Nehad Selaiha samples the Egyptian contribution to CIFET 2003 The overriding mood in many of the Egyptian shows taking part in Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (CIFET) this year is one of vehement protest. In some cases it is translated into riotous, almost chaotic energy, audio-visual excess, simplistic, black-and-white thinking or facile nostalgia. In others, it takes on a sombre hue, occasionally deepening into black despair and communicating, in various degrees of intensity, a genuine sense of bewilderment, impotence and loss of direction. In Walid Aouni's A Sculptor's Dream, one of the two productions to represent Egypt in the international contest (reviewed 27 March this year under its old title, Mahmoud Moukhtar and the Khamaseen Wind) the Youth Theatre's Alf Shukr (A Thousand Thanks), Fuut Alina Bukra (Come Back Tomorrow) and Sharqiyyat, wa Lakin (Oriental, but...) -- all artistically modest, as well as Al-Tali'a's Marionette (ambitious in concept but technically irredeemable) and Al-Hanager's profoundly stirring Zaman Al-Ta'oun (Time of the Plague, a concentrated version of Brecht's The Life of Galileo minus the redeeming last encounter between the recanting scientist and his former pupil, Andrea -- reviewed on this page 27 December, 2001), the heroes, all men of exceptional calibre, end up in the grip of despair and die alone and defeated. Though oppression wears a different mask in each -- economic, political, intellectual or religious -- the end is always the same: the brave individual is crushed, his dreams scattered to the four winds, and the forces of darkness and evil are left unscathed and show no sign of weakening. In the Youth Theatre's Istughumaya (Hide and Seek), and the Cultural Palaces' Tamarud (Rebellion), -- both mime and dance pieces -- the focus shifts to young Egyptian women and the challenges they face in the age of globalisation. In both instances, however, the heroines (Reem Higab and Riham Abdel-Raziq), do not fare any better. Though they remain alive at the end and face a different dilemma -- not how to survive without losing one's dignity and integrity, but how to define themselves and shape their lives in the presence of so many conflicting media-images and value-systems -- their quest for cultural identity, existential truth and moral direction remains unfulfilled. Both begin and end alone, at a loss and deeply muddled, and the poignancy of their situation hits you deeply despite the youthful vigour of the dancers and their exquisite skills. The right to question the heritage of the past and rebel against its precepts and assumptions is the guiding idea in the Cultural Palaces' Mish Gayez (which could mean either Not Permissible or Perhaps) and Al-Tali'a's Hina Nass wi Hina Nass (A Text Here and a Text There; the title could also mean One Half Here, One Half There if the word 'nass' is pronounced 'nuss'). In both plays the bone of contention is the sacred authority of inherited texts, projected as another variety of oppression which cripples the present, processing it through antiquated narratives and usurping its right to make up its own. In the first, performed by three actors, two men and a woman, in black leotards, on a nearly empty stage, with lots of gratuitous tumbling and somersaulting, a grandfather feeds his grandson old, silly stories (farcically enacted by the trio). When the grandson revolts and insists on playing story- teller for once, a compromise is reached and the two embark on a joint narrative. Inevitably, they clash, with each insisting on moving the plot in a different direction, and the play ends with the grandson unintentionally strangling his grandfather in the course of a fight. Though at last free, the grandson is horrified at his deed, feels suddenly insecure and is overwhelmed by a terrible sense of guilt. Such ambivalent feelings are characteristic of many young people's attitude towards the past and its heritage nowadays. Mustafa Saad's Hina Nass tackles the same issue, but in a more pronounced comic vein and in predominantly theatrical terms. Initially, the authoritative text in question is Aristotle's Poetics and the classical dramatic tradition. Two troupes of actors, one traditional, the other experimental, fight over the right to occupy the stage and present a performance according to their own lights. Again, a compromise is reached and, as in Francis Beaumont's 1608 curious play, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, the actors agree to perform both plays but in alternate scenes. The constant juggling of two stories, which involves abrupt changes in mood, tone, level of language, and style of acting, coupled with the incessant squabbling among the actors and their persistent pestering of the audience to side with one party against the other trigger a lot of boisterous hilarity. And as if two rival companies with two different texts were not more than enough for any audience to cope with, Saad devised a twin stage as well, in the shape of a huge, round box, with large peepholes in the sides facing the audience, as in the old peepshow. Both the top and inside of the box are used as alternate performance spaces, with the audience looking in turn up and inside through the handy apertures. With this kind of conception, you would not expect either of the plays to have any dramatic interest or logical coherence and neither has any. One is a farcical thriller about a couple repeatedly interrupted on their wedding night by three mysterious, grotesquely-clad strangers who switch identities from Islamic fundamentalists to secret, foreign agents; the other is a parody of a historical play involving a dying king, a long lost son, a hidden treasure and a beautiful princess imprisoned in a dungeon by her enemies then miraculously saved at the last minute and put on the throne. In both cases the story is used either as a springboard for comedy and slapstick farce, or to develop and expand the initial theatrical debate into an intellectual one centring on the authority of texts and the right of individuals and subsequent generations to reinterpret, modify or alter them without fear of persecution. This makes Hina Nass a daring, highly pertinent venture, given the current repressive mood of our culture. However, though serious in intent and interesting in form, bringing together the traditions of the street show, the agit-prop, the revue and the theatre of discussion, Hina Nass displayed a pernicious tendency to tediously belabour the point and generally suffers from some sloppiness in the writing and overall verbal and physical excess. It can do with a lot of pruning, tidying up and, definitely, a firmer grasp of rhythm and finer orchestration of movement and voice. The same faults mar Al-Ghad Theatre's The Lovers, the only Egyptian play in the festival which ends on an optimistic note. The damage is compounded by the facile optimism and sentimentality of Said Hagag's text, and its excessive, often indiscriminate and vexingly muddled use of pagan myth, scriptural material and a medley of Egyptian ritual and folklore. Said Suliman's indifference as director to the visual aspect of the show, his fondness for decorative frills, and the tendency of his actors to resort to clichés did not improve matters. Intended to contrast two interpretations of religion, or, more precisely, of Islam -- one gentle, liberal and tolerant, the other fierce, grim and dogmatic -- and, of course, to champion the former over the later, the text fell into the romantic trap of unconditionally idealising the past, interpreted not as history, but as some mythological utopia beyond all temporal bounds. The ultimate message The Lovers puts across is that we should pin our hopes on some future saviour who will suddenly materialise from the past, out of some legend or folktale, will have enough money to pay us 10 pounds each a day if we follow him, will convert all bigots or, short of that, chase them out of the country and, hopefully, will rid women of the veil once and for all. A little escapism may be healthy, but too much of it is fatal. By contrast, Al-Hanager's Masks, Fabrics and Fates, which will share the honour (or bear the brunt?) of representing Egypt in the international contest with Aouni's Moukhtar, has no glimmer of hope anywhere, not even of false hope; it looks reality straight in the face and transmutes its horrors into a special brand of beauty. The theme is war, death and destruction and the whole piece, which combines movement, dance and masks with a verbal collage from various literary sources, old and new, comes across as a harrowing prophecy of doom and gloom for the whole human race. It is chanted, wailed or woefully recited to the accompaniment of drums, percussion instruments and a variety of other stirring sound effects. The gloom is only relieved by the formal, ascetic beauty of the composition, its visual inventiveness and immaculate rhythm. The first version of the script, by Qasim Mohamed, an expatriate Iraqi artist living in the United Arab Emirates, focussed on Iraq, the destruction and massive loss of life it has suffered in two successive wars and the rule of terror that paved the way for both of them. During rehearsals, however, the author and his director, Hani El-Mettenawi (who also directed Mohamed Abul-Seoud's Meta-Phaedra which represented Egypt in CIFET 2001), decided to expand the scope of the work and make it into a general condemnation of the power/blood lust which has bedeviled humanity since the beginning of creation. Tiresias and Oedipus were summoned from Greek mythology and the figure of Jesus Christ was evoked as a symbol of all the freedom-fighters and champions of the oppressed who have been crucified down history. In a series of visual metaphors, created in collaboration by stage-designer Midhat Aziz, costume and masks designer, Fayza Nawwar, and lighting designer, Abu Bakr El-Sherif, with Hani as choreographer and maestro, the world is projected as an endless dark tunnel, one big prison, one mass-grave, and a deadly game of chess cum gory battlefield inhabited by monstrous, warring creatures, half human and half beast. In this world, time has been annulled, love perishes, innocence goes blind and women give birth astride of the grave. The force of the imagery is enhanced by the vocal composition which is equally intricate and evocative. Whether the actors hiss, whisper, hum and chant, or groan, lament and scream, it is invariably according to a carefully calculated pattern of sounds and silences, and in rhythm with Abu Bakr El-Sherif's music and drums. Shattering though its message may be, and however searing the pain that underlies it, Masks, Fabrics and Fates, never slips into sensationalism or surrenders its sophisticated mask of dignified sorrow.
