Senior Serbian officials and Arab and African Ambassadors attended on Sunday in Belgrade the Egyptian theatre play ‘The Visit,' which is set to participate in the annual Salvjia International Theatre Festival, the Egyptian Embassy in Serbia said in a statement. The play was performed by the independent Alexandrian theatre company ‘The Storm.' "The presence of a large number of senior Serbian officials, including the assistant foreign minister for security and protocol affairs, the assistant minister of culture and information, and the chiefs of Arab and African diplomatic missions, reflects the interest in learning about the latest developments in Egyptian culture," Egypt's envoy to Belgrade Amr Aljowaily said. Aljowaily praised The Storm's decision to perform the play in the classical Arabic language, even though the story is a contemporary one, as it facilitated communication with the Arab communities living in Belgrade. The Alexandrian troupe greeted the audience from Arab countries and students of the Center of Arabic Culture in Belgrade, and “made a point of voting” in the Egyptian presidential elections at the embassy in Belgrade. The Egyptian envoy said that the play was included in the activities of Francophonie month in Serbia, which extends throughout March. He added that the play also featured a direct text translation to Serbian, helping it reach the larger Serbian community. The statement added that the participation in the Slavjia Festival was the result of an initiative by the director of the troupe, engineer Mohammed Algamassy, to apply to the festival, where the evaluation committee selected the Egyptian play, later supported by the embassy and the Ministry of Culture. "Aljowaily called on other youth teams to do the same by looking for available opportunities for cultural activities in Serbia, stressing that the embassy will support any serious projects in this regard," the statement said. The play, an adaptation of the Greek writer Lola Anagnusky's book The City, had its troupe approved by Egyptian culture minister Inas Abdel-Dayem last week.
