a rural setting and a legendary popular hero-cum-outlaw in the tradition of Robin Hood. Adham El-Sharqawi, by the relatively unknown Nabil Fadil, is based on a popular ballad that tells the story of a brave peasant from the governorate of Sharqiyya (hence the title El-Sharqawy) who took up arms against the feudal lords and the British forces in the early decades of the 20th Century, becoming an outlaw until he was hunted down and killed by the police with the aid, some say, of a perfidious close friend. The play, which Qabil slightly adapted and condensed, framing and punctuating the action with songs in Brecht's epic style, provided roles for almost all the members of the company and was staged in a simple, forceful style with minimal sets that the company can easily carry along while touring. Indeed, the performance I watched was so obviously tailored for touring and playing in untraditional spaces that it seemed quite out of place at the posh, Italian box theatre of Al-Mansura cultural palace. I kept wishing I could see it in a barn among peasants; I also wished Qabil had used live music with a less sophisticated orchestra. Though Ismael Abul Naga as the singer/narrator sang live on stage, he was merely accompanying the recorded musical soundtrack. Qabil explained that having the music and songs recorded was a logistic necessity since you could not always secure musicians on tours. I came back from Mansura glowing with enthusiasm and the performances I watched in the festival in Cairo intensified the glow. The productions which made it to the final contest were all extremely ambitious and challenging and featured some famous world classics -- namely, Shakespeare's King Lear and The Merchant of Venice, Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, Max Frisch's The Fire Raisers, Nazim Hikmet's Legend of Love, and Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape -- as well as some vintage masterpieces of Egyptian drama, including Alfred Farag's Etnein fi Quffah (Two in a Basket), the colloquial Arabic version of his masterpiece Ali Janah Al-Tabrizi and his Servant Quffah which he himself wrote; Naguib Sorour's adaptation of Brecht's The Three-Penny Opera, rechristened Malik El-Shahateen (King of the Beggars) and his Mineen Ageeb Nas (Where Can I find People); Abdel Aziz Hamouda's Al-Zahir Baybars ; Salih Saad's Yama fil Girab (A Lot in the Sack), and Darwish El-Asyouti's Kuleib's Wedding. There was also a daring and impressive dramatization of Yehia El-Tahir Abdalla's novel The Collar and the Bracelet and two performances by the Beni Mazar folk arts workshop and Port Said's centre of movement and physical theatre. But apart from the impressive titles and the uniformly decent and sometimes quite above average artistic standard of the performances, the real achievement of this festival was putting back on the map of Cairo theatres the open-air performance space at Manf Hall, which had remained out of use since the Beni Sweif fire in 2005, and, more thrilling still, re- claiming the ground where El-Samir theatre once stood, and which became the subject of an ownership legal dispute between the ministry of culture and the Italian embassy immediately after the building was pulled down. For years the fenced site had remained derelict, a breeding ground for insects and rodents, and one had completely lost hope of ever watching plays there again. It was Isam El-Sayed's idea (he is the new head of the theatre sector at the Cultural Palaces Organisation) to hold part of the festival there, on a primitive, makeshift stage with modest technical equipment ferried there for the occasion. And what a gloriously mad idea it was with plenty of 'method' in the madness. True the seating of the audience was far from ideal and the performing conditions were a veritable nightmare to the actors and technical crews; nevertheless, no one seemed to mind and the primitive conditions made the experience all the more exciting. Indeed, performing Shakespeare, Pirandello, O'Neill, Sorour and Farag in these atrocious conditions, and performing them well was clear proof of the courage, dedication, great stamina and undefeatable resourcefulness of our regional theatre artists. Above all, it was an overwhelming proof of a towering passion for theatre. If you ask me, all the performances deserved to get awards, if not for the achievement, then for the heroic effort. However, the jury voted King Lear from Mansura, directed by Sa'id Mansi and The Hairy Ape from Alexandria, directed by Gamal Yaqoot as the best Cultural Palaces performances, while Legend of Love from Kafr El-Sheikh, directed by Mohamed Ali Mahmoud, The Fire Raisers from Alexandria, directed by Mohamed Mursi, and Two in a Basket from Beni Sweif, directed by Izzat Zein, swept the three top awards for best Cultural Homes productions.
