Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre:

A pocket full of shows

By Nehad Selaiha

Ten days of frantic chasing after shows, across sultry, fumy, din-infested Cairo, constantly oscillating between the extremes of theatrical euphoria and depression, have reduced even the toughest CIFET addicts to limping, bedraggled and thoroughly befuddled humans. Inevitably, there were many frustrations and disappointments, and on one occasion there was a riot on account of the limited number of seats. It took place outside the main hall at Al-Tali'a theatre before the first performance of Kudu Bilch by the German Jokobus Theater in der Fabrik. To achieve greater intimacy, or possibly because the show was originally designed for a chamber theatre, director Robert Schoen, had decided to cancel out the auditorium and place the audience together with the actors on the stage. I arrived at the theatre early, having wisely sacrificed the last half hour of Belarus' rambling The Birthday of Celemtano which was taking place at Salah Abdel-Sabour hall next door. By eight o' clock, the scheduled time for Kudu Bilch, the doors of the main hall were barred and only the members of the jury with their contingent of translators and a few festival guests were allowed in. At once the battle started and the rough and tough security men proved no match for the angry, eager, resentful crowds. They were finally let in to sit in the auditorium where, since the curtains were half drawn, hiding most of the performance space, they could see practically nothing. Feeling thoroughly guilty for being among the privileged few, I cynically thought that whatever the quality of Kudu Bilch it would be difficult to forget and, sharing my feelings, director Hassan El-Gretli said sardonically that once, after seeing a similar brawl before a performance of a Peter Handke play given by his own company -- Al Warsha -- a German critic had rushed home to write: 'Egyptian audiences break down doors to watch Handke'. In such a frame of mind one does not expect to enjoy a show, particularly if it is in a language one does not speak. Surprisingly, however, though it consists of a string of monologues in German, which I do not understand, contains the barest minimum of physical action and is obviously a reworking of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, Kudu Bilch made a strong impression on my mind. Unlike Beckett who allowed Krapp to move around and utter a few words while listening to his own voice on tape, Robert Schoen, who also wrote the script, reduces his title-character to a silent, still, shadowy figure, silhouetted by a faint single lamp overhead against a bare, drab wall: the only parts in him that move are the hands and head, and only minimally. By contrast, the phantoms who invade his room, always strongly spotlighted, seem much more real and gradually one begins to wonder if that ghostly man is not already dead. It did not matter that I could not understand a word of what the phantoms were saying; the intricate rhythm of their vocal delivery was almost hypnotic and strangely moving.

From top to bottom: A scene from Where Things Take Place, Egypt; the masks of Night Traveller, Romania; Culture Minister Farouk Hosni presenting Lebanon's Bernadette Hedeib with the Best Actress award; the Award Ceremony CIFET awards, 2000 Best Performance, Where Things Take Place, Egypt Best Director, Michael Seibel, for Orestia, Greece Best Scenography, Noura Murad, for After All that Time, Syria Best Actress, Bernadette Hedeib, for Archipelago, Lebanon Best Actor, Gabriel Fato, for Night Traveller, Romania Best Ensemble Acting, Dong, Poland

Krapp's Last Tape surfaced again in the Cypriot show, but this time in combination with Pirandello's The Man with Flower in his Mouth. The Last Journey, adapted and directed by Maria Karseras for the Theatro Ena company, heavily depended on language too, and here, not knowing Greek was a positive disadvantage. Inspite of some very good acting, many failed to stick The Last Journey till the end. Also in Greek was Orestia! Fragments of a Tragic Language by the Diadromi company from Greece. Most people, however, are familiar with Aeschylus's trilogy and even those who did not know it found this new mode of ritualistic theatre, drawn from the ancient Greek and Byzantine cultures, thrillingly novel and deeply fascinating. On a bare, black stage in the Open Air Theatre at the Cairo Opera House, with nothing but four pots of water at the corners, some stones and a stick, alternately lighted from front and behind, six magnificent performers in modern dress enthralled the vast audience with their spiritual energy, physical and vocal virtuosity, their masterful control and immaculate precision and regaled us with a whole new range of haunting sounds and images. Though deeply rooted in the past and heavily stylised, the Fragments came across as stirringly original and thoroughly modern.

Working in the same direction -- that of exploring ancient theatrical traditions to carve out a new theatrical vocabulary -- was the delightful Castle-Tower Tale from Japan which was also performed at the Opera Open Air Theatre. Based on an old fairy story about a witch who falls in love with a knight who is sent to kill her, and using traditional Japanese costumes and modes of expression, the show had one novelty. Each character in the story was split between the two actors: one who speaks the lines sitting down and another who silently mimes them, performing the necessary movements. This method, specific to the Ku Na'uka company, makes great demands on the actors and requires long and patient training and perfect timing -- something the Japanese are famous for. I found it perfectly enchanting and, judging by the loud and long applause at the end, everybody else did.

Equally popular with the audience was the visually electrifying Italian Seagull by the Fabbrica Dell'attore, directed by the famous Giancarlo Nanni and starring the equally famous Manuela Kustermann who has been leading the group with Nanni since 1964. But despite the scenic inventiveness which, as one Italian critic aptly said "gives the performance a fairy halo," the superb acting and many luminous visual metaphors, I found Nanni's handling of the original text quite distressing. It seemed to me as if he had ripped it open, dragged out its entrails, cut them up and tossed the pieces to the actors to play with or use to work out their own personal and artistic tensions. Admittedly, I am slightly prejudiced here since I adore Chekov and all his work; but isn't it true that without their fine and sophisticated musical composition Chekov's plays become silly and tedious melodramas? I kept thinking that with such a riveting set, such magnificent actors, such imaginative wealth and with less drastic tampering with the text, Nanni could have given us an unforgettable Seagull. Having said this, I frankly confess that I am singular in this reaction to the Italian entry; the general response was nothing short of ecstasy.

I am also almost singular in my enthusiasm for Poland's Dong which most people saw at the opening ceremony. Both the occasion and the venue -- the vast stage of the Opera Main Hall -- worked against it, especially since it followed Intisar Abdel-Fattah's spectacular short dance piece which featured a gigantic reproduction of the legendary Trojan horse, drawn by a team of swarthy, athletic young men. After the impressive magnitude of such a spectacle and the many grand effects, few could be expected to relish the childish charm, whimsical humour, the delicate and zany composition of Dong. This is the price a show almost invariably pays for the honour of being chosen for the opening. Another show which partook of the same breezy, childish spirit and sunny view of the world was Finland's Objects and Emotions by the Quo Vadis Troupe. Luckily for them, they performed in the relaxed, intimate atmosphere of the small hall at Al-Tali'a. With nothing but a low white paper screen extending across the front of the stage, faintly suggesting a puppet show, the performance proceeded as a series of flashing humourous images as the actors, including four children (plus the baby who was lifted up to greet us at the beginning and end and in between provided vocal accompaniment in the form of screams, squeals and whimpers) kept popping up from behind it, handling the most mundane objects in exciting, original and very funny ways. It was ultimately a game of let us pretend; but as in the case of nursery games, the pretence here is a cognitive process, a way to explore how we relate to things and people.

On the Arab side of the festival this year, one registers a tangible degree of artistic and intellectual maturity. As you would probably expect, the majority of Arab shows focused, in varying degrees of subtlety or directness, on political issues. At their best -- as in Iraq's Heaven Opens its Doors Late, and Lebanon's Archipelago -- they grappled with the influence of politics on the life of individuals and human relationships. In the Iraqi Heaven, written by Falah Shakir (the most brilliant Arab dramatist of his generation) and directed by Mohsen Al-Ali -- the tragic suffering of the Iraqi people is powerfully and movingly portrayed through the plight of a newly-wed young man dragged to the war with Iran and captured there where he spends ten years as a prisoner of war. When he finally returns home (which is where the play begins), he is a broken-down old man and his wife fails to recognise him. The encounter sets off a series of harrowing revelations about how people lived during the war, both at the front and inside, and how they continue to live under the sanctions. The misery is interminable. The performance was impassioned and anguished and had something of the spirit and austere grandeur of old Greek tragedy. With a minimalist set consisting solely of metal bars shaped as a table and a cage, cold lighting and black and khaki as the only colours, the characters seemed cast in a void or a dark cell and the sense of home was shattered.

Archipelago too dealt with the effect of war on people but in the mood of black comedy and the tradition of the absurd. The setting is Beirut in the aftermath of the civil war where tons of waste and debris are satirically supposed to have constituted a bridge to Cyprus. Inhabiting this wasteland or rubbish dump is an old doctor shocked out of action by the horrors of the war, a defeated, desperate young man; a young woman with a chronic case of false pregnancy and a discarded test-tube baby. The repulsively greenish set, the moss-covered costumes, the weeds growing out of the woman's mouth and the old man's eyes, the missing breast of the female test-tube baby, the grotesque seductive dance of the pregnant woman were brilliant details and triggered a lot of hilarity despite the grimness of the subject.

Less sophisticated and openly didactic in the tradition of Brecht was the United Arab Emirates' Hanzala, slightly adapted from the play by the Syrian Sa'dallah Wannus and directed by the Iraqi Qasem Mohamed. It takes the shape of a journey that leads to political awareness in which Hanzala, the symbol of the average Arab citizen -- simple, timid, submissive and deluded -- is guided by an enlightened intellectual through a series of painful situations until he loses all illusions and sheds his fear. Like Everyman or The Pilgrim's Progress, the play has a perennial appeal and the two actors gave lively, fast-paced and versatile performances.

On the Arab side too, but outside the contest, we find two impressive productions, both acted, directed and designed by women: the Lebanese Three Tall Women and the Syrian monodrama Aysha. Both are concerned with the personal lives of women in the Arab world and yet they are political in the broader sense encapsulated in the feminist slogan: the personal is political. Artistically too, both are magnificent feats. Nidal Al-Ashqar, a great actress herself, trained by Joan Littlewood, is a grand mistress of theatre techniques and the art of acting, and Rolla Fattal, though still in her twenties and with only three works behind her, has all the makings of a great director. Will they be with us again next year and all those lovely other artists?

When the lights are down and the guests have departed... after all the farewells, the question remains: will there be another CIFET next year?

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