CAIRO - The whole story started when an aragouz (a small male puppet) and his beloved aragouza disobey the puppeteer who controls them, and rebel. They become bored with what they have to do every day and the same stories they tell. They want to tell other stories, real ones, which is why they become humans and enter into the lives of Egyptian people. In his play, Donia Aragouzat (World of Puppets), currently showing at el-Fan Theatre in Ramses, downtown Cairo, veteran Egyptian director Galal el-Sharkawy offers us a wide look at Egyptian society in 15 scenes that feature the problems facing Egyptians. The performance reflects the director's long experience in the field of theatre and his deep artistic vision. He knows how to attract the audience, whether by the talented actors, their colourful costumes or the well-organised scenes and dances. El-Sharkawy has faced many obstacles to get this show on the road. The biggest obstacle was the crisis facing el-Fan Theatre, which began a few years ago and turned serious in 2010, when the Ministry of Interior closed the theatre, owned by el-Sharkawy himself. The police claimed they shut down the theatre because it wasn't secure and lacked a good fire-fighting system. El-Sharkawy and his cast tried their best but failed to prevent this happening; they then protested outside the theatre, with the veteran director saying something very touching: “I won't leave my theatre; if they want to demolish it, let them demolish me as well!” In the wake of the revolution, el-Sharkawy's theatre has reopened. He has been very moved by all that has happened to him and his fellow Egyptians, deprived of their rights for 30 years under Mubarak. This is why his play is very down to earth and close to the people. It belongs to political cabaret, a theatre genre that constantly takes risks and poses formal and ideological questions about social and political issues in a very sarcastic way. One of the early scenes in the play shows three drunken men with a prostitute hitting a poor street vendor, standing by their car selling radishes, parsley and rocket. When the man shouts, a policeman appears on the scene, only to arrest the vendor for walking in the street and annoying the driver of the car. The vendor ends up in jail, while the three drunks get off scot-free because they are wealthy and have connections in high places, while the vendor is a poor man. El-Sharkawy deals with the problems of Egypt's poor in many scenes. In one of them, a number of poor people standing in a long queue, waiting to buy bread. We've seen such scenes in many plays in recent days, but none of the others has been as professionally done as el-Sharkawy's. Before the revolution, the censors forbade anyone from dealing with critical issues like this one. And perhaps this was why the Egyptian authorities last year sealed off el-Fan Theatre with the official red wax. The most impressive scene in the play is about ‘inheritance', in which the playwright, Mahmoud el-Toukhi, imagines there is a chairman of a board of directors who wants to hire his son as his deputy in the institution he works for. The scene cleverly deals with ex-president Mubarak's failing to bequeath power to his younger son. But, although the play discusses very critical issues and has kept abreast of the recent changes, there are some shortcomings. Dealing almost exclusively with the Egyptian sufferings, instead of focusing too on major issues, is not a good thing. It‘s like being given an extra large portion of dinner ��" you would better enjoy a normal portion. Indeed, the play is very long, nearly three hours, while, to be honest, most of the female actresses aren't much good. They need more training. Meanwhile, most of the male actors are very impressive, especially Hisham Adel and Rami Abdel-Maqsoud and of course Farouq (that's all he's known as), the aragouz. A few scenes of the play are irrelevant or out of date, like the scene where a Sheikh issues the shameful fatwa allowing mature men to breastfeed from certain women. We've all forgotten about this and, besides, this has been dealt with in many other plays, including Qahwa Saada (Unsweetened Turkish Coffee) about three years ago. The scenography of the play as a whole is very good, especially in the scene about the tragic rock fall that killed hundreds of poor people in el-Doweiqa, eastern Cairo, in September 2008. In the scene in the play, polystyrene ‘rocks' rain down on the heads of the actors. We have Hazem Shebl to thank for the marvellous décor, which, in the last scene of the play, switches to Al Tahrir Square during the revolution, with the actors descending on the stage from every corner of the theatre, carrying the Egyptian flag. The audience feel like they are in the square. This last scene is like a playlet in itself, artistically linking all the previous scenes and connecting the play to what is happening in Egypt at the moment. The music by Essam Karika complements the dances designed by Essam Mounir. El-Sharkawy has achieved his dream of performing his latest play in his theatre ��" and without its being demolished by the censor to boot.
