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By Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson | Volume 4 of Nehad Selaiha's analysis of Egyptian Theatre focuses on cultural relationships. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Selected Essays: Cultural Encounters 1 and 2 Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson Download PDF Volume 4 and Volume 5 Nehad Selaiha’s (1945-2017) Egyptian Theatre series tries the answer the following questions: What happens to plays when presented in cultural contexts other than their own, to dramatic texts in translation, or when adapted to suit a different culture? How are they approached by directors and perceived by spectators? What expectations do audiences bring to the, or to visiting performances in alien languages? How are these expectations formed? Through what agencies? And how do they affect reception? Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Marcy Arlin, Gwynn MacDonald, Daniel Gerould | The first English-language anthology of Czech plays written after the 1989 “Velvet Revolution. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Czech Plays: Seven New Works Marcy Arlin, Gwynn MacDonald, Daniel Gerould Download PDF Czech Plays: Seven New Works is the first English-language anthology of Czech plays written after the 1989 “Velvet Revolution.” These plays explore sex and gender identity, ethnicity and violence, political corruption and religious taboos. Using innovative forms and diverse styles, they tackle the new realities of Czech society brought on by democracy and globalization with characteristic humor and intelligence. Edited by Marcy Arlin, Gwynn MacDonald, Daniel Gerould Foreward by Daniel Gerould Introduction by Marcy Arlin Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Josep M. Benet i Jornet, Sergi Belbel, Lluisa Cunielle, Pau Miro, Marion Peter Holt, Sharon G. Feldman | A Collection of New Works by Catalan Playwrights < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Barcelona Plays Josep M. Benet i Jornet, Sergi Belbel, Lluisa Cunielle, Pau Miro, Marion Peter Holt, Sharon G. Feldman Download PDF A Collection of New Works by Catalan Playwrights Barcelona’s theatre has experienced a remarkable renaissance in the years since the end of the Franco dictatorship. First, performance groups such as La Fura dels Baus, Els Joglars, Dagoll-Dagom, and la Cubana flourished with distinctive productions in which spectacle and movement predominated. In 1976, the Teatre Lluire began to set new production standards with a repertory or international plays. Soon the Catalan language, suppressed for more than three decades, became the vehicle of expression for new playwrights who challenged the performance groups with a “teatre de text”. The new plays in this collection represent outstanding playwrights of three generations. Benet i Jornet won his first drama award in 1963, when he was only twenty-three years old, and in recent decades he has become Catalonia’s leading exponent of thematically challenging and structurally inventive theatre. His plays have been performed internationally and translated into fourteen languages, including Korean and Arabic. Sergi Belbel and Lluïsa Cunillé arrived on the scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with distinctive and provocative dramatic voices. The actor-director-playwright Pau Miró is a member of yet another generation that is now attracting favorable critical attention. This collection includes: Josep M. Benet i Jornet: Salamander Sergi Belbel: Strangers Lluisa Cunielle: Barcelona, Map of Shadows Pau Miro: It's Raining In Barcelona Translated and Edited by Marion Peter Holt & Sharon G. Feldman Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Josep M. Benet i Jornet, Marion Peter Holt | A collection of two plays by Catalan playwright Josep M. Benet i Jornet. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Two Plays: Fleeting Stages Josep M. Benet i Jornet, Marion Peter Holt Download PDF Translated by Marion Peter Holt Josep M. Benet i Jornet, born in Barcelona, is the author of more than forty works for the stage and has been a leading contributor to the striking revitalization of Catalan theatre in the post-Franco era. Fleeting, a compelling “tragedy-within-a-play”, and Stages, with its monological recall of a dead and unseen protagonist, rank among his most important plays. They provide an introduction to a playwright whose inventive experiments in dramatic form and treatment of provocative themes have made him a major figure in contemporary European theatre. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

What's On Year round, the Center presents a wide variety of FREE public programs which feature leading national and international artists, scholars, researchers, arts managers and other stakeholders. Sharings, discussions, readings and more, join our events in-person in New York or online via Howlround. Free entry and open to all, always! Abhishek Majumdar (India) presents Behram Khan Thu, Dec 04 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center More info More Info + RSVP Book Celebration for Artistic Collaborators Karen Malpede & Penny Arcade Mon, Dec 15 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center More info More Info + RSVP Yousef Sweid & Isabella Sedlak's River and Sea Thu, Dec 18 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center More info More Info + RSVP Past Events You can view an archive of our past events below Mon, Nov 17 Nurit Chinn's: Internee Number 6 / Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Details Nov 17, 2025, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EST Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA A play in progress based on Maria Eisenstein Diaries (Italy, 1944) about Jewish women imprisoned in Fascist internment camps in Italy. +109 more Thu, Nov 13 Honoring Morgan Jennesse: My Dinner with Morgan at Remedy Diner #44 / Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Details Nov 13, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA +55 more Mon, Nov 10 The Caribbean Theatre Project: Condé, Gonfier, Glissant / Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Details Nov 10, 2025, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EST Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA +106 more Thu, Oct 30 The 2025 Edwin Booth Award: Honoring Michael R. Jackson / Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Details Oct 30, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA +2 more Fri, Aug 29 Down to Earth Festival / Multiple Locations around NYC Details Aug 29, 2025, 12:00 PM – Sep 07, 2025, 9:20 PM Multiple Locations around NYC New York City’s First International Festival of Multidisciplinary Creation in Public Spaces Multiple Dates Sat, May 17 Segal Center Film Festival 2025 - Day 3 / New York Details May 17, 2025, 2:00 PM – 10:00 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA An annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance +14 more Thu, May 15 Segal Center Film Festival 2025 - Day 1 / New York Details May 15, 2025, 2:00 PM – 9:00 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA An annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance See All Multiple Dates Mon, May 05 Segal Center World Voices Festival: HAEYOUL BAE (South Korea) / New York Details May 05, 2025, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA Come celebrate new work by renowned, international theatre artists +13 more Thu, May 01 Disability & Deaf Performance: A Conversation + World Voices Reading of Plays by Kaite O'Reilly / New York Details May 01, 2025, 5:00 PM – 8:30 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA Join us for a conversation with disabled and Deaf theatre-makers exploring how embodied difference is reshaping contemporary theatre aesthetics. +16 more Mon, Apr 21 New York Theatre Festivals / New York Details Apr 21, 2025, 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA Join us for conversations with NYC festival producers and directors +83 more Mon, Apr 14 A Celebration of the New PAJ Edition of Jonas Barish's "The Antitheatrical Prejudice" with Joseph Roach / New York Details Apr 14, 2025, 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA The Segal Center welcomes Professor Joseph Roach to discuss the new edition of Jonas Barish's 1981 text "The Antitheatrical Prejudice" and the impact it has had on theatre and performance studies. +45 more Mon, Apr 07 An Evening of Affinity Space Actor Training / New York Details Apr 07, 2025, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA Learn about the artistry, camaraderie, and joy that can be unlocked when actor training takes place in an affinity space +62 more Thu, Apr 03 New Plays from Galicia / New York Details Apr 03, 2025, 6:30 PM – 10:30 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA This groundbreaking volume is the first anthology in history to present Galician plays in English translation +9 more Mon, Mar 24 New York City Theatre Archives / New York Details Mar 24, 2025, 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA Celebrate the publication of the latest edition of Theatre Research Resources in New York City +58 more Mon, Mar 10 The Legacy of Edward Bond / New York Details Mar 10, 2025, 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA Join us for a reading of Bond's unproduced play, The Shoe Thief +38 more Mon, Jan 20 Elfriede Jelinek’s ENDSIEG: THE SECOND COMING. Online Readings Directed by Milo Rau. / Livestreamed on Howlround Details Jan 20, 2025, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Livestreamed on Howlround Join us on Inauguration Day for parallel online readings directed by Milo Rau of Elfriede Jelinek’s ENDSIEG: THE SECOND COMING—a Response to the Re-election of Donald Trump. +142 more Thu, Dec 19 Mourning Machine: A Joyful Grief-Space for the NYC Theater Community / New York Details Dec 19, 2024, 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA +70 more Mon, Dec 16 Every Day Is Migrants Day / New York Details Dec 16, 2024, 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA +43 more Load More Visit Archive

By Ernesto Caballero, Guillem Clua, Cristina Colmena, Mar Gómez Glez, Borja Ortiz de Gondra, Alfredo Sanzol, Emilio Williams | This selection of plays offers insight into the evolution of Spanish art and culture in the context of the country’s current situation. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu New Plays from Spain Ernesto Caballero, Guillem Clua, Cristina Colmena, Mar Gómez Glez, Borja Ortiz de Gondra, Alfredo Sanzol, Emilio Williams Download PDF Eight Works by Seven Playwrights Spanish theatre has experienced a remarkable renaissance in recent years. On the occasion of the 2013 PEN World Voices Festival in New York, eight plays by seven Spanish playwrights were brought together by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, the Spanish Consulate in New York, Fundación Autor, and the Instituto Cervantes for a two-day festival of readings and discussion at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center, CUNY. Representing the most innovative and respected voices working in contemporary Spanish theatre, this selection of plays offers insight into the evolution of Spanish art and culture in the context of the country’s current situation. This anthology, published on the occasion of these readings, brings together the voices of Ernesto Caballero, Guillem Clua, Cristina Colmena, Mar Gómez Glez, Borja Ortiz de Gondra, Alfredo Sanzol, and Emilio Williams. Presented together, these plays represent the rich and varied landscape of contemporary Spanish theatre. Three of the eight plays included in this volume appear in both Spanish and English, and may therefore serve as a study in translation for artists, scholars, and translators. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Liwaa Yazji | A collection of poems from Syrian playwright and filmmaker Liwaa Yazji. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Three Poems Liwaa Yazji Download PDF This collection of three poems was written in 2015 by the Syrian playwright and filmmaker Liwaa Yazji. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Frank Hentschker, Yu Chien Liu | Capturing 10 years of the contemporary performances and conversations of the Segal Center's PRELUDE festival. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the link: http://www.tcg.org/Store/ProductDetail/6110895 To view this publication online for free, visit the link: https://www.scribd.com/doc/283453685/Ten-Years-PRELUDE Ten Years PRELUDE Frank Hentschker, Yu Chien Liu Download PDF Edited by Frank Hentschker Designed and Design Concept by Yu Chien Liu For over 10 years the annual Prelude Festival, held at The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, has been a force in New York theatre and performance – a free, three-day festival that celebrates artistic and academic exchange in the heart of the city. This book represents ten years (2003-2013) of unlimited creativity, discourse and exchange within an academic setting. The artists of Prelude – pioneers in their field – demonstrate that theatre and performance continue to matter – and that New York City is still at the forefront of the form. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Daniel Veronese, Lola Arias, Federico Leon, Rafael Spregelburd, Jean Graham-Jones | This book brings US readers cutting-edge work from one of Latin America’s most vibrant theatrical scenes: < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu BAiT: Buenos Aires in Translation Daniel Veronese, Lola Arias, Federico Leon, Rafael Spregelburd, Jean Graham-Jones Download PDF 4 Plays from Argentina This publication of the four plays presented at New York’s Performance Space 122 2006 festival, BAiT: Buenos Aires in Translation, brings US readers cutting-edge work from one of Latin America’s most vibrant theatrical scenes: 1. Women Dreamt Horses Daniel Veronese’s drama about a dinner where siblings argue over the fate of the family business. 2. A Kingdom, a Country or a Wasteland, in the Snow Lola Arias’s tense tragedy about two sisters struggling to survive in a postapocalyptic landscape, and the wild man who disrupts their lives. 3. Panic Inspired by horror flicks, Rafael Spregelburd’s drama follows mother who attempts to recover her safe-deposit-box key from the hand of a corpse. Directed by Brooke O’Harra of the Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf. 4. Ex-Antwone A dreamlike play by Federico León, in which memories and fantasies overlap when a man navigates a labyrinth. With plays from Daniel Veronese, Lola Arias, Federico Leon, Rafael Spregelburd Translated and Edited by Jean Graham-Jones. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Jalila Baccar, Fadhel Jaïbi, Marvin Carlson, Nabil Cherni | A collection of recent work by Tunisian playwright and actress Jalila Baccar and director co-author Fadhel Jaibi, capturing the complexity and depth of grand themes prevalent in Arab societies. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu The Trilogy of Future Memory Jalila Baccar, Fadhel Jaïbi, Marvin Carlson, Nabil Cherni Download PDF Edited by Marvin Carlson Translations by Marvin Carlson and Nabil Cherni. Tunisian playwright and actress Jalila Baccar and director co-author Fadhel Jaïbi are two of the most important voices in contemporary Arab theater. No theatre artists were more closely involved with the ongoing events of the Arab Spring nor more astute critics of the constantly shifting political scene and their plays are enormously helpful in understanding the cross-currents of a country like Tunisia at the opening of the twenty-first century. Baccar’s roles, acting and theatrical narratives, co-created by her director and husband Fadhel Jaïbi, are extremely intricate, psychologically multi-layered, and have the uncanny ability to capture the complexity and depth of grand themes prevalent in Arab societies. Baccar has performed in over twenty of her plays, including major theatrical productions that have been staged worldwide by Jaïbi: Junun (Dementia, 2009) at the Edinburgh Festival, Khamsoun (Captive Bodies, 2006) – the first Arab play to be performed at the Théâtre de L’Odéon in Paris, and Araberlin (2002), among many others. Together they founded Tunisia’s first private theatre company, Le Nouveau Théâtre in 1976, as well as (in 1994) Familia Productions, instrumental in modernizing Tunisian theatre and engaging it in contemporary political concerns. This collection of their recent work, The Trilogy of Future Memory, includes Khamsoun (2006), translated by Nabil Cherni, and Amnesia (2010), and Tsunami(2013) translated and Marvin Carlson who has also provided an introduction. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Marvin Carlson | A comprehensive catalogue of New York City research facilities available to theatre scholars. < Back More Information & Order Details To order a print copy of our pocket edition, go to Lulu (https://bit.ly/theatreresourceslulu) Theatre Research Resources in New York City Marvin Carlson Download PDF Edited by Frank Hentschker and Margaret Araneo Theatre Research Resources in New York City is now in its seventh edition. An essential text for anyone conducting research in theatre and performance in NYC, the book includes a comprehensive list of discipline-specific research facilities, including public and private libraries, museums, historical societies, university and college collections, acting schools, and film archives. Each entry features an outline of the facility’s holdings as well as contact information, hours, services, and access procedures. The book is available in print form in a new pocket edition as well as online. To access the book online, click here. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Marvin Carlson, Safi Mahfouz, Robert Myers, Nada Saab | This collection contains four full-length works by Sa‘dallah Wannous, available in English for the first time. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Four Plays from Syria: Sa‘dallah Wannous Marvin Carlson, Safi Mahfouz, Robert Myers, Nada Saab Download PDF Sa‘dallah Wannous, generally considered the leading Syrian dramatist of the twentieth century, was selected in 1996 by UNESCO and the International Institute of Theatre as the first Arab playwright to deliver the keynote speech on International Theatre Day. This collection contains four full-length works, available in English for the first time: Rituals of Signs and Transformations, The Evening Party for the Fifth of June, The Adventure of the Mamluk Jaber’s Head, and The Drunken Days. Together they represent almost thirty years of Wannous’s remarkable career, and indicate the range of his political, social, personal, and metatheatrical contributions to modern drama. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Claudio Tolcachir, Jean Graham-Jones | Collection of plays from Claudio Tolcachir’s Timbre 4 company based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Timbre 4: Two Plays by Claudio Tolcachir Claudio Tolcachir, Jean Graham-Jones Download PDF Claudio Tolcachir’s Timbre 4 is one of the most exciting companies to emerge from Buenos Aires’s vibrant contemporary theatre scene. The Coleman Family Omission and Third Wing, the two plays that put Timbre 4 on the international map, are translated here into English for the first time. Edited by Jean Graham-Jones Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Stéphanie Bérard, with Frank Hentschker | An anthology of six contemporary Francophone Caribbean plays. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu New Plays from the Caribbean Stéphanie Bérard, with Frank Hentschker Download PDF New Plays from the Caribbean Segal Center Publication 2023 The Segal Center anthology New Plays from the Caribbean unveils the rich and diverse production of contemporary Francophone Caribbean theatre, allowing new dramatic voices to be heard and to travel around the world. The creative and innovative mixing of styles and languages (French and Creole) by playwrights from Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe represent the next wave of politically engaged Caribbean theatre. The plays tell the stories and histories of contemporary Caribbean people by exploring passion, desire, and the collective experience of trauma and loss after a natural disaster. The plays denounce social, racial, and gender violence by staging real-life dramas and documentary theatre. The anthology is composed of six plays: - Adoration (L'Adoration) by Jean-René Lemoine (France/Haiti), translated by Amanda Gann; - And the Whole World Quakes/Chronicle of a Slaughter Foretold, (De toute la terre le grand effarement ) by Guy Régis Jr.(Haiti), translated by Judith Miller - Ladjablès-Wild Woman (Ladjablès) by Daniely Francisque, translated by Danielle Carlottu-Smith - Family (Une vie familiale) by Gaël Octavia, (Martinique) - Street Sad (Trottoir Chagrin ) by Luc Saint-Eloy (Guadeloupe), translated by Josh Cohen - The Day My Father Killed Me (Le jour où mon père m'a tué) by Magali Solignat and Charlotte Boimare (Guadeloupe), translated by Amelie Parenteau. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Frank Hentschker | A snapshot of the vibrant New York dance scene, through their manifestos. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu DANCE New York: Performed Manifestos Frank Hentschker Download PDF A celebration of the vibrant New York dance scene. New York choreographers and dancers present their manifestos, statements of why they do what they do and how they do it. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson | Nehad Selaiha chronicles the rise of the Free Theatre Movement in Egypt in the late 1980s. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Selected Essays: New Directions Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson Download PDF In this book, Nehad Selaiha (1945-2017), a distinguished scholar and prominent critic, chronicles the rise of the Free Theatre Movement in Egypt in the late 1980s and traces its stormy course and many battles as well as the artistic development of the young independent troupes and artists who have made it a reality against great odds. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson | Nehad Selaiha draws attention to important performers, directors, dramaturges, critics and managers of Egyptian Theatre. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Selected Essays: Perspectives Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson Download PDF Perspectives is the third volume in Nehad Selaiha’s (1945-2017) Egyptian Theatre series, after New Directions and Plays and Playwrights. Here, the focus shifts to performers, directors, dramaturges, critics and managers, and they are presented through their work in accurate, sympathetic portraits which combine the personal and artistic. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Sarah Stites, Frank Hentschker | An examination of the censorship of LiIllian Hellman's The Children's Hour. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Intermeddlers Sarah Stites, Frank Hentschker Download PDF Lillian Hellman's The Children’s Hour opened on Broadway in 1934. This drama about two schoolteachers falsely accused of having a lesbian affair was a popular and critical success—but the subject matter caused authorities to ban the play in many locations. This new work combines excerpts from Hellman’s controversial play and material from the 1936 case which sought to have the play banned. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Marvin Carlson, Safi Mahfouz | The first-ever English translation of three of Ibn Dāniyāl’s saucy puppet plays. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Theatre from Medieval Cairo: The Ibn Dāniyāl Trilogy (Egypt) Marvin Carlson, Safi Mahfouz Download PDF Irreverent readings from three of Ibn Dāniyāl’s saucy puppet plays, brought to you in their first-ever English translation by Safi Mahfouz (UNRWA University, Jordan, Fulbright postdoctoral Segal Center Visiting Scholar) and renowned theatre historian Marvin Carlson (The Graduate Center, CUNY). Discovered by German orientalist Georg Jacob (1862-1937), these texts are among the earliest secular plays known to humankind. With their English translations now forthcoming from Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications, Mahfouz and Carlson, together with Noor Theatre, offer us a glimpse into Dāniyāl’s spicy Cairo underworld of pimps, prostitutes, and dirty dealing, as well as the practice of street performance in medieval Cairo. Cover Image: Manuscript Illumination. Folio from a copy of Al-Jaziri’s Treatise Automata, Mameluk Dynasty, (1206 AD). Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Maya Roth Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 35 2 Visit Journal Homepage Revolutions in Performance and Theatre / History Now Maya Roth By Published on April 27, 2023 Download Article as PDF Maya Roth, Editor Feeling the Future at Christian End-Time Performances By Jill Stevenson Reviewed by Rob Silverman Ascher Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age By Duška Radosavljević Reviewed by M. Landon Borderlands Children’s Theatre: Historical Developments and Emergence of Chicana/o/Mexican-American Youth Theatre By Cecilia Josephine Aragόn Reviewed by Jeanne Klein Pandemic Performance: Resilience, Liveness, and Protest in Quarantine Times Edited by Kendra Capece and Patrick Scorese Reviewed by Ansley Valentine The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945 Edited by Julia Listengarten and Stephen Di Benedetto Reviewed by Clay Sanderson Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past By Ariel Nereson Reviewed by Jada M. Campbell Books Received The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 35, Number 2 (Spring 2023) ISNN 2376-4236 ©2023 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center References About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age México (Expropriated): Reappropriation and Rechoreography of Ballet Folklórico Making Up for Lost Time: New Play Development in Academia Post COVID 19 The Heart/Roots Project and a Pandemic Pivot Effing Robots Online: The Digital Dramaturgy of Translating In-Person Theatre to Online Streaming From Safe to Brave—Developing A Model for Interrogating Race, Racism and the Black Lives Matter Movement Using Devised Theater How to Make a Site-Specific Theatrical Homage to a Film Icon Without Drowning in Your Ocean of Consciousness; or, The Saga of Red Lodge, Montana Meet Me Where I Am: New Play Dispatches from the DC Area Playing Global (re)Entry: Migration, Surveillance, and Digital Artmaking The Front Porch Plays: Socially-Distanced, Covid-Safe, Micro-Theatre (Re)Generation: Creating Situational Urban Theatre During COVID and Beyond Emergent Strategy Abolitionist Pedagogy in Pandemic Time Chevruta Partnership and the Playwright/Dramaturg Relationship Feeling the Future at Christian End-Time Performances Revolutions in Performance and Theatre / History Now Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945: Edited by Julia Listengarten and Stephen Di Benedetto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021; Pp. 273. Pandemic Performance: Resilience, Liveness, and Protest in Quarantine Times: Edited by Kendra Capece, Patrick Scorese. New York: Routledge, 2023; Pp. 188 Borderlands Children’s Theatre: Historical Developments and Emergence of Chicana/o/Mexican-American Youth Theatre Sarah Gancher and Jared Mezzocchi : How Collaboration is Dramaturgy Between Playwright and Multimedia Creator Starting with the Space: An Interview with Patrick Gabridge Reviving Feminist Archives: An Interview with Leigh Fondakowski Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 19, Fall, 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage (W)here comes the sun? By Tamás Jászay Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF It's almost a family atmosphere: we spectators, barely a hundred of us, sit around the empty space. Office lights hang high above, from which a cheap paper screen is lowered from time to time, projecting still or moving images. This projection is one of the essential elements of this refreshed, dusted-down, updated Ibsen production, Solness , which premiered on the studio stage of the Örkény István Theatre in Budapest in autumn 2022 and, due to great interest, has been performed at the Szkéné Theatre from February 2024. On the screen, we see the building plans of the master builder and his student, which were never realised, and which are commented on with admiration or hatred. The shadows of the characters projected sharply onto the screen inadvertently add comments and stories to the projected images. If you happen to be sitting on the other side of the screen, you can see the images indelibly projected onto the desperate, pleading, explaining faces, not just their shadows. The screen becomes a time gate. Plans that never materialize transport us to an imagined, idealized futur e, but as we approach the finale, the canvas also becomes a powerful means of bringing the past to life. Suddenly we are watching a family home video, a private documentary of the past half century; the period when Pál Mácsai, playing Solness, became one of Hungary's best known and most admired actors. We peek, we peep into his life, as we have done so many times during the performance, and the (self-)ironic audio commentary is provided at this point by the video's protagonist, Mácsai-Solness himself. Finally, the screen is the "protagonist" in the bombastic finale: we see a projection of Hilde Wangel, who entered previously Solness's ordered yet infinitely lonely life, taken by the master builder as a vampire. From the short introduction, it is clear that Solness , directed by Ildikó Gáspár, plays with different stakes than the usual interpretations of Ibsen's late drama. The director can do all this here and now because the theatrical reception of Solness , written in 1892, is negligible in Hungary. This is worth emphasizing because Henrik Ibsen is clearly the most Hungarian of the Nordic playwrights. The climaxes of his extensive oeuvre are an inescapable cornerstone of the Hungarian repertoire: A Doll's House , Hedda Gabler , The Wild Duck , and even Peer Gynt , which focuses on the totality of the world rather than on a family, regularly appear on stages in Budapest and the provinces. The Master Builder Solness , considered by many to be one of the finest achievements of Ibsen’s oeuvre, is a rare visitor to our region. Yet the first Hungarian-language premiere was already in 1905, relatively early on: part of the ars poetica of the very first Hungarian independent theatre group, the Thália Society, was to introduce contemporary foreign drama to Hungarian audiences. However, theatre memory records fewer than ten (!) Hungarian-language Solness performances in the more than a hundred years that followed, and none of these became canon-shaping performances. In this way, Ildikó Gáspár's production stands lonely in Hungarian theatre history, while loneliness is a prominent theme of the production. Solness. Photo © Judit Horvath This is by no means an over-interpretation: the performance plays with the thematization and problematization of the relationship between the dramatic text written by Ibsen, translated into Hungarian and shortened by the director herself, the reality/present time of the theatrical performance and the reality off stage. We are a long way from, say, Shakespeare's meta-theatre: here, the speech about the theatre does not become a stand-alone (performable) insertion. Instead, from the first to the last moment of the performance, the theatre as a phenomenon becomes an integral part of the plot written by Ibsen. This Solness speaks about the theatre as a political institution, about the perceived or real conflicts between the different generations that run the institution, about the challenges of maintaining the influence acquired in cultural life, about the proper management of a common legacy. It speaks about the Örkény István Theatre itself, its current and renewed artistic leadership, and the chances of young theatre-makers in an unsupportive environment. And it does all this while telling the story of Ibsen's master builder Solness virtually in full. In this sense, the performance is therapy. The psychologizing of Ibsen, of the family, is somewhat relegated to the background in order to make the spectator realize that it is possible, even necessary, to reflect on certain traumas of the community space through the tools of the theatre. Readers who have not seen the show might have reason to believe that Solness in Budapest is a show for gossip-hungry "experts" who are sensitive to the internal affairs of the theatre world, but they could not be more wrong. Since the context around the performance is as important as the text of the performance in this case, some further information needs to be shared before I get to the performance itself. The director Ildikó Gáspár has evolved from a successful and remarkable dramaturg and translator into a director known mainly in Hungary, but also in German and Scandinavian-speaking countries over the last decade. In her performances, she analyses classical and contemporary dramatic texts with both insight and sensitivity, leads her actors in an inspiring way, and always with a highly emphatic and meticulously elaborated visual and musical world. It is difficult to find a common denominator between the two dozen productions of her directing career that began in 2011. Regardless of the period of the drama and its author, the problem-sensitive interpretation of the text, always carefully crafted to bring it as close as possible to the viewer of the present day, is a characteristic of each of her productions. Ildikó Gáspár is a founding member of the Örkény István Theatre, which opened in downtown Budapest in 2005. She became a key member of the theatre as a dramaturg and made her debut as a director here. Örkény's situation is unique in many respects: of all the municipal theatres in Hungary with a permanent company, repertoire and venue, we can think of no other theatre that has undergone such a significant change in profile in such a short space of time. The theatre, which for decades until the early 2000s presented solely comedy and cabaret, has now become one of the capital's most important theatres, with a highly successful ensemble working with the best directors to build a profile that is mainly, but not exclusively, prose drama. The first 'master builder' of the Örkény's image is the actor-director Pál Mácsai, who has been the theatre's director since its foundation. Pál Mácsai in 2025 will hand over his position to Máté Gáspár after 20 years of management. The latter name is familiar to many in the context of another memorable ensemble: it was he who, together with Árpád Schilling, laid the foundations for the international success story of the Krétakör Theatre as manager in the early 2000s. Alongside Máté Gáspár, Csaba Polgár, the theatre's leading male actor, will take over the artistic directorship of the Örkény Theatre from January 2025. The same Csaba Polgár who plays Ragnar, the dreaded adversary of Mácsai's title character in Solness . Ragnar's mother, Bertha Brovik (originally a male character) is played by Judit Pogány. The actress has been a major figure in Hungarian theatre and film since the 1970s and 1980s. And although she turned 80 in 2024, she is still performing in ten different productions at the Örkény Theatre. They are joined by the fourth generation: as the haunting Hilde Wangel, we see Mária Szaplonczay, who graduated from the University of Theatre and Film in 2024. Ildikó Gáspár's direction does not directly talk about this system of relations, which may seem complicated at first sight and not necessarily transparent to the outsider. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the above-mentioned relationships are evident to the regular theatregoer in Hungary even if they are not stated. Having mentioned before projection and the different layers projected onto the screen, by bringing these relations (theatrical and generational) into play, it is as if a new filter has been added to Ibsen's drama, showing more and different aspects of the familiar story. Let's return to the starting point. We, the audience, sit around an empty office or living space. In the first few minutes, we see the same brief scene play out four times in quick succession between Ragnar and his mother Bertha, and Ragnar's fiancée Frida. The old Brovik is not feeling well, and the young people, at first gently, then increasingly irritated and impatient, want to send her home, which the old woman clearly takes as an attack: she accuses the youngsters of wanting to get rid of her for good. The playful yet nervous opening (with an annoying background noise coming from the invisible speakers: like the sound of blood pounding in your ears in a particularly tense situation) identifies and sets the main theme of the performance: the communication gap between young and old. There is, of course, no small amount of didacticism in the way Ibsen arranges his formula: Solness, at the height of his career, has once pushed Brovik from her position, and now his daily life is filled with the dread of his disciple, Brovik's son Ragnar, rebelling against him. The performance does not support the latter, however: Ragnar probably 'just' wants to work, has a family and a decent living, and does not seem to be a man with world- conquering ambitions. But then, it's not him who's important here, but Solness himself: the performance seems to take place 'inside his head', where dreams, desires, memories, visions and hallucinations are lined up in a whimsical order. Solness is the center of the universe he creates and sustains: he is the sun (cf. sol), which shines in solitude (cf. soleness). Everyone is dependent on him: old Brovik, Solness's predecessor; her son Ragnar, Solness's disciple; Frida, Ragnar's fiancée, Solness's employee and lover; Aline, Solness's wife, with whom he has never been able to come to terms with the tragedy of their loss of their children. The family doctor circulates as a lonely satellite around them. And then the asteroid Hilde Wangel unexpectedly strikes, upsetting the delicate balance. The emphasis is on making the relationships between the characters as clear as possible: this is helped by the layout of the space. The actors sit between us, next to us: when they enter a scene, they speak from an intermediate position that subtly blurs the boundaries between stage and auditorium and then return to that position at the end of the scene. We sometimes feel as if we could be the characters ourselves, if only because the problems succinctly expressed are a strong reminder of our own concerns and questions. Apart from Bertha Brovik, who only appears at the beginning of the performance, all the characters are present in the space throughout. As is often the case with Ibsen, two characters usually share their thoughts about a third. The pair then almost provocatively stand in front of the 'object' of their conversation, while (s)he listens to them with silent attention. It is worthwhile for the viewer to observe the actors who are not acting, their expressions, their gazes, to discover their small reactions to what they see and hear: it is as if they were voyeurs, like us. The performance plays with this too: the family friend, a doctor, takes (seemingly) random shots with his old camera and flash. He is the one who, already in Ibsen, Solness accuses of secretly watching his every move. Solness. Photo © Judit Horvath The creation and maintenance of an everyday atmosphere is an integral part of Luca Szabados' simple(seemingly) visual world. Solness and his successor Ragnar wear the same black leather jacket: who is copying or imitating whom, who is adapting to whom, or whether it is the 'uniform' of the architect's office, is left unclear. The basic color of the other characters' costumes is brown or drape, all of them earthy - a nice rhyme with the constant, desperate preoccupation of Solness's wife Aline with her potted houseplants. The only one who stands out is Hilde Wangel, who unexpectedly enters: a slightly worn white ballet skirt, which soon turns out to be a wedding dress, peeks out from under a bright red hoodie covering her upper body. Let's take a close look at Hilde's arrival! This is one of the first episodes where the story is emphatically out of its original flow, and the viewer becomes suspicious. There is something unrealistic and erotically exhilarating about the meeting of the grey-haired Solness and the brash young Hilde. The girl no one expects, but who is known to almost everyone in one way or another, claims and demands to be a fairytale creature: ten years to the day before, Solness promised her a kingdom, and she has come to make that promise a reality. Throughout the performance, the strictly cut text follows Ibsen's original drama, but here it is enriched with a new element. When Hilde begins to talk about Solness kissing her several times when she was twelve, the architect goes into a fit of rage. He shoves her out of the room; while looking the mute spectators in their eyes, he explains that everything the girl says is a lie: he certainly doesn't kiss children. Suddenly Hilde reappears in the space, but by then everything has changed: Solness' carefully constructed statue has been destroyed in an instant. And the sensitive viewer is left with a vivid reminder of the way in which Hungarian public discourse has (not) dealt with #metoo issues - both in and outside the theatre. A typical he said/she said situation: the performance does not clearly state who is right, i.e. what really happened between the two. The scene written by Ibsen remains intact, but thanks to the sensitive dramaturgical and directorial intervention, it is enriched with a new, touchingly contemporary layer. (And we realize too that in the late 19th century, it was not shocking for an older man to have an intimate relationship with a child. In the 2020s it is impossible to ignore it.) Solness-Mácsai is aware of us, the audience, from the very first scenes, and while we know, in the spirit of the theatrical pact, that his utterances to us are not those of the actor but of the character, the dissonance of the boundary crossing is felt early on. When Solness says he is lucky, Mácsai could say the same. Or when he gazes dreamily at the women in the audience and then admits to the doctor that he has had many women in his life, whose "line" is that? The profile of the successful master builder is not only embossed on his portrait but is inseparable from the profile of the successful actor, director, theatre manager. And when he begins to speak condemningly of the young people who are demanding space for themselves at all costs (he even gets one of the spectators out of his seat), one cannot help thinking that Solness-Mácsai is (perhaps) talking about himself. For example, that in Hungary theatre directors are not appointed for a few years, but often for decades. Consequently, entire generations are left out of the theatre cycle without having gained any experience of leadership and without realizing their own vision of how a theatre or ensemble should operate. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this is not an accusation against Mácsai, who has built one of the country's most high-quality theatres, but merely an outline of the context. Mácsai Pál’s Solness is an acting masterpiece. He portrays a burnt-out, tired, cynical and self-reflective character who, despite his achievements and successes, lives on his enduring charm even after the age of sixty. He talks to everyone in a slightly condescending, lecturing way. He knows a lot and has seen a lot, which is why he is acutely aware that his time is coming to an end. The scapegoating, which has probably been going on for some time, has had a reassuring result: young people are to blame for everything. Solness's world is bewilderingly round: just as he got rid of Brovik, the new generation will want to get rid of him. A man of this type needs a 'court' that fears and adores him, and whose members are all weaker than he is. His narcissism knows no bounds: he even teaches the audience a song about himself. The old and sickly Brovik (Judit Pogány) is no longer a real opponent, just a toothless lion. His son Ragnar (Csaba Polgár) seems to be a more difficult case, but Solness is probably overthinking things: Ragnar does want a place for himself, but not against Solness, rather just beside him. Ragnar's fiancée Frida (Emőke Zsigmond) is impressed by Solness's interest and affection, but he sees her as a disposable object, a tool. Solness's wife Aline (Gabriella Hámori) seems to be a confused, introverted, lonely figure, but she sees and senses everything that happens around her. The loss of his children is the great tragedy of her life, which she tries in vain to explain away as God's will, but in reality, she blames herself. At the moment of the children's death, the relationship between Aline and Solness is at a standstill, and they are unable to move on from there: they have nothing more to say to each other. The doctor (Sándor Terhes) observes and registers: Solness considers him both his confidant and his enemy, sent by Aline to kill him. Young people are dangerous, Solness repeats again and again, and the most beautiful illustration of the theme is the intrusion of Hilde Wangel (Mária Szaplonczay) and her attempt to break the equilibrium. Yet she does nothing but take seriously an irresponsible statement, a promise made to a child ten years earlier. In his eyes, Solness is a hero, whom he endows with supernatural powers and from whom he expects to enliven his own ordinary, boring life. But Hilde can not only be a new beginning for Solness's empty marriage, she can also replace his dead children. Solness, a great manipulator, effectively involves his wife, Aline, in this game, who takes care of the girl immediately after Hilde's arrival and puts her in one of the old children’s rooms. In the first half of the hundred-minute performance, the sensitive relations of the Solness- universe are sharply depicted, before the focus narrows to the internal conflicts of the Solness-Mácsai figure and Solness's relationship with Hilde. The home video, mentioned at the beginning of the text, thus becomes a memorable inset to the performance. Selections from the video archive of the Mácsai family show Pál Mácsai's parents, his brother and, of course, himself as a child and young adult. And so we arrive at the spring of 1994, when Pál Mácsai recited the poem Highly Esteemed Overlords by the 19th century revolutionary poet Sándor Petőfi in front of 10,000 people in the Budapest Sports Hall. It is without exaggeration that this is the emblematic material of the Hungarian- language YouTube, which has more than one and a half million views, and Mácsai adds a self-deprecating audio commentary to his own recital from 30 years earlier. Hilde literally walks into the picture: she clicks repeatedly, the recording stops, starts again, while she re-enacts Mácsai's (Solness’s?) striking gestures in front of the screen. In the finale, when Solness, who has a fear of heights, climbs to the roof of the house to place the wreath, against the strong protests of her relatives and Hilde's insistence, the girl and the master builder are also placed in the center. The video spins again: climbing a ladder to the rooftop above Budapest, Hilde in her wedding dress and (Solness-)Mácsai, wearing a costume and make-up clearly evoking Bela Lugosi's iconic Dracula. The old master, terrified of the power of youth, yet morbidly attracted to it, sucking the blood of youth and drawing strength from it, reaches the top - but at what cost? The sun, known to have a harmful effect on vampires, shines over the rooftops at dawn, and the cast choruses the re-envisioned Beatles song—here comes the sun... Solness. Photo © Judit Horvath Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Tamás Jászay (45), theatre critic, editor, university lecturer, curator. Since 2003 he's been working as a freelance theatre critic: in the last 20 years he published more than 1200 articles (mostly reviews) in more than 20 magazines all around the world. Since 2008 he is co-editor, since 2021 editor-in-chief of the well-renowned critical portal, Revizor ( www.revizoronline.com ). Between 2009 and 2016 he was working as the co-president of the Hungarian Theatre Critics' Association. In 2013 he defended his PhD thesis on the history of Krétakör Theatre (Chalk Circle Theatre). He regularly works as a curator too: Hungarian Showcase (Budapest, 2013), Szene Ungarn (Vienna, 2013), THEALTER Festival (Szeged, since 2014), dunaPart (Budapest, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2023). Since 2015 he's been teaching at Szeged University, since 2019 as an assistant professor. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. 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