CAIRO: On Sunday, a performance held by the Cairo Acting School, with the support of the Dutch Embassy in Cairo, tackled the question of tolerance and breaking points. The main question posed by the performers was ‘how far are willing to tolerate certain behaviors?” The performance was held mainly in mime, and used simple examples to illustrate the idea of tolerance in behavior. There were the typical universal scenarios, such as someone falling asleep on top of your shoulder in a bus stop, another with a smoker blowing the cigarette smoke in your face. The setting itself was a laboratory of sorts, which had the 7 actors play both the observers as well as the patients. The actors would remove their trench coats to become the patients instantly, and once the coat was placed again they would return to being the calm, indifferent observers. Whilst the acting was splendid and the overall play was interesting and humorous, it lacked real depth, as each scene played out in less than five minutes and much of what happened on stage had to be inferred by the audience. “When you watch a performance which has different characters playing out scenes, the audience should see the characters, not the actors,” one audience member mentioned. “The performance was funny, but I felt it missed its own point.” Nevertheless, at ten pounds for a ticket the performance was nearly sold out and many laughs could be heard during the one hour long performance. The actors themselves were very good and overall there seemed to be no real disappointment from the audience. Mime is a rare art in Egypt. This performance is the first time in 25 years that an Egyptian mime production has taken place. The performance was held in the Rawabet Theatre near Talat Harb street. BM
