2 - 8 August 2001
Issue No.545
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 2 - 8 August 2001 Issue No.545 |
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Flip the flounder
David Blake soaks up the family fiesta from Port Said
Tanbora Family Troupe; Cairo Opera House, Open Air Theatre, 25 July
Now come the singing boys of Port Said. They are short on soft tones and lack any of the velvet touch, but their ammunition is ideal -- trumpet, clarion and horn simply pour from their inexhaustible larynxes. The opera resounded with many strange vibrations.
Strange the things which float into the opera open air space during its midsummer exertions to keep the gates of the centre open. This was an all male show. Where the splendid statuesque girls of Port Said hiding? If you want to do a show of this kind, and stick the boys on a minute stage for the entire performance, if it is not going to collapse half way through, they must have the right weapons. They need voices of metal -- the romance can wait for another night.
As it turned out, the boys were perfect. Without any stage area to speak of, no decor, no costumes, no lighting, nothing to really help them make a show, they did a non-stop, knock about, old fashioned revue. No interval, no programmes, no whereabouts at all. But it worked -- getting better and better as the hours sped by. The performers must have some access to the fountain of youth in Port Said.
It is possible that nothing will quell this city's energy or sense of its own style -- how to resist all comers, all change, and yet get brighter, more smiling and busier as time goes by. Port Said has plenty of competition from its sisters along the coast, especially the eldest. Alexandria -- gaudy, splendid, poetic, extravagant; Port Said -- neat, spruce, a bourgeois toy town. But this toy town has done well for itself. Tough, bomb-proof and ageless, Port Said exudes a kind of high comedy charm that never leaves it, crisis or no. It's also good at business.
So Port Said dances and with good reason. It dances from the sea to bank and back to the sea from which it sprang. The last of this concert was fresher than the beginning. Through the hours, whatever the mood or spirit, nothing slipped into nostalgia or mere cleverness. Whoever directed this, or left the boys alone to direct themselves, remains anonymous. Yet anonymous avoided any dull moment. This was never vulgar, was often witty and always good humoured.
It never became a routine show, one dependent on entrances and applause, because no one ever left the stage. The company had a small orchestra quite overpowered by the decibels of male voices roaring with organ-like power from the tiny stage. There were no outstanding individuals for the group was the show.
The applause was thrilling. As in really great flamenco groups, the old, on stage, looked after the young by whom they were outnumbered. They worked together and applauded one another in addition to receiving the audience's applause.
A smartly dressed boy performer moves centre-stage, arches, tenses his muscles and begins a lovely movement, a pas de bourée, so deft, elegant and evocative that it drives the lone dancer across the stage like a railway train, the momentum coming from some invisible engine.
The boy is dressed in green and he is probably the youngest member of the troupe. He was clearly enjoying himself, and his enjoyment was infectious. He brought down the house.
His singing was much of a piece with his dancing. Part of his voice was a young, sweet soprano, but it changed at the owner's will into a hefty baritone. It was arresting. The two voices were presented with brevity but excellently.
A night of surprises and of fantasy. Surely the green boy will be heard of again.
Post this solo performance, the event turned into a kind of Port Said follies. A little variety in the music might have helped. The unrelenting minor key and bare bones of the narrative being sung by an all-male choir struck a stark note not really in tune with the show as a whole. But there was humour aplenty and the simple approach, almost Laurel and Hardy, helped.
The young in the audience had long left their seats. There was dancing everywhere and the audience came to resemble swaying sea anemones on a coral reef.
Most of the songs were known by the audience. Then, three quarters of the way through the show we finally got a song in the major key. It was about departure and, inevitably, about lost love. The Opera House management had by this time turned down the lights and if some of the audience was taking the hint and leaving, yet others were determined to ignore the dimming lights and continue dancing. The rhythm was insistent.
The song evoked the time of real ports, a group of which Port Said is an honourable member. It was not tragic but rather something else -- there was joy, arrival as well as departure. This was the kind of song that should have met the big liners as they arrived and left Port Said. It wrenched at the heart.
As the lights dimmed to out, dancers were still flitting about in the dark. As the last dancers wove their steps without the help of any illumination, there was a strange suggestion of something that we might call love or might call endurance.
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