Moonstruck
Nehad Selaiha enjoys a lunar phantasmagoria at Al-Hanager
In the spring of 2001, Osama Anwar Okasha surprised everybody by briefly turning his back on television, where for many years he has been king of the soap opera, and sweeping regally into the national, with due aplomb and a trail of stars in his wake, as if to avenge his failure to do so two decades ago. The People on the Third Floor was an instant hit thanks to the author's popularity and was followed two years later, at the same venue, by At High Noon which, though set in Alexandria rather than Cairo this time, seemed like a variation on the earlier work. Both were realistic social dramas, with a strong element of mystery, stunning revelations, and splashes of dark comedy, and both were intent on dissecting the mores and morals of the Egyptian bourgeoisie to reveal the rottenness that Okasha claims to lie beneath the attractive, respectable veneer. In the second play, however, one detects a certain impatience with the trappings of realism and a marked uneasiness with its fetters. Significantly, the mystery of the sudden, wholesale drowning of young people all over Alexandria, though realistically presented as a fact, can only be dramatically resolved by switching over to expressionism and swinging the whole play onto a metaphoric plane.
Not surprisingly then, Okasha's third theatrical venture, Qamar Arba'tashar (Full Moon), steers clear of the tradition of social realism, openly opting for an expressionistic mode where the initial realistic spatio-temporal setting -- outside a chalet on the North Coast in summer, under a full moon -- quickly changes into a fluid fantasy world -- a shadowy mental landscape where the past flows erratically into the present, reality merges with dream and legend, and secret longings wrestle with hidden, irrational fears. Though the theme is the same as in the earlier plays -- the perversion and debilitation of human life and values under the combined social and political tyranny of inherited traditions and despotic regimes and the nagging thirst for freedom and integrity -- it is here telescoped through one character rather than spread among many. The man we see reclining on a beach sofa at the beginning, watching the waves (projected on a curved screen at the back) while a full moon rises, is gradually revealed as a disillusioned, defeated, middle-aged artist (an easel stands prominently on one side) who has been oppressed and cheated on all his life and longs to escape his reality.
When a mermaid suddenly emerges out of a floating shell on the screen, then steps onto the stage accompanied by the opening strains of Rimsky- Korsakov's Scheherazade and asks him to depart with her, we assume he is dreaming and, indeed, he tells us so himself. The idea gains credence as scenes from the past flood into his mind and are grotesquely enacted on stage in successive, inconsequential scenes in which characters and locations melt into each other, illustrating various forms of oppression, and the whole atmosphere is weird and unreal as in a nightmare. We see him as a little boy chased around by his mother, catechised and penalised by his father, terrorised and pulverised by his teacher, dragged into sleazy joints and debauched by depraved men and women masquerading as artists, persecuted and harassed by the police, hypnotised by preachers with the promise of paradise (coached in erotic descriptions of its sensual delights), and generally deluded into total political, social and ideological submission and made to surrender his will and mind in the name of filial, religious and communal duty and bow down to the unrelenting, crushing authority of patriarchy. One particularly harrowing memory is the scene where he looks on in horror as his father rapes his mother while his baby sister screams in her cot.
The mermaid we saw at the beginning continues to haunt the man's turbulent dream, loitering on the edges of the scenes sometimes, and occasionally stepping forward to try to rescue him and carry him away. Though bewitched by her song and longing for release, he refuses to follow her, fearing she might be Al-Naddaha (siren), a kind of rural succubus in popular mythology who seduces men then drowns them in the Nile. And here Okasha draws on a song from Egyptian folklore which children sing on moonless nights imploring banat al-hoor (nixes) to release the moon they have kidnapped and hidden and let it shine. To it he opposes a legend of his own which sees the mermaid not as an evil water sprite, but as a nymph who sails with the moon, eternally riding the waves, and symbolises fulfilment and liberation. While Al-Naddaha drags people down into darkness, the mermaid drags everything out into the light, the man tells us.
The formula of a dream-play is maintained up until towards the end and is enforced by an abrupt return to the initial set and the assumed fictional present of the text as a prelude to the stormy confrontation between the protagonist and his unfaithful wife. The scene, however, is written and played in a strange key, unsettling key, bordering on parody, and has pronouncedly theatrical overtones in terms of acting style and acoustic accompaniment. And when the mermaid suddenly walks in to warn the man that his wife is lying and ask him once more to join her, we are no longer sure that what we are seeing is reality as opposed to the earlier dream scenes. At this point, the lines dividing dream and reality, past and present, fact and fancy, memory and make- believe pale out, upsetting in retrospect the audience's initial comforting assumptions and forcing them to view the rest of the play from a dual perspective -- as both reality and wishful musings. Okasha alerts the audience to their dilemma by making his hero loudly voice his confusion as to whether what is taking place is real or a figment of his imagination. Though the play ends with the mermaid gone, having cast a spell on all the hero's opponents and turned them into statues to allow him an escape route, and with the moon sunk into the waves, leaving no light behind, the hero finally decides to follow her. But by that time, the structure of the play and its teasing vacillation between dream and reality, with no certain demarcation lines, have left us in great doubt as to the positive meaning of the step. It could be that he has finally overcome his hesitation, cowardice and fear and decided to be free; but it could also mean withdrawal from the battle of life and suicide.
Okasha wisely chose to have his play staged at Al- Hanager -- a place renowned for its experimental daring and enlightened, open-minded clientele. He also wisely stuck to Mohamed Omar who competently directed his two earlier plays at the national and has therefore developed a sensitive understanding of Okasha's style and imaginative world. With the help of stage-designer Hussein El-Ezaby, composer Atiya Mahmoud, choreographer Tareq Hassan and Yasser Zaher's video projections, Omar was able to visually transform the stage into the nearest thing to a dream world, where images cascade and flow into each other, white sails on wheels, manipulated by dancers, turn into enormous, frightening birds with threatening long beaks when slightly tilted down and forward, or form circles, tunnels or arched passageways when ranged opposite each other on either side of the characters, or serve as beds and walls when lying on their backs or sides. The gliding motion of the sails, their white flimsiness and quick transformations gave whatever formations they shaped and the places they represented a distinct air of insubstantiality and evanescence. Equally admirable and effective was the use of the video images projected at the back as visual metaphors of what goes on in the mind of the hero and the way they were cleverly and firmly integrated with the scenes on stage and made into imaginative extensions and comments.
For the four actors who undertook all the parts, Full Moon was a real treat, allowing each to play several roles and providing plenty of scope for the display of virtuosity and talent. As the protagonist, Mahmoud El-Hedeini went through the various transitions from childhood to middle age with masterful ease and smoothness, dexterously shifting his mood and tone to suit each stage, and displaying in the process a vast potential for comedy, hitherto unsuspected, and a wonderful capacity to draw laughter out of the most painful moments. Aida Fahmi as the oppressed, slaving mother, the forbidding teacher, the coarse and bawdy belly-dancer, and the libidinous adulteress and shameless flirt performed with gusto, exploiting her vast vocal range to the full and foregrounding her knack for mimicry and ability to lace the most serious statements with a pronounced ironic flavour. As the Big Baddy, the actor landed with all the evil parts, Fatouh Ahmed faced a difficult task and did his best to exploit the usual clichés of the villain of melodrama without being trapped in them. He opted for a strong theatrical style, exaggerating every tone and gesture and playing with great energy and ebullience. Comparing the original clichés he used with the subtle variations he made on them was a real source of delight. As the mermaid, Iman Ragaai had the least taxing task and she played her part with quizzical playfulness and was consistently enchanting.
Apart from its technical assets, strong imaginative impact and urgent socio-political message, Full Moon vividly communicates its author's boundless love for Alexandria, his passion for its sea and his inordinate fascination with the moon when it shines on its waves. This explains, perhaps, the strange beauty and feeling of nostalgia one experiences while watching it and the spirit of poetry which seems to inform every part of it and pervade the total conception despite all the grim details.
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