8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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Plain talk
It seems that we shall never stop writing or talking about the crisis of the theatre in Egypt. The latest report on the subject was submitted to the National Council of Culture, Arts, Literature and Information during its last meeting. This comprehensive survey of the history of the theatre, its development in Egypt, and the state of things now, had the title The Theatre and the State.
The art of theatre began in Egypt, from where it crossed to Greece, then to other European countries, until in the 19th century it boomeranged back, enriched by the experiences and the experiments of Italy, England, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, Russia, the Americas, Africa and Asia.
But the path of the theatre in Egypt has not been strewn with roses. It has suffered at the hands of politics, authority, censorship, bureaucracy and commercial interests. Confronted also with the challenge of other media -- the cinema and television, in its terrestrial and satellite forms -- it has fallen into a deplorable condition.
And yet there is so much that the theatre in Egypt can be proud of. There is the accumulated heritage of texts, original, translated or adapted, both in prose and poetry, thousands of text which are either lost or about to disappear. Where, asks the report, are the plays of Rihani, Khairi, Youssef Wahbi, the musicals of Salama Hegazi, Sayed Darwish, Mounira El- Mahdiya and others? A treasure house of translated plays has also disappeared, including plays translated by Taha Hussein, Mohamed Hussein Heikal, Ibrahim El- Mazni, Yehia Hakki and Louis Awad.
Many plays that do remain in print are virtually ignored by the theatre, including works by Ahmed Shawki, Aziz Abaza, Abdel-Rahman El-Sharkawi, Salah Abdel- Sabbour, Tewfik El-Hakim, Mahmoud Taymour, Noaman Ashour and Youssef Idris.
The report points to the urgent need for a revival of the repertoire. Any theatre worth its name requires a permanent repertoire, the foundation from which it launches itself into the future. Such a repertoire gives theatre goers the opportunity to familiarise themselves with an accumulation of plays, including translations of foreign texts. Shakespeare, Moliere, Hugo, Chekhov, Pirandello and Shaw are all, after all, part of the repertoire of Egyptian theatre.
The theatre, the report argues, must be looked upon as a cultural service, a tool of human development. And this requires a complete overhaul of government policy towards the theatre. Such a major involvement of central government may be alien to the Western way of thinking, where theatre and entertainment generally do not fall under the mandate of the state. But we should remember that in several Western countries, most notably the UK and France, the theatre receives a variety of state subsidies.
The report then goes on to tabulate the problems that face the Egyptian theatre. These include the absence of a repertoire or programme; a paucity of translated plays; bureaucracy; the absence of any clear philosophy behind state support of theatre; the non-existence of artistic bureaux or dramaturgues or reading committees for new plays; the absence of adequate marketing and publicity techniques, which may well explain the poor attendance in state-owned theatres as compared with commercial private sector theatres, and the absence of an effective critical tradition.
The report aims at developing a state theatre that can attract local audiences. It is a strategy that, if successful, might also help raise the standard of commercial theatre. At the moment, the report argues, state theatre is attempting to compete with its commercial counterpart by lowering its artistic standards whereas the relationship should operate in the opposite direction.
Sadly, this report rings all but too familiarly. There have been dozens of reports over the years making similar points and suggesting similar remedies. Let us hope, then, that The Theatre and the State elicits a little more response than its predecessors.
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