Nehad Selaiha deplores the quality of entries in the fifth annual Independent Theatre Festival at Al-Sawy I wonder if after watching the top eight shows in a festival one can justifiably dismiss the whole event as a dead loss and a complete waste of time. Out of the 22 participants in this year's Al-Saqia's festival for independent theatre groups (12-20 August), eight were upgraded by a small, technically proficient jury. While those who did not make it to the top list were allowed to perform over six days, at the rate of two or three a day, depending on the length of the performances, the select ones were slotted in the last three days and entrusted to the judgment of a higher jury, sporting some of the most respected names in the profession. In former years, I had followed these festivals with immense interest as an ordinary spectator or jury member and found a lot to stir the senses and stimulate the mind. Some years I watched up to 15 productions a week and there are records in Al-Ahram Weekly of these experiences. I remember one year I differed so fundamentally with the ratings of the jury that I became livid with rage. The judgment that really festered concerned a production by an unknown troupe of Al-Feel Ya Malik Al-Zaman (The Elephant, O, King of All Time), by the Syrian Saadalla Wannus. The director was Mohamed Shuman (who, I am glad to say, has finally made it to the screen as an actor), and not only I, but also my friend Menha El-Batrawi (the well-known drama critic) and a lot of other people found it highly imaginative and subtly evocative. How we hooted in disgust at the announcement of the awards which gave the Elephant only minor recognition. But isn't this always the story where theatre contests are concerned? This is why I detest them, I suppose, and try my best to avoid them. Sometimes, however, the pressure is too difficult to resist and one succumbs. To leave the comfort of your cool home in the hottest month of the year at 5 in the afternoon (the shows begin at 6 pm) and wrestle with the maddening Cairo traffic takes a lot of stamina and dedication, of which critics are supposed to have plenty. How else could one find out what young people on the margin are doing theatre-wise? Sometimes, however, one needs an external incentive to boost one's highly taxed sense of obligation. As I grow older, I find such public commitments an immense help in defying my encroaching theatrical fatigue and diminishing energy. However, and there is always a big 'however' where theatre shows are percolated through many sieves, how can you be sure that the presumably top shows you watch are really the best ones? If they happen to be good and you happen to like them, no problem. But what if most of them numb your faculties and sensations and leave you feeling thoroughly victimized and miserably put upon? Sitting through the 8 supposedly best offerings three evenings in succession, I could not suppress a growing sense of despair at what I had to admit was, compared to previous years, a serious artistic slump. Hard as I tried, I could not imagine anything shabbier or more ham; if these were the best, what were the others like? The physical energy of the youthful actors though was so overwhelming and they made such a big din that I found myself wondering if Condy's proverbial "creative chaos" had infected theatre as well. Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro (By the Ein Shams University group) was a blithe, colourful production with sets that gaily recall the crude naiveté of children's drawings and a pronouncedly parodic slant. Director Hisham Yehia's approach to the play, however, was flippantly shallow and excessively frivolous; with the help of his actors, he managed to farcicalise the whole thing, completely drowning its astringent political satirisation of the rich and powerful and reducing the witty, rebellious Figaro to a kind of strutting nincompoop. An hour later, however, half way through the next performance - Abdel Hamid Zakariyya's Aqni'at Al-Mala'eka (Angels' Masks), a soulless, visually dim adumbration of Notis Perialis's text, performed by the Wushush (Faces) company, Hisham Yehya's Le Marriage seemed, in retrospect, like a shining star in an oppressively dark sky. From then on, it was a nasty downhill slide with hardly any pauses. Mohamed Abdel-Salam's version of Mohamed Salmawy's Al-Qatil Kharig Al-Sign (Murderer on the Loose), staged by the Raheel (Departure) troupe, was outstandingly limp and anemic with occasional histrionic eruptions that nearly flung you out of your seat and seemed to bully the poor audience into lukewarm applause. The Amwag (Waves) troupe's Maganeen Modern (Lunatics a la Mode), an adaptation of Saadeddin Wahba's Antar's Stable, a fanciful political satire featuring a group of lunatics with delusions of grandeur and their torturers, was sloppily written and clumsily directed by Rami El-Qattan. More embarrassing than anything was its laborious striving for cheap comic effects and garish political sloganeering. Henry de Montherlant's , about a savage and dissolute dictator who tyrannizes and humiliates all around him, including his trusted biographer, Porcellio, through whom he hopes to achieve immortality, came next. Staged by Ihab Naser, for the faculty of engineering troupe, it attempted to suggest through the sets and costumes renaissance Italy, projecting a fusty historical look and, since very few could hear what the actors were saying, seemed to meander endlessly and to no purpose. It was quite a relief when finally the much-abused biographer poisoned the tyrant and destroyed the record of his life and deeds. By that time, every one in the audience had had enough of Montherlant's Sigismondo and wanted to see the last of him, forever. No wonder the actor who posed as Porcellio proved a favourite, scooping the best supporting actor. With so many dictators in the Arab world, the choice of could be defended. One could even go further and say that the conflict between this ruler of Ramini and Pope Pius II has optimum topical relevance and reflects the power-struggle and current tensions between rulers in the Arab world and fundamentalist Islamic movements. The intention of Raheel may have been thoroughly commendable; but the execution was terrible. Particularly disconcerting was the enunciation of the classical Arabic dialogue. The actors' linguistic delivery here, and, indeed, in the whole festival, was another glaring instance of the current mangling of classical Arabic on our stages and in our media. May be Salama Musa's call in the first half of the last century to simplify the rules and grammar of this ancient tongue needs to be reconsidered. But grammar, the fanciful twisting of which was quite puzzling, was not the audience's major worry. Half the time they could not make out what was being said on stage, with the actors tripping and stumbling over their consonants and vowels, alternately screaming and squeaking their lines, or retching them out in strained, inaudible whispers. It was, perhaps, Wisam El-Medani's attention to voice training that saved his highly melodramatic version of Victor Hugo's novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (probably based on Hugo's libretto for Louise Bertin's opera La Esmeralda ), from deteriorating into an incoherent screaming match. Though his performers (the V.I.P. troupe) consistently declaimed in the grand style, swinging us back in time to the days of George Abyad and Yusef Wahbi, they made far fewer grammatical mistakes than the others and managed to invest stretches of the dialogue with real fervour. Ingi Galal, as Esmeralda, was outstanding in this respect and justly deserved the best actress award she won. Mohamed Hassan El-Meleigui's Sadiq (meaning both 'friend' and 'the truthful one), which he wrote and directed for the Kiyan (Entity) group, was more fortunate in opting for colloquial Arabic as a medium and the theatre of the absurd as a model. While the Egyptian dialect made the actors seem more natural and close to home, the sparse, cryptic dialogue, mostly repetitive, following a circular pattern, initially generated a degree of suspense and an illusion of profundity. When the mysterious Sadiq finally arrives, however, and strips the family of their protective masks, the revealed 'truths' turn out to be quite banal and easily redressable. The Egyptian dialect was also the medium of Mohamed Labib's abridged version of Yusri El-Guindi's play, Ali El-Zeibaq (Mercurial Ali), and the text, in the style of Brecht's epic theatre and centering on a popular hero, a la Robin Hood, with a chorus and many street scenes, allowed the members of Al-Hadaf troupe plenty of scope to vent their raw energies with little censure. Fortunately, plays of this kind, which make no pretence at detailed characterization, require more force than finesse and can be adequately performed by amateurs. Though the political message preached by the mercurial Ali and his followers rang hollow and quite dated, more at home in the 1960s than the year 2007, the play on the whole was quite tolerable and won Taha Khalifa, as Ali, a best actor award. For the rest of the awards: The Marriage of Figaro got best performance, best scenography, best leading actor and best supporting actor and actress; The Hunchback of Notre Dame won second best performance, plus best actress, best lighting and best supporting actor; Mercurial Ali was third best performance, with two more awards for best male lead and best director; and the tedious managed to snatch a best supporting actor prize.
