Christmas gifts
Nehad Selaiha waxes uncritical
Come December and I am walking on air, little bells tinkling in my ears, stars twinkling in the air, and the whole world shimmering in a gossamer haze. On a pearl-gray dawn of a distant December I became a mother for the first and only time; as they wheeled me into the operating theatre, I drew courage from the sparkling strings of tinsel overhead and the little winking Christmas trees dotting the corridors. And even now, when I close my eyes, I could almost smell the faint, soothing aroma of freshly baked cookies that spread from the Huntley and Palmer's biscuit factory on the way to the Royal Berkshire Hospital. The amount of warm sympathy and solicitous care I received from the multinational team of doctors and nurses during my two weeks there is difficult to describe and I often think would be enough to drown all international disputes and barriers and bathe the whole world in a sea of benevolence. That the night shift Norwegian nurse could only identify my country in biblical terms, as the land from which Moses crossed over into Sinai so many thousands of years ago, was curious. It was four years after the 1967 Middle East war which was widely reported in the media and was still keeping Israel and Egypt in the headlines. And yet, for my serene, blonde Norwegian nurse who had only read about Egypt in the Bible, this war did not exist and I suddenly felt as if I had stepped into a sanctuary where news of killing and destruction were safely shut out. How right she was! Politics have no place in a maternity ward and nurses have more important things to think about, like a mother's need to feed her baby and her psychological health.
The night after the operation I was seized with a vague anxiety, felt depressed and could not sleep. Instead of feeding me sedatives or sleeping pills, this wonderful young woman simply asked if I would like to feed my Sarah who had just woken up in the nursery where she was kept during the night with all the other babies to allow the mothers to sleep peacefully. She had intuitively perceived a need I was not fully conscious of and would have been too timid to express -- a need that women of the south instinctively understand. Sarah should have been born on the same night as Jesus, and how thrilled I was when my doctor, Monica Latto, told me I was going to have a Christmas baby. My health, however, barred this possibility, and Sarah had to be induced into the world more than two weeks before her time. She looked so incredibly tiny and pathetic, with thick, dark hair that half covered her face and inordinately long eyelashes. When I held her for the first time I could not stop crying, thinking I could never protect her. I shudder to think what depths of postnatal blues I would have sunk into in less cheerful surroundings, or without my Norwegian nurse. It is thanks to her that, despite my stitches, I got to spend some wonderful evenings with Sarah in the beautifully decorated nursery, in the company of beaming nurses and a lot of other mothers, and together we celebrated Christmas to the sound of burps, gurgles and clinking glasses. Dear, old Mother Mary would have loved to be with us, said an Irish mother of seven, and so would have good, old baby Jesus.
I love December, and everything it brings I look upon as a gift. Even the silly, garish provincial pantomimes I took Sarah to as a kid during Christmas we ended up enjoying enormously. The dismal bus rides in the rain and cold, the welcome warmth of lighted auditoriums on arrival, the brilliantly coloured sets and hilarious clowning on stage and the hot meals and drinks afterwards, then into bed and a lovely cuddle -- these are some of the blessed memories December brings along every year. Though Sarah has now become a full grown woman and left home and I have turned sixty, those distant evenings still retain their glow and it makes me wait for December every year with the breathless excitement of a child ..
In such a festive mood, my critical faculties go into hibernation and I embrace anything in the way of theatre with joy and gratitude. This December, however, I was quite lucky, watching in one week two old favourites: Anton Chekov's Swan Song at Al-Tali'a and Max Frisch's delicious satire The Firebugs at Al-Salaam. For me, Chekov is always, at any time, a treat, but in December, his profound humanity, affectionate humour and warm, all-embracing tolerance seem particularly seasonable. Though it paints a sad portrait of an old, disillusioned actor, reduced to playing the clown in his last days and taking to drink to forget his loneliness, failing health and the facts of aging and approaching death, The Swan Song is also a glorification of the art of acting and an affirmation of the power of talent to defy sickness and even death. When the 68 years old actor Vasili Svietlovidoff awakens from a drunken stupor in an empty country theatre late at night, after a performance for his benefit, he painfully realizes how easily he can be forgotten and the whole theatre looks to him like "a black, bottomless pit, like a grave in which death itself might be hiding." When Nikita Ivanitch, the old prompter, or "old rat of the theatre", as Svietlovidoff calls him, appears unexpectedly to sneak into the dressing rooms where he sleeps every night for lack of another place, the old actor perceives the affinity of their situations and starts to look back over his life. He bitterly remembers how he began to lose faith in his art and his audience, despite their applause and enthusiasm, and to neglect his health and talent, drinking heavily and accepting worthless parts, when the woman he loved refused to marry him unless he deserted the stage. But in this painful voyage through the past, he also recaptures some moments of glory which he relives in the present, performing before us, with the help of the prompter, some master scenes from King Lear, Hamlet and Othello and concluding with the rousing cry that "where there is art and genius, there can never be such things as old age, or loneliness or sickness." At the thought of death, however, the old actor's voice falters and he recites softly, as he totters out with the old prompter:
"Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven."
(All the quotations are taken from Marian Fell's translation.)
Though sad and subdued, this ending, with the old actor's swan song reverberating in the silence, does not negate the earlier affirmation of the power of art; rather its sheer beauty and dignity confirm it.
Though short, The Swan Song is a favourite with seasoned actors and was performed at least once before on the Egyptian stage in a version especially adapted for actress Safia El-'Emary and produced by Al-Hanager centre. Personally, I far prefer the current production at the small (Salah Abdel-Sabour) hall of Al-Tali'a not only on account of Mahmoud Mas'oud's superiour performance as the old actor (though he is still in his fifties), but also because of Ahmed El-Hawashi's imaginative scenography which recreated this small studio theatre into an old, cluttered dressing room, breathing an air of decay, hung all round with faded pictures, masks and marionettes and scattered all over with props and period costumes. Even the door to the hall sported a wild assortment of old shields, cloaks, coats and vests, and outside, in the entrance, there was an ancient dressing table, with a spotted, broken mirror, hung around with wigs and masks and carrying an old, rusted candelabra.
To enhance the atmosphere and add a further touch of theatricality, director Ahmed Ibrahim introduced three silent characters: two clowns, one in tails and one in motley, to represent the deterioration of Svietlovidoff and contrast with the heroic parts he performs, a young ballet dancer to bring to life the one love in the actor's life, plus three musician, deployed round the hall, who provided live music during the performance (a pianist, violinist and cellist). The only slip in this thoroughly enjoyable performance was casting an irrepressible comedian like Munir Makram in the part of the prompter. Mahmoud Mas'oud who acted with passion, conviction and intensity had a hard job getting Makram to stick to his lines and refrain from comical adlibbing and making side comments to the audience. The strain was fitfully obvious and got irritating at times. But, on the whole, The Swan Song was a satisfying and quite colourful experience, and it was a real pleasure seeing a fine actor like Mas'oud once more on stage and in such a meaty part.
Sameh Basyouni's severely trimmed version of Max Frisch's The Firebugs was another treat, though more austere and sombre. Removing the chorus and the comically satirical 'afterpiece', or coda, which carries the characters to hell and pictures the arsonists as devils, and reducing the epic features of the play to one narrator who speaks in a voiceover between the scenes, Basyouni produced the nearest thing to a classical, realistic drama where the focus is mainly on the characters interaction and the gradual change in the balance of power between Gottlieb Biedermann, the rich and confident business man, and the two mysterious tramps who invade his home to ask for shelter and end up setting fire to it with his own help. While the motives of Schmitz and Eisenring, the firebugs, remain as elusive as in the text, with a vague suggestion of social justice as a motive, or, rather, taking revenge on the rich for their exploitation of the poor, the gradual disintegration of Biedermann's will and the switch in his role from master to subordinate is foregrounded and carefully recorded in subtle detail. The performance comes across as an absorbing study of the sinister manipulation of a person's secret feelings of guilt and false self-image to bring him to the point of self-destruction.
Adopting a gentle tone, with calculated pauses and telling silences, and wearing a worried, hesitant expression that deepens as the play proceeds, Ramy El-Tanbari eloquently communicated the gradual subordination of Biedermann's will to that of his persecutors and the final collapse of his personality as he hands the arsonists the box of matches to burn his house. Ahmed Abu 'Emeira's fat and grubby Schmitz, with his mixture of covered bullying and sycophantic servility, and Walid Fawwaz's tall and elegant Eisenring, with his suave manners, oily charm and brisk, resolute movements made a powerful duet, deeply sinister and menacing. The only women in the play, Yara Farouk, as the wife, and Marwa Yusef, as the maid, had subsidiary roles and were substantially weaker than the men. Though not exactly Max Frisch's Firebugs, this elegant, eerily intense and psychologically charged production had me sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time and for once Frisch's smug, complacent Biedermann had all my sympathy.
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