Besides the modern Chinese classic, Thunder Storm, that graced the opening night, the two solo pieces from Moldova and the UAE based on the lives of real historical personages, the riveting Juarez documentary from the USA, the controversial Lebanese (...)
From dramatic monologues based on true stories and real people, such as the two performances I reviewed last week (Moldavia's Last Night in Madrid, about Jacqueline Picasso, and Al-Fujairah's An Elegy for the Fifth String, about Ziryab), it is a (...)
With only sixteen guest productions from foreign and Arab countries, the CIFCET this year was substantially smaller than most previous editions prior to its five-year Hiatus. In the days before the word ‘Contemporary' was added to the title, the (...)
The Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theatre (CIFCET) 20-30 September 2016.
Save for one interruption in 1990, when its third edition was cancelled on account of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the annual Cairo (...)
Ninth National Egyptian Theatre Festival, 19 July – 9 August, 2016.
Minister of Culture Hilmi Al-Namnam whipped up a storm of anger at the closing ceremony of the Ninth edition of the National Theatre Festival, souring the festive atmosphere. In a (...)
Ninth edition of the National Theatre Festival, 19 July – 9 August, 2016.
For nearly three weeks now, and despite the heat, the hassle, the crush, the cramped spaces and the occasional breakdown of the venues' cooling systems, Egyptian audiences (...)
Ninth edition of the National Theatre Festival, first week, 19-25 July, 2016.
The opening ceremony of the National Theatre Festival this year was the worst in its whole history. It took place as usual at the big hall of the Cairo Opera house; but (...)
9th Egyptian National Theatre Festival, 19 July – 8 August, 2016.
The countdown to the launch of the 9th edition of the Egyptian National Theatre Festival has begun. The selection committees in all sectors have finished their work of sifting through (...)
Kawalees (Backstage), written and directed by Dalia Basiouny, Sabeel Troupe, 13-16 May, 2016 at Falaki Theatre and 2-4, June, 2016 at Rawabet.
A few days ago, I received an email from The League of Professional Theatre Women in New York announcing a (...)
Al-Insan Al-Tayeb (The Good Person), written and directed by Said Soliman, Salah Abdel-Sabour Hall, Al-Taliaa theatre, 10 April-May, 2016.
Over the years, writer and director Said Soliman has developed a distinctive theatrical blend of (...)
Arden, an Egyptianised version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Dina Amin for the English Department Drama group, Cairo University, 12 May, 2016.
Of all Shakespeare's plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream seems the most popular among amateur and (...)
Inbox by Sameh Mahran, directed by Galal Osman, Al-Ghad theatre, opened 24 April 2016. Still running.
In Simulacra and Simulation (1981), a philosophical treatise on reality, symbols, and society, French sociologist, philosopher and cultural (...)
Daqqa bi Daqqa ((Measure for Measure) by William Shakespeare, translated into classical Arabic by Mohamed Enani, rendered into the Egyptian vernacular by Walid Hammad and Omneya Taha, directed by Walid Hammad, Gerhart Theatre, The American (...)
Moliere's Tartuffe in a new English verse version by Constance Congdon, directed by Jane Page, Malak Gabr Theatre, AUC, 16-21 March, 2016.
Moliere's Tartuffe was first introduced in Egypt in 1866, almost two centuries after it was finally published (...)
With so many bloody raids, ambushes, explosions and suicide bombings round the world claiming dozens of innocent lives, the latest of which took place in Brussels last week, and with the unceasing avalanche of horrific news stories and images of (...)
Some weeks ago I watched a boisterous, farcical burlesque of Shakespeare's Macbeth, subtitled “Film Arabi” (An Arabic Film), at the Creativity Centre in the Opera grounds. It was Yusra Al-Sharkawi's graduation project in direction after three years (...)
Osiris Art Production and Training, Cairo's latest independent performing arts studio, seems set to become one of the most exciting theatrical spaces in Egypt and a favourite haunt for young, adventurous artists as well as audiences looking for (...)
Al-Fanaar (The Lighthouse) by Mohamed Mahrous, based on by J. L. Galloway's The Dark, directed by Maher Mahmoud, Youth Theatre, December 2015.
In talking about two-person plays last week I said that sometimes they can be structurally like solo plays (...)
Two-person plays, or two-handers, as they are nicknamed in the profession, are rare in Egyptian drama and rarely performed. Perhaps the most famous specimens of the form are Ali Salem's quartet of plays, Al-Kateb fi Shar Al-Asal (The Writer on his (...)
While the state-theatre organisation has blithely ignored the centenary of Naguib Mahfouz's birth, the independent theatre has honoured the occasion with a revival of one of the five one-act plays he included in his 1969 collection of short stories (...)
On 20 December last year, the National Theatre finally reopened after a fire destroyed it six years earlier. The fire broke out mysteriously at that historical building on Saturday, 27 September, 2008, only 3 days before the end of Ramadan, and just (...)
In William Congreve's tragedy, The Mourning Bride (1697), Queen Zara, the central character, declaims at the dramatic close of Act III: “Heav'n has no Rage like Love to hatred turn'd, / Nor Hell a Fury like a Woman scorn'd.” These two memorable (...)
That Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Trial of the Donkey's Shadow should have finally made the crossover from the fringe to the mainstream and found its way to the state theatre is not surprising. As soon as Yusri Khamees's Arabic translation of the play (...)
Any one familiar with the current Egyptian theatre scene cannot fail to note a marked penchant for burlesque among young theatre-makers. Indeed, one can speak of a whole trend that can be traced back to the 1990s in such youthful productions as (...)
Over six days, from 16 to 21 October, El-Sawi Cultural Centre, popularly known as Saqiet El-Sawy (El-Sawi Culture Wheel), or simply El-Saqia, held its 13th annual independent theatre festival, which coincides this year with the 13th anniversary of (...)