21 - 27 March 2002
Issue No.578
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 March 2002 Issue No.578 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
View from the top
There is nothing wrong with entertainment, believes Hani Metawie, head of Al-Beit Al-Fanni lil Masrah. And nothing wrong with the state theatre sector that a little restructuring can't cure, he tells Youssef Rakha
Al-Beit al-Fanni lil Masrah (House of Theatre), the department of the Ministry of Culture responsible for the vast majority of state theatres, is headquartered on the top floor of a bustling, labyrinthine apartment whose offices, walls and secretaries evoke a cross between Mugama' Al-Tahrir and a private- sector production company. The office of director Hani Metawie, the head of the House, is by far the most spacious room in the complex and includes a comfortable seating area as well as the bureau. One enters through the narrowest of doors, however, and then only after submitting one's ID at the entrance of the building, travelling up eight floors in one of downtown's time-honoured creaky elevators and negotiating one's way between a number of smaller desks manned by not overwhelmingly welcoming staff -- more Mugama' than production company, this part -- who demand to know exactly who you are, where you work and exactly when your appointment is scheduled.
The National Theatre
photo: Mohamed Lutfi
Metawie is a busy man; his overworked, slightly weary aspect betrays a reluctance to go through the arduous business of discussing the state of theatre now; his generous welcome and lucid logic, though, provide a rewarding counterpoint to the preceding procedures.
Metawie has been in this position for only a few months, although his relations with the theatre are long-standing. In 1966, after graduating from the Higher Institute for Theatre Arts, he took up an academic career, earning a Masters degree in theatre direction from Iowa University and a PhD in drama criticism from Florida University in 1985; Metawie taught directing at Cairo Arts Academy on returning to Egypt. He has held many theatre-related positions in the academy and the ministry and received the State Incentive Award for his book New Readings in Old Plays in 1996.
He has directed an impressive number of plays in the "academic and experimental" strain, interpreting the classics of world theatre (from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Eugene O'Neil and Tennessee Williams) alongside the work of Arab contemporaries such as Alfred Farag and Saadalla Wannous. His role as a theatrical luminary in the intellectually charged 1960s did not prevent him from courting the private-sector; he had popular successes on both state-sponsored and commercial stages, working with some of the most celebrated Egyptian actors: Tawfiq El-Dekn, Farid Shawqi, Abdel-Moneim Madbouli, Samiha Ayyoub and Hala Fakhir -- to mention but a few.
Besides popular plays by serious playwrights produced in state theatres -- Tawfik El-Hakim's Rihlat Al-Qitar (Train Journey) and Mamdouh Adwan's Ziyarat Al-Malika (The Queen's Visit) are two examples -- his best known work is Shahid Mashafsh Haga (A Witness Who Saw Nothing), a phenomenally popular private-sector comedy starring Adel Imam.
When he took up his current position the appointment was widely welcomed, with many expecting improvements, if not a renaissance. The official positions he has held, together with his contribution to the academy, were thought to qualify him superbly for the tasks at hand.
"What you want is a map of the theatre," he declaims matter of factly, scribbling notes on a piece of paper in front of him. But frequent interruptions, the pressing obligations -- many of these seem to consist of state theatre employees demanding his support on a wide variety of problems -- keep him on edge; he seems to require the support of notes to keep his mind on the topic.
Those state theatres that lie under the jurisdiction of Al-Beit Al-Fann, Metawie explains, can be divided into two distinct categories. The first is made up of the large, well-known theatres: the National, Modern, Al-Gomhoriya and Comedy Theatres.
"The first of these," Metawie says, "is concerned with the classic heritage and serious contemporary drama. The second is a laboratory whose job it is to select and showcase the best available work, while the last is really the obverse of the private-sector theatre."
The state of commercial (comedy) theatres and the quality of the fare they offer, is, he believes, "a very touchy subject in Egypt."
"The whole business of presenting comedy on stage requires an altogether new concept and critics must reconsider their stance on the matter. When I was studying in America writers of farce -- pure entertainment without any intellectual import -- were as well regarded and received as much attention as the great classicists. Yet here, for some reason, farce is regarded with contempt and often accused of obscenity, triviality, stupidity, ugliness. Undoubtedly there are plays that might justly be described as such, but I feel that the general tenor of dealings with this kind of theatre is immensely problematic and ultimately, in fact harmful. Theatre is an institution, a whole, staffed by professionals. Commercial theatres work Hollywood-style, as it were, by project. And they offer farce and entertainment with commercial aims in view, which is a completely legitimate part of the theatrical enterprise.
"The one Arab country that can boast of having such an institution is Egypt, and it is thanks to the multiplicity of levels, theatres, methods of production that such an institution exists here. If not for private sector theatre -- which has produced a number of respectable offerings that, if not for the afore-mentioned general attitude would be treated with the same respect as the work of classically minded and supposedly intellectually sophisticated dramatists -- the institution would not exist. The works of Naguib El-Rihani, to mention but one obvious example, cannot possibly be seen as irrelevant or silly, even though they were nothing more than farce and entertainment, nor were they intended to be anything more."
Of the second category under the jurisdiction of Al-Beit Al-Fann, the smaller theatres -- the Puppet Theatre, Al-Tali'a, Al-Ghadd, Metropole, Miami and Al-Shabab -- Metawie believes "their work, on the whole, is supposed to be even more intellectual and serious than the work of the big theatres. In a way it is meant to resemble performances of chamber music: a small ensemble addresses a correspondingly small audience while nonetheless dealing with major classical compositions."
"In fact," Metawie adds, "the administration and management of these theatres is currently undergoing a process of reconsideration in the hope of addressing problems that affect the structure and system of state theatre as a whole.
"The Puppet Theatre has already been renovated, while we are still working on Miami, the Metropole and Al-Ghadd." The National Theatre, too, is to undergo renovations. "But the main problem concerns budget allocations. Some of these small theatres consume far too much money, while other, large- scale shows -- and this is the negative legacy of commercial theatres -- assume that the success of a work depends on how long it lasts. No state sponsored show should last more than a few months, however successful. The small shows should not cost too much, while factors of commercial success must be incorporated into the concept of large-scale shows, so that we don't end up with a costly production intended for small audiences. Similarly, National Theatre productions, for example, should be constantly renewed so as to provide people with as many work opportunities as possible. This what it is hoped will be achieved."
Compared with the 1960s, when Metawie first emerged on the scene, what are the problems facing state theatre now? Has there been a renaissance? Is there about to be one? And how does today's fare compare, in artistic quality, to the fare such theatres were offering in the 1960s?
"The problems are principally economic, and the fact that theatre worldwide now has to confront a wider range of more formidable challenges," Metawie says. "Seasons, even in commercial theatres (where ticket prices are undermining their effectiveness), have become shorter. And overemployment in the bureaucratic institution means that there is a general state of flabbiness, not exactly a deterioration. This is why the issue of budget allocation strikes me as so important. Each age stands alone, as it were; and in the 1960s there was an almost adolescent, politically charged fervour. If you look at Al-Tali'a Theatre, for example, under Saad Ardash in the 1960s it was called Al-Gieb and offered contemporary work from around the world, but when Karam Metawie took over it concentrated on new Egyptian experiments. It is now suffering from the tension between these two concepts and the confusing overabundance of 'experimentation.' So what needs to be done is a restructuring of the concept behind it.
"When it comes to artistic quality -- and if one is to judge the theatre's decreasing popularity, one must take economic and cultural factors like the drop in tourism and the emergence of satellite television and the Internet into account -- I think that as far as acting and directing go, no drop in quality took place; on the contrary, in fact, there is now greater variety and perhaps even an excess of perfectly competent professionals. The only problem, from an artistic viewpoint, is in the scarcity of good playwrights and good plays. After Youssef Idris's call for a grass-roots Egyptian theatre, the Western model was abandoned; but the rudimentary forms of theatre that had always existed were not sufficiently developed to produce remarkable work.
"Now one must realise that theatre, unlike poetry for example, is essentially imported; and so abandoning the Western model too often simply means a faulty grounding in theatre. The Egyptian playwright who wants to experiment and produce something new must argue against two traditions: his own classic and folk traditions and the Western model. This, combined with the proliferation of a valid enough but often misunderstood and misrepresented trend in contemporary theatre -- which does away with the word in favour of other elements -- has resulted in a significant drop in the quality of written plays. And from the purely artistic point of view, this is the only real deterioration witnessed on the Egyptian stage since the 1960s."
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page