In progress: Midsummer mania
Ahmed El-Attar, now 33, earned a BA in theatre at the American University in Cairo. He has directed eight plays, writing three of them and undertaking fund-raising and production as well. Most recently he was the assistant director and production manager of Eva Bergman's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which opened in Alexandria last week. El-Attar has been active in the independent arts scene, organising workshops and networking.
When I was approached about working as an assistant to Evan Bergman on A Midsummer Night's Dream -- the last project I did, which has preoccupied me completely for the last few months -- I hadn't done a job like that since 1995. I said to myself that I would do it this one last time. Because I am already on my own career path, I have my own projects that really take up all of my time. Once you have your own vision, it becomes very hard to accommodate to somebody else's. When I made up my mind to take this job -- that was about a year ago -- I was attracted to working with someone like Eva Bergman, who has about 30 years of experience behind her. I thought she would undoubtedly have something to teach me, so the experience would be worth it.
I also got involved because of the challenge the project itself presented me with. Having about 40 people from all over the Arab world working together on one project -- and at the same time -- was an experience that I had never had before. Yet another challenge was the fact that I would be the production manager of such a big production. The production was so big that if it had gone commercial, it would have taken at least a year to break even on its costs. But the decision was made early on that it would be a non- commercial production and would be funded by non-profit cultural oganisations. The best part was opening the play up to the public and letting them go through this experience for free. Why didn't we take the play to Cairo? Partly, at least, to help strengthen Alexandria's culture scene and attract more people to that city.
Right now -- I am virtually already on my way to Germany, as you might have gathered -- I am going to show Life is Beautiful or Waiting for my Uncle from America in Berlin. It's a project that started in July 2000. The play was staged in Cairo, Alexandria, Amman and Beirut. After Berlin, in the fall, we hope to undertake performances in Tunis and New York as well. It's not an ongoing project per se, it has just lived longer than I expected. I wouldn't fight against that.
When I wrote Life is Beautiful or Waiting for my Uncle from America I wanted to do a play that expressed the feelings of my generation in Egypt. I didn't want to simply pick a foreign play and translate or adapt it or anything like that at that point in my career. I become interested in different themes at different times, you see, which eventually turn out to be different stages of my career in theatre. Now, for example, I like to work on other people's work as well. I have directed projects written by other playwrights but specifically those who write about Egypt now. And I think I do that well enough. Plays like The Committee, Life is Beautiful and On the Road to Nowhere are all plays that I've written and directed and they deal with the current life in Cairo. It was the need to present something contemporary that involves my generation and my society that gave me the inspiration and motivation to write.
It's not as if I walk in on a typical scene and simply decide to write about an oppressed society, I don't work like that. It usually starts with an interest, maybe a very minor interest, then I start elaborating on how I should perceive it. I direct my plays without the intention of changing the way the audience think about life or anything of the sort. I don't believe in that. I believe people change because they want to change. I don't believe that art can change the world, I think what might happen is that people will watch or read something and that will lodge itself in their memories. If they decide to change, then these things are triggered in the process and they may help guide them on their way.
I expect the audience in Berlin to respond to my show, yes, in the sense that they will connect with it. Follow, however tentatively, the road the play traces out -- even if they don't understand the dialogue. One of the challenges of showing it in Berlin is that German perception of Arabs tends to be worlds apart from what Arabs are really like, which is how plays like Life is Beautiful or The Committee present them. Another thing is that such plays fall firmly into the category of black comedy, which is something that will readily make an impact.
Life is Beautiful starts off on a very funny note, the audience laugh loudly, but as the play progresses the sentiment becomes increasingly loaded, heavier and heavier, so the audience gradually quietens down, and by the time it's over they walk out in silence. That for me is the success of the play. My job as a craftsman -- and that I think is what a director/playwright is -- is to make the audience laugh or cry when I present an idea to them. I'm very deeply interested in Greek tragedy, in Samuel Beckett and Jean Genet -- to name a few -- and I think these influences come through in the play. My writing is not realistic, it's more in line with the abstract or the absurd. But at the same time there is always a subtext of realism. That's the contrast between the facade of a text and its inner import. A text in itself may mean nothing, with invented words and broken phrases, but it may at the same time carry a subtext that is directly connected with reality. A play has layers.
For its part A Midsummer Night's Dream will open at the Disorientation Festival in the House of World Cultures, Sweden, this week (today). The festival is a three-month event focussing on contemporary art of the Middle East. I will be in Berlin at the time, but of course will follow the news with trepidation. It's as much my work. And my next project? I'm working on a play called Have they slept or what? Mother I want be a Millionaire. The writing should be completed this summer and hopefully it will open in November 2004.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 10 -16 April 2003 (Issue No. 633)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/633/cu2.htm