18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 October 2001 Issue No.556 |
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All that glitters
Nehad Selaiha rethinks the wisdom of an old adage
I am not one for musicals, least of all what passes in Egypt under that name. But last week I had a sudden craving for something blatantly, flagrantly escapist -- something light, bright and fanciful, preferably, "born of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy" and "as thin of substance as the air" (to plagiarise Mercutio). In other, less poetic words, a glitzy, frothy, razzle-dazzle farce was what I needed. The commercial theatre was indicated; where else could one be sure to find a spectacular show, gorgeous sets and costumes, jokes galore and plenty of dance and music? Lightness of touch could not be guaranteed of course -- it is notoriously heavy-handed -- and anything resembling wit would be a very tall order. But of idle brains, at least, there would be no shortage -- that for sure.
I first considered Iddala'i Ya Dousa (Be Coquettish Dousa), starring Fifi Abdou, a dancer I greatly admire. In a different mood, I could find her atavistic celebration of the human body, its sensuality and erotic energy stimulating, even invigorating -- a strong antidote to sickness, death and despair. But with so many people starving and freezing up in the mountains of Afghanistan and so many corpses on the ground, I didn't want to think of bodies; alive or dead, they carried the stench of mortality. Abdou's physical presence would provide more substance than I could handle at the moment, I decided. There was also Ahmed Adawiya on the cast list, I remembered -- a more difficult proposition; I would have to cope, not only with his raucous, rough-hewn voice, his monotonous, coarse, so-called sha'bi songs, but also with the painful memories of the 1967 defeat he was bound to stir. He shot to fame in those black days and his inane, cacophonous songs were pronounced (by foes and fans alike) as symptomatic of the nihilistic/cynical mood of the nation then -- a true expression of its disillusionment and sense of absurdity and betrayal. No thank you, I said to myself; I had enough mental bruises as it was and did not need that on top.
That's (Kida) OK seemed a safe bet. Luckily, it was still running, if only two nights a week (Thursday and Friday), and had not had to close down, like many others, for lack of audiences. Its director, Samir El-Asfouri (artistic director of El-Tali'a state theatre company for over a decade before he fled the public sector to take refuge in the private one) has a penchant for whimsical humour, fanciful wit and cannot abide attitudinising or cant of any kind. His knack for smelling out and defusing the moral pretensions of any text is rare in the commercial theatre and makes his productions refreshingly free of the usual, almost mandatory, dose of sentimentality and hypocritical preaching typical of most commercial fare. I remembered how at the end of his memorable box office hit, Hazimni Ya Baba, he made the heroine (Fifi Abdou), a low-paid nurse who takes up dancing in nightclubs and makes a fortune, refuse to give up her ill-gotten gains and live in chaste, honorable penury, as her virtuous brother advises, robustly declaring she would be more use to herself and life rich and powerful than poor and helpless and that, unlike many respectable wealthy people, she had really worked hard for her money, literally, sweated for it. "Ask all these lovely, respectable people here," she told her sanctimonious, rosary-fingering brother, winking facetiously at the audience; "they have paid money to see Fifi dance, not retire."
Like Hazimni, even more so, Kida Ok is not something one could call a play and make any sense; it is mostly gags, puns, mimicry, badinage, physical buffoonery, and wild verbal exaggerations that make the most humdrum thing appear droll, fantastic or grotesque; and, of course, a song or two for every star and lots of dancing. There is also smoke, plenty of it, billowing in thick clouds from the stage to mark the first entry of every star, accompany the dancers, or frame the mock-political-riot scenes -- not to mention the sound of loud gunshots and deafening explosions which made one actor, the night I was there, wonder if he hadn't lost his way coming to the theatre and gone instead to Afghanistan. There are also flashing lights, booming speakers and lots and lots of glitter: gleaming sets, glistening props, sparkling backdrops, heavily sequined costumes, it makes you blink after a while; even the most humble character in this escapist romp, the down-at-heel peasant girl (Mona Zaki), arrives on the scene in a shiny galabiya that dazzles the eyes.
The story line, what I could make of it in this heady orgy of sound and colour, features a serious-minded TV writer, terribly honest but naïve (Hani Ramzi), forced by his iniquitous, unscrupulous boss who owns the TV channel (Sherif Mounir) to betray his principles and turn into a cheap and vulgar (phenomenally popular and fabulously rich) sha'bi singer, a la Adawiya in the past or Sha'ban Abdel-Rehim in the present. He yearns for his long-lost bosom friend and university-days' hero (Ahmed El-Saqqa), a left-wing political activist who left the country when things got too hot and moved to Paris to pursue the struggle for freedom there. Predictably, once back, the idealised hero is discovered as a frivolous, loud-mouthed, self-seeking, pleasure-loving charlatan and a bit of a thug. Interwoven into this, are several love-stories involving courting scenes, sexual rivalry, passionate declamations, slapstick tussles and vigorous chases -- all conducted in a highly farcical vein. Finally, after four full hours (not counting the interval) of high-voltage energy discharge on both sides of the orchestra pit, the lovers got sorted out somehow -- but don't ask me how; halfway through the second part, I completely ran out of steam, though the actors continued full blast (there is something to be said for having an all-young cast); I felt so exhausted with all the laughter, the noise, the smoke, the glaring lights, I began to drop off. I tottered out of the theatre marveling at the talent, versatility and amazing vitality of those brilliant young stars, but also feeling as if those lusty young people had held me over a balcony ledge, shaken me like an old, dusty rug and, for four hours, beaten me clean of every thought and feeling. That night I slept as I had not done for weeks, without any pills, and, for me, Kida was definitely OK.
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