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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Books Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Drama and experiment
By Nasser M. Abdel-Moneim *
The avant-garde in Third World countries is fettered by complex social, economic and cultural conditions. Stereotypes and strains of fanaticism prevent any sense of rapport with the "other". This is only exacerbated by a belief that a sharp contrast exists between the national cultural identity and an emerging global human identity. In fact, post modernity and globalisation demand the continuation of local pluralism and particularities.
Creative dialogue, based on freedom and equality and rooted in tolerance, between races and ethnic groups, is on going. Yet calls for ethnic isolation and the voices of religious fundamentalists seeking to establish a "just" state are equally loud.
Experimental drama is radically opposed to fundamentalist trends which sequestrate the future in order to revive the past. They perceive experimentation as the work of the devil. The test of time is telling for them: the traditional is necessarily superior to the new. Unfortunately, these views permeate theories of knowledge, education and information in the Arab world. They are responsible for sustaining conservatism, for generating new taboos and for causing all that is new or experimental to be treated with suspicion and doubt.
Mansour Mohamed, the Egyptian director of the play Al-Li'ba (The Game) was a victim of his experiment, as was Algerian director Abdel-Qader Alloula, assassinated in Algiers some years ago.
Democracy is a prerequisite for an experimental approach, and the theatre is no exception.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is a leading theatre director.
