Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 September 1999 Issue No. 447
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

A question of merit By Nehad Selaiha

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Often, if not invariably, the announcement of the CIFET awards stirs up controversy, with reactions ranging from passionate approbation to mild or violent disapproval. This happened even when Nasser Abdel-Moneim The Collar and the Bracelet scooped up the best direction award three years ago, and Intisar Abdel-Fattah's Kohl Pillow won best performance last year. On both occasions some vitriolic voices cast aspersions on the integrity of the verdict, accusing the jury of bending their criteria to accommodate the host country, and were answered by a chorus of enthusiastic vindicators.

Such critical skirmishes have become a feature of the CIFET closing ceremony every year, and are even welcomed and anticipated as a spicy addition to the excitement of the occasion. This year, however, the Egyptian critics' reaction to one particular award was unprecedentedly unanimous and took the form of stunned bafflement. The nomination of Sami El-Adl for the best actor award (for his performance of Mephisto in Intisar Abdel-Fattah's Drums for Faust) and his winning it jointly with the Spanish Dritan Brahimllari who played Woyzeck, completely threw them off balance and landed them with the dilemma of trying to reconcile their firm and long-standing evaluation of this actor with the jury's. It is not only that El-Adl is generally ranked as a modest actor of the traditional classical school, that he rarely appears on stage, preferring untaxing parts in TV soap operas or especially tailored star roles in films produced by his own film company, or that he has never shown the least bit of interest in or curiosity about avant-garde theatre or the experimental festival, and would probably gape at you in bewildered incomprehension at the mention of the word; more than anything else, is the fact that of late El-Adl has emerged as a big film producer, churning out a series of commercial blockbusters (all starring comedian Mohamed Heneidi, whom he signed up for a five year contract), the last of which is Hammam in Amsterdam. Though a graduate of the Theatre Institute, El-Adl's fairy-tale success as film producer has almost put paid to whatever claim to be an actor he might have had. One does not simply think of him as an actor anymore, or if one does, it is as a film actor foisted on the screen through the power of his own money.

Clockwise from far top: Bulgaria's Marguerita and the Master; Spain's Woyzeck, Un Regard Urbain; Tunis's Love in Autumn; Syria's Allo Chekov and Egypt's Drums for Faustus

I remember how utterly surprised I felt when just before going in to watch an open rehearsal of the Drums at the Goethe Institute, a few days before the festival, director Intisar Abdel-Fattah gingerly told me that El-Adl was playing Mephisto. He prefaced the news with the warning: "You will never guess whom I have chosen for Mephisto." He paused, then stammered out the name, hastily adding: "but, please, suspend all judgement till you have seen him. I think he is made for the part."

Though naked -- without sets, props, lighting, or costumes, and performed in the cramped space of the Goethe auditorium, with the singers, musicians, and three principal actors (El-Adl, Ahmed Abdel-Wareth, and Safaa El-Tukhi) sitting in rows, facing the audience across a small platform where Samia Allouba, with two willowy dancers, executed the choreographed sections, this tryout performance more than vindicated Intisar's judgement, and was by far the best-researched and artistically most original and sophisticated of all the Egyptian productions nominated to represent Egypt in the festival's international competition.

Intisar had worked on this production for a whole year, painstakingly revising and, in some respects, radically altering an unsuccessful first version presented last year. He replaced the original cast with solid actors, physically and vocally better suited to the parts, and whose strong, well-trained voices could provide emotional and tonal variety as well as interlace with the other elements of the complex musical conception of the work. And this musical conception itself became richer and more stirring by the introduction of melodies, rhythms, and modes of intonation drawn from the rich vocal tradition of Qur'anic recitation and religious chanting.

Indeed, the new version of Drums for Faust takes off with an intricately orchestrated choral recital of the 99 holy names of God by euphoric chanters hoisted on high pulpits around the rectangular Al-Ghad hall (where the production eventually opened). Other singers and musicians sat behind the audience along one wall draped with Persian carpets, while on the other side, similarly draped, Intisar busied himself with a piano and various traditional and original sound-producing instruments, including an old manual grinder. The two narrow sides were occupied by Mephisto, at his knife-sharpening wheel, and Faust inside a man-size bird's cage, with his youthful doppelganger sitting on top. In the space between, the "spirit of the earth" kneels on a small prayer-rug, facing the three female dancers who represent the ideals of wisdom, beauty and lust she conjures up for Faust. The compelling choral opening, together with the austere set and colour palette and the severely geometric movement pattern and disposition of the actors round the hall effected the metaphoric transformation of the physical space into a spiritual one. In this vibrant imaginary space, armed with a new subtle and sophisticated script, inspired by and redolent of the writings of Muslim Sufis and oriental mystics, and composed in collaboration with poet Ahmed Suelam, actors Abdel-Wareth and El-Adl played out the eternal, unresolved Faust-Mephisto conflict, fencing and parrying with consummate vocal skill and transposing it, with the help of El-Tukhi's brooding stillness and powerful presence, and Allouba's fresh and eloquent choreography to a vividly outlined and evocatively textured Islamic cultural context.

Nevertheless, the conflict remains unresolved (as it should), and the work bravely eschews the temptation to provide comforting solutions and facile reconciliation. Those who expect a rousing religious finale of the calibre of the spiritually uplifting and almost hypnotic choral prelude will be sorely disappointed. The performance ends in silence and complete stillness, with Faust and Mephisto at opposite ends, gazing at each other with a mixture of mutual enmity and sympathetic identification. This end may disturb the pious and religious conservatives but in refusing to make concessions and compromises it gives the work enduring credibility and preserves its integrity.

In this context any actor with a decent enough talent, an impressive physique and a deep voice that he can skillfully manipulate is bound to thrive, and I must admit that El-Adl looked and sounded every inch a Mephisto, and his coolness, consistently urbane demeanour, unaffected wit and polished smile made his eerily reverberating whispers all the more menacing. No wonder he impressed the jury who were blissfully ignorant of his previous career and, therefore, more objective in their evaluation of his performance than any Egyptian critic can be.

On the best director award going to Luis Garvan, director of the Spanish Woyzeck, Un Regard Urbain, and best actor to its male lead, Dritan Brahimllari (jointly with El-Adl), the critics had nothing to complain about. As Buchner's ruthlessly exploited and brutally baited Woyzeck, driven by dehumanising suffering to madness, murder and despair, Brahimllari gave a riveting performance and was the epitome of human anguish and misery.

The framing of this dismal character and his painful story in a cold, drab set, consisting of wire fences and metal barrels, added to its impact, and the production's inspired lighting plan transformed the stage into an at times soulless wasteland, a savage cockpit, a medical operating theatre in a Nazi concentration camp, or a murky inferno presided over by shadowy demons.

Equally damning of modern civilization and its dehumanising effect was the French C'Est Pour Toi Que Je Fais ‚a which won the best performance award for its stunning vitality and its use of the circus and its dangerous acts as a metaphor for life in the modern world. Powerful as the metaphor was, it failed to work consistently as a unifying force, and at times the acrobatic feats of Le Cirque Désaccordé performers and their fantastic energy and skills completely engrossed the audience, making them forget the drama and conflicts for which the circus numbers are supposed to be a vehicle. This explains why many experienced C'est Pour Toi as simply a delightful circus show performed by wonderful people whose vitality and joie de vivre discredited everything they said about loneliness, frustration, or pain. It also explains the inevitable debate after the announcement of the awards as to whether the French entry qualifies as theatre at all.

The best scenography (or 'stage technique', as it was called in previous years) award which went to the Polish Gateway, and the award for best actress given jointly to the two lead actresses in the Tunisian Love in Autumn were other bones of contention. The majority of critics and festival fans maintain that the former should have gone to the skillfully innovative Italian Fly, Butterfly which harnessed together the techniques of black theatre, the shadow-play and the puppet theatre, and drew upon the Japanese traditions of the hara-kiri and the rigorous training of Kabuki actors, as well as the tradition of Italian opera (through the obvious allusion in the title to Puccini's Madame Butterfly), and used them all, with a magical sound track, to create a visually fascinating and moving metaphor for the struggle of the artist to perfect her talent, and her sacrifice of the self at the altar of art. The latter, by a consensus of critical opinion, belonged by rights to the versatile Greek performer Emmanouela Kapokaki for her enchanting Limnothalassa (reviewed here last week).

Other shows favoured by the critics were the Bahraini Light-Shadow in which a simple box with a human figure inside was transformed by various lighting techniques into an evocative, multiple metaphor, and Austria's Kafka: The Metamorphosis Danced which sought inspiration for its novel choreography in the world of beetles, cockroaches and other creepy-crawlies, and in old silent movies. It was repulsively fascinating, and its grotesque parodying of ordered bourgeois life was simply delicious. But the awards aside, the most intriguing feature of this year's festival was the abundant use of water and puppets in many of its shows. The critics are still pondering the reason.

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