Hakim galore
Nehad Selaiha hails a new theatrical project in Zagazig centring on plays by Tawfiq El-Hakim
What is it about Tawfiq El-Hakim's plays that keeps them evergreen, attracting one generation after another of young directors and dramaturges? Pompously enshrined in the chronicles of the Egyptian theatre as the "founding father of modern Egyptian drama" and forbiddingly self-labelled as a writer of "intellectual plays" intended for "a theatre of the mind" rather than the stage, you would expect him to put off the young and rebellious in the field. Surprisingly, however, despite the current predominance of the visual over the verbal in theatre, he is one of the most frequently revived Egyptian playwrights past or present. It was only last week that I told you about a revival of his short piece, Nahwa Hayat-en Afdal (Towards a Better Life), by the Angels Team in the 3rd festival of the United Drama Teams at the Catholic Cultural Centre. Within a couple of days I was haring off to Zaqaziq, the capital of the governorate of Sharqiyya, to watch the first of five plays by El-Hakim to be presented successively over a month under the general title Layali El-Hakim (Nights with El-Hakim). The project, which was approved by Al-Sharqiyya branch of the Cultural Palaces organisation six months ago, is the brainchild of a harebrained, indefatigably ambitious and unflappably optimistic young director who answers to the name Amr Qabil.
To process one production through the bureaucratic machinery of the cultural palaces is quite an ordeal and consumes a lot of time and nervous energy. To hope to launch five all at once, all of them by a redoubtable figure like El-Hakim, with no more than 6 months in which to prepare them spells sheer madness, as many of Qabil's friends told him. And as if that was not enough, Qabil unexpectedly took on another production while working on the project, directing Nadia El-Banhawi's theatrically recalcitrant Ru'a (Visions), which opened at Al-Tali'a theatre on 1 March amid general critical acclaim (see my review, "A dip into the dark", in No. 837 of the Weekly, 22 March 2007). This meant that for six months Qabil not only had to constantly shuttle between Zaqaziq and Cairo, spending four hours daily on the road, he also had to switch moods, imaginative visions and emotional wavelengths at a moment's notice to tune in with each of the plays. Frankly, I did not think he could manage it; not that he wasn't capable of directing comedy as well as tragedy or a somber drama with the same finesse and sensitivity -- a capacity that has led me a year ago to nickname him "Mr Long-staple Egyptian cotton" in reference to the diversity and richness of his talents; it was simply that there didn't seem to be enough time and I thought he was overstretching his energies to snapping point.
Amazingly he pulled it off, and judging by the first production in the "Nights", quite gloriously. For years, Al-Sharqiyya national company had been slowly disintegrating, with the few remaining talents who still stuck to it out of loyalty growing terribly, almost hopelessly rusty. Unlike other directors from the "capital" who occasionally "condescend" to work with provincial companies either to make a bit of quick money or fill in gaps between more attractive commissions, Qabil made it a point of honour to rebuild the company and salvage its reputation. Rather than regard the final production as the sole, cherished end, he treated it as a means to initiate a process of general artistic and cultural rehabilitation. The rehearsals took the form of intensive workshops intended to polish and develop the talents of both the old members and the new recruits and coach them in new skills. No wonder all the company members adore him, from the humblest stagehands to the top technicians and veteran actors. After the performance of Al-Sultan Al-Ha'ir (The Sultan's Dilemma), the first stage of the five-play project last Wednesday, the oldest member of the company, 65-year old Badreddin Abu Ghazi stopped me in the foyer for half an hour which he spent pleading that they (the whole company who had delegated them to speak on their behalf) wanted Qabil to stay on with them indefinitely and direct all their shows. "Please tell Nawwar (the current head of the Cultural Palaces) that having tried Qabil, we can no longer cooperate with any one else," he kept reiterating; "he is so modest and so generous with his time and knowledge and does not treat us like third class artists as other directors do," he added. I remembered hearing similar words from other artists Qabil had worked with and suddenly realised that his warm, generous feelings, genuinely affectionate nature and sunny temperament, together with his simple, unpretentious ways and unflagging, infectious enthusiasm, would always gain him friends and passionate admirers wherever he worked.
From El-Hakim's vast dramatic output, over 80 plays on a variety of subjects played in different artistic keys, Qabil chose five representative works, each displaying a different aspect of the master's multi-faceted power of invention. While The Sultan's Dilemma (1960) is a political play vaguely set during the reign of the Mamelukes and advocates, through a series of humorous intrigues and wily battles of wit, the supremacy of the law over the sword when it comes to establishing legitimate rule and good government; Maglis Al-Adl (Council of Justice, 1970), based on a popular anecdote El-Hakim heard as a child, is a hilarious satire on the wicked manipulation of the law at the hands of greedy, corrupt judges; Al-Safqah (The Bargain, or Deal, 1956) is a realistic comedy with an exciting plot, featuring a conflict between an exploiting, feudal foreign company and the exploited peasants in pre-1952 rural Egypt; Rusasah fil Qalb (A Bullet in the Heart, 1931) is a sophisticated, sparkling romantic comedy in colloquial Arabic, a medium rarely used by El-Hakim, centring on a conflict between love and friendship; and Ahl Al-Kahf (People of the Cave), which brings Qabil's project to a close, is a philosophical drama, frequently streaked with humour, and based on the famous story in the Holy Qur'an about a group of friends whom, to save them from religious persecution, God sent to sleep in a cave for over 300 years then made them wake up again to face a different world.
The magnitude of this undertaking is really stunning and the challenge it poses is inspiring. Having witnessed the first play, I look forward to the next four and intend to follow the project through till the end. Much more rewarding than the artistic quality of the performance in such a project is watching the miracle of a long-neglected provincial company coming to life as a coherent, homogeneous, well- equipped body of artists capable of wrestling with some of the most intriguingly thorny classics of the Egyptian theatre and not only acquitting themselves quite honourably, but also managing to endow such works with vibrant topical relevance. In their hands, and under Qabil's watchful eyes and guided by his directorial interpretation, the play, in which El-Hakim debated, under a thin historical, quasi- romantic veil, the legitimacy of Nasser's reign in 1960, seemed to temporally click in with the recent constitutional amendment polls -- something Qabil had not foreseen when he first meditated the project.
The play which opens with a slave-trader awaiting death at dawn because he dared declare that the new ruler, whom the former sultan had bought, brought up and nominated as his heir but forget to set free before he died, could not legitimately assume office since he was legally still a slave and could only do so after he is sold in a public auction by the national treasury, which now owns him, to a buyer willing to release him forthwith, ends with the new sultan bowing down to the rule of law and rejecting the use of force to bring his subjects in line. Heeding the warning of the supreme judge that he could never feel secure without lawful legitimacy, he accepts the humiliation of being sold to a rich, beautiful widow for one night after which he is freed. The widow, referred to in the play simply as "al-ghaniyah", which literally means the self-sufficiently rich who needs no help from outside, though the word has connotations in the popular mind with the word "courtesan", is posited as a clear symbol of Egypt. That most directors since the play was first aired at the National in 1962 have chosen to throw doubt on the final reconciliation between ruler and subjects, hinting to the audience that however well-meaning the ruler may be, his entourage, who form the apparatus which supports him, would never relinquish their authority in favour of any power-sharing deal, has made the play perennially topical. And Qabil's production was no exception. At the end, after the delightful May Rida (who compared quite favourably with Samiha Ayyoub in the same part in the first 1962 National production) dismissed her dearly paid for royal slave and sent him off to his palace, she joins the citizens to voice her doubts about his capacity to fulfil his promises and conduct himself as a just, democratic ruler in the presence of his deceitful, power-hungry clique.
May Rida, on loan from the Alexandria national cultural palaces company, will also star as "Fifi" in Rusasah fil Qalb, and is the only outsider in Qabil's Zaqaziq theatrical contingent. The rest of the plays are totally manned and womaned by local actors, and if they manage to maintain the same artistic discipline, imaginative fervour and spirit of collectivity they achieved in The Sultan's Dilemma, Amr's Liali El-Hakim project will go down in the annals of the cultural palaces organisation as a ground-breaking venture to be valued and emulated.
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