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Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat By Sami Ismat Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN By Marjan Moosavi Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF ACTING EGYPTIAN: THEATRE, IDENTITY, AND POLITICAL CULTURE IN CAIRO, 1869–1930. By Carmen M. K. Gitre. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019; pp. 192 + xii. By Marjan Moosavi, University of Maryland-College Park Carmen Gitre’s multifaceted analytical examination of “modern Egyptianness” is presented in four chronologically arranged chapters, each exploring compelling cases of performance, plays, and performers, spanning the late nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. As a book on social history highlighting the processes of “nontextual historical recuperation,” Acting Egyptian draws the readers’ attention toward playfulness, ambivalences, liminality, and tensions of theatrical practices, events, and spaces. In doing so, Gitre gives due recognition to the visions and processes of theatre-making that willingly or unwittingly reflect and restore those ambivalences and multiplicities. Pivoting her analysis on the conceptual model of ambivalence allows her to privilege complexity and multiple frameworks, eschewing binarized and generalizable concepts. As such, in this recuperative account, the author foregrounds subalterns’ tenuous pursuit of negotiating and reformulating their national identity in the face of overbearing and monolithic discourses around Egyptian nationalism, including the effendiya bourgeoisie and other modernizing forces. Across the four chapters, she subtly examines four distinct categories: the upwardly mobile, secular-educated middle-class men (known as effendis ) striving for modernity and social advancement, elite individuals well-versed in European culture, women trailblazers involved in performance at theatres and cabarets and their management, and urban working-class individuals including immigrants from rural and Upper Egypt (Sa‘id Misr) . Chapter one, “Aida in Egypt,” begins with the debut of Verdi’s Aida , commissioned by the Ottoman governor of Egypt at Cairo’s Khedivial Opera House in 1871. The chapter’s multidisciplinary discussion examines signs and processes of urban renewals and social hierarchies as indicative of unifying processes of identity formation through reframing spatial configurations and authentic Egyptianized narratives. The Opera House’s architecture was used as a platform to represent the hierarchies and status of audience members, giving visibility to Egyptian court elites, their patronage of performances and their Euro-centric taste for entertainment. In a detailed discussion about alternative spatial designations, the author highlights that binaries that were maintained in the Opera House were in compliance with Ottoman court culture, complicating the public/private binary. Spatial designation for women in “harem boxes” in the Opera House, for instance, represented the binaries such as “interior/exterior” (34). In effect, while showing women in isolation, these boxes also manifested the horizontal dynamics of hierarchy in the Ottoman courts. Gitre then suggests that the harems’ central location in the Ottoman palace allowed women to have both physical proximity to the throne and a significant standpoint in exercising sovereignty. She concludes the chapter by bringing European and elite Egyptian audiences’ responses to the spotlight. Reframing Egyptian coherent identity and national pride in opera performances in tandem with urban development created a unique experience for these audiences at the turn of the century and paved the path for developing effendiya nationalism as a hegemonic social identity in 20th-century Egypt. In chapter two, “How to Be an Effendi ,” Gitre sheds light on how effendis, as the culture-savvy elites, created an Egyptian national identity by splicing Western culture and technology with indigenous customs and lifestyles. Here, the author focuses on the Arabic-language theatre district ‘Imad al-Din Street, its proscenium stages, and realistic theatre-making as a territorial space for disseminating consensus on effendi identity, masculinity, and narratives (43). The chapter discusses Farah Antun, a well-known Syrian Christian émigré and effendiyya member, and his effective role in perpetuating hegemonic discourse of “civilized” and modern Egyptian identity. This modern Egyptian identity is distanced from sha’bi (popular and working class) and indigenous dispositions. For example, Gitre discusses Antun’s linguistic innovations in utilizing an “elevated colloquial” in his canonical play Misr al-Jadida (New Egypt) to distinguish effendis’ distinct social status (46). Ironically, Antun’s efforts in magnifying Egyptian nationalism led to his own marginalization and a “fraught position” in the discursive and practical milieus of Egyptian nationalism. Gitre devotes the rest of this chapter to sharing the outcome of her close reading of Antun’s works substantiated by compelling archival research on periodical press. Her nuanced account convinces the reader to agree that the ambiguities, instability, and fluidity in effendi identity and narrative, as reflected in their theatrical practices, are worthy of unstinting attention. Building on this understanding, chapter three familiarizes readers with grassroots and interactive street performances by the sha’b and women. Focusing on “The Story of Ahmad the Rat,” also situated at the turn of the century, Gitre examines playfulness and satirical improvisation as resistive tactics used in farcical playlets called fasl mudhik that destabilize the pillars of effendiya’s hegemonic nationalism. The author begins by foregrounding specific characteristics in such comedic performances, including vulgarity in dialogue, language, action, fantasy, inverted gender roles, and audience participation, all challenging the decorum and rationality of the effendi value system. These sha’bi versions of modernity prospered in tensions with national homogeneity reinforced by effendi discourse and the dominant practice of cultural gatekeeping. More remarkably, Gitre’s attention to the multiple endings to a single narrative in Riwayat al-Sa’idi (Upper Egyptian’s Story) allows her to illuminate the ambivalences that she contends charge the history and historiography of Egyptian textual and nontextual performances. In doing so, she emphasizes how such hegemony extends to archives and documentation as it has overshadowed these subaltern voices. Chapter four, “Cabarets and the Mothers of the Nation,” gives an in-depth analysis of the social and cultural context and processes of fandom and stardom in which female trailblazers, as singers, actors, dancers, or managers, worked to both challenge and perpetuate the values that effendi nationalism imagined for them and their peers. By critically examining primary sources with the help of a variety of secondary sources, the author argues artists like Munira al-Mahdiyya took effendi and elite feminist values and ideas in unexpected, ambiguous directions by being practical and opportunist about indigenous values of adab (proper upbringing and social mannerism) and ‘afaf (purity and chastity) while performing on stage. These performing women perpetuated a unique freedom by practicing “disciplined transgression,” meaning while defying the effendi unified patriarchal freedom, they defined certain boundaries for their own sense and practice of freedom (116). Acting Egyptian offers substantive glimpses into Cairenes’ daily life in addressing “permeable and porous spaces,” including theatres that reflect and reflect upon a diversity of identities and experiences (7). In this vein, the author’s clear-eyed historiographical methodology reminds the readers that theatre history can bear marks of ideological coercion and needs to be revisited. One might wish that some of the discussions that surface in her analysis of plays and performances had delved deeper into examining performance and aesthetic elements. For instance, in her chapters, Gitre could have elaborated on the acting styles, scenic design, and directorial choices and processes in her analysis of plays under discussion. Admittedly, though, an entire book could be devoted to the subject of acting style and performance analysis. As is, Acting Egyptian is a superb, sweeping account of the critical role that theatre and performance can play in forming, transforming, and reforming national and political discourses in a multi-layered shifting context. Readers from various fields are bound to find numerous concepts of interest in Acting Egyptian . It is a highly readable page-turner and will appeal to Middle East researchers and students and the theatrical, musical, and dance scenes of the Global South. There is a growing body of scholarship about theatre in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Thanks to Gitre’s book, this body is taking shape and spirit. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Marjan Moosavi is an educator, researcher, digital curator, and dramaturg. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Toronto. She is the Roshan Lecturer in Persian Studies and Performing Arts and the Associate Director of the Roshan Initiative in Persian Digital Humanities at the University of Maryland, where she designs curriculum, mentors graduate students and pursues her interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of Theatre Studies and Digital Humanities. Her digital and curatorial collaborations include two pioneering and transnational digital projects: Digital Guide to Theater of the Middle East and the Digital Photo Exhibit on the Middle Eastern Theatre. Her work, whether academic or artistic, examines the dynamics of theatre-making in MENA countries and theatre’s intersection with gender, history, and politics. Her research has been published in venues including The Drama Review (TDR) , Asian Theatre Journal , New Theatre Quarterly , Routledge Handbook of Persian Literary Translation , and Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy . She is a longstanding Regional Managing Editor for TheTheatreTimes.com . Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran By Matthew Randle-Bent Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah By Areeg Ibrahim Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa By Suzi Elnaggar Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price By Hassan Hajiyah Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works By Katherine Hennessey Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber By George Potter Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel By Samer Al-Saber Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF Amer Hlehel as Basel in Hoota, directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Photo credit: Saeed Qaq. Courtesy of Amer Hlehel. HOOTA . By Amer Hlehel. Directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Produced by Qadita and Sard, Haifa. Staged at Ramallah Municipality Theatre for the 14 th annual Wein a Ramallah Festival. Aug 11, 2023. Reviewed by Samer Al-Saber, Stanford University As Palestinian audiences have come to expect from actor and author Amer Hlehel, his latest one-person performance, Hoota , draws spectators into a journey of expansive storytelling and engaging theatricality, marking crucial political turning points and personal dilemmas through a conflictual individual history that stands in for a greater human experience. The play’s gut-wrenching story transcends its protagonist to communicate the meaning of factionalism in war-torn regions, where the flow of violence begets more violence, and the cycle of armed operations turns into its own inescapable cause for existence. Individuals find themselves caught in crossfires that force them to join the nearest militia to protect themselves. New groups emerge to liberate territories only to be taken by other groups, one overcoming the other, while innocent populations suffer conditions outside their control. The meaning of this play emerges in the protagonist Basel’s running in a flow of political and military currents that are beyond his understanding, until it is no longer possible to run. Amer Hlehel as Basel in Hoota, directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Photo credit: Saeed Qaq. Courtesy of Amer Hlehel. Amer Hlehel as Basel in Hoota, directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Photo credit: Saeed Qaq. Courtesy of Amer Hlehel. The play opens with Basel as an eighth grader who attempts to impress the students in his class and the girls in his neighborhood by conquering the deep hole, Hoota , that lies just outside his village. His gamble o n this dangerous once-in-a-lifetime adventure leads to immeasurable joy, success, fame, gossip, and consequences. But Basel’s childhood of lovingly memorized poetry , folktales, childish behavior, and village rumors quickly becomes a nostalgic memory as a war overtakes his region—which is unnamed, standing in for devastation in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Eastern Europe. As Basel grows older, he identifies the contemporaneous historical junctures that mark battle-ravaged sites, while maintaining the anonymity of his village, thus turning Basel into an ‘everyman’ wrecked by continuous destruction and unending rebellion. The protagonist finds himself in the midst of fighters, more fighters, other fighters, and then newfangled fighters who become different fighters; he participates or not, as needed to survive. Amer Hlehel as Basel in Hoota, directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Photo credit: Saeed Qaq. Courtesy of Amer Hlehel. The genius of the play manifests in Hlehel’s commitment to the theoretical premise that vicious inter-population conflict, even when supported by imperial powers, requires, at its core, a human being to pull the trigger against another, both being in a similar position regardless of the ideology underpinning their political factions. He leaves the cause of war outside the journey and transcends the political and economic material circumstance to focus on the mechanism that sustains the destructive impulse: survival. Basel is handed a gun by an unknown faction while being shot at. He shoots back at an equally unknown faction. Once saved by a faction, he must belong and, at times, participate. The condition of war on the ground is an unrelenting current, and all factions want the same thing: to stop it. The author conceptualizes a world that is familiar to its audience, then applies a theoretical situation of “kill or be killed,” and allows the protagonist to respond to a constantly changing situation, where the power structure shifts, cycling through common political ideologies: Marxist, democratic, Leninist, radical, extremist, fundamentalist, and religious. The only common factor in all of them is individuals pulling the trigger of a handgun. Amer Hlehel as Basel in Hoota, directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Photo credit: Saeed Qaq. Courtesy of Amer Hlehel. The production relies on Hlehel’s ability to function as narrator, holding the audience’s attention as the story moves from the village into the mire of factional warfare. Like a skilled storyteller, he directly addresses the audience, transitioning them from one event to another. As he grips the listener with a vocally consistent and clear narrative, he embodies the characters in each scene, characterizing them with individualized physical and vocal qualities and distinct personalities. Playing characters ranging from schoolchildren to determined militants, Hlehel presents people who interact during peaceful times, followed by unforgiving times of disorder and turmoil. Director and designer Nizar Amir Zuabi represents the hole with a cloth that captures dark ink-like liquid as the gory events of the play shed innocent and guilty blood alike. The uneven liquid progressively becomes a marker of time and increasing bloodshed, unpredictable but salient. Muaz Jubeh’s lights paint the white cloth with an expressive backdrop, matching the intensity of stage events and symbolically gesturing to various political factions as it changes color. Summer King’s suspenseful music tells the story of a world upended against its will, guiding the audience’s emotional state. Zuabi’s streamlined concept intelligently illustrates the world of the play while rightfully spotlighting the spine of this production, the solo performer. Amer Hlehel as Basel in Hoota, directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Photo credit: Saeed Qaq. Courtesy of Amer Hlehel. Underneath Hoota’s stab at universality, the foundational Arab context of its makers will always haunt its viewer and its host theater. Most countries mentioned in the play are majority Arab. The play’s title, Hoota , gestures to a natural site in Syria’s Reqqa, where ISIS once discarded dead bodies. To an Arab audience that carefully follows the struggles of their people in neighboring countries over the past few decades, contextual references abound to news from the field, to stories of siblings on opposite sides and once-peaceful neighbors losing all trust. To a Palestinian audience that has witnessed the ebbs and flows of factional politics and the rise and fall of organized militias, Hoota strikes a deep emotional chord. To all audiences, the durable cycle of violence, by no means senseless but by all means cruelly self-fueling, is unmistakable. At the ‘Wein a Ramallah’ festival in Palestine, Hoota is a one-person performance accompanied by a mental newsreel from familiar civil wars and invasions and the ongoing destruction of Arab lives in Syria, Yemen, Sudan, and Libya. This newsreel also recalls Palestine’s painful past and present, Lebanon’s civil war, Syria’s recent carnage, and Iraq’s devastation over three decades. No doubt, this reel matches the image-world of the author and creative team. Amer Hlehel as Basel in Hoota, directed and designed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Photo credit: Saeed Qaq. Courtesy of Amer Hlehel. The breathtaking seventy-minute performance at the Ramallah Municipality theater was met with a well-deserved standing ovation. Hlehel’s marathon performance departs from his previous one-person show, Taha (2014) , which carried a more moderate pace that relied on a combination of paced poetry and a dash of conceptual magical realism. Hoota begins as a recognizable tale but quickly spins out of control, leaving the audience and the performer breathless. The running motif and accompanying pattern of switching sides create a staccato rhythm: rapid, unstable, shifting, and unpredictable. The violence of the situation depicted on stage places the audience in the situation of the characters in the play, begging for it to end, only to be disappointed by another historical turn and the reinvigoration of the cycle. The structure and performance of the play thus match their spoken content like a burning star, its hellish blaze almost never-ending. To watch Hoota is to enter the nightmare and accept that it is ours: inescapably, we are both the killer and the corpse. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Samer Al-Saber is an Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University. He is affiliated with the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at the Stanford Global Studies Division. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED By Areeg Ibrahim Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED. By Mustapha Shohaib. Directed by Mohamed Sobhi. Sonbol City Theatre, Egypt. Feb. 18, 2023. Reviewed by Areeg Ibrahim, Helwan University At the outskirts of Cairo, on the way to Alexandria, lies Sonbol City, a cultural complex established by prolific Egyptian actor and theater director Mohamed Sobhi (b. 1948), who named the place after a famous role he played in a television series. Sonbol City hosts the Mohamed Sobhi Theatre House, which showcases a photo gallery of Sobhi’s works before the audience enters into the auditorium of the stage. There, I recently watched the play A Family That Has Been Blocked . First performed in 2022 , A Family That Has Been Blocked is a comedy that traces changes to Egyptian family values through time. The play is written by Mustapha Shohaib and directed by Sobhi, who also plays the leading role as patriarch of a family that spans four generations, with supporting roles played by Wafaa Sadek, Kamal Attia and others. At the beginning of the play there is a mix of cinematic and theatrical tools. A screen projection plays a video showing a future time where life has been dehumanized, and humans have become more like robots. Then the scene shifts to the house of an average Egyptian family. The play follows this Egyptian family and its patriarch, Zeinhom Effendi (Mohamed Sobhi), from the time of the revolutionary figure Saad Zaghloul, who led the 1919 Revolution. The family is shown to abide by strict decorum and tradition. We follow the same family’s descendants through time until we reach the present, witnessing their deterioration in values, respect and their level of language use. One symbolic example is the willingness of the descendants to sell the family’s library and books. Another example shows the impact of technology—such as the phone, television, media and social media—on the disintegration of family relationships. One particular scene refers to the deterioration of education, to the extent that the family’s children take private lessons and memorize their lessons like a song accompanied by drum beats. The title of the play can be interpreted on several levels. First, the family members have blocked one another, dissolving the family connections. “Blocking” may also refer to the family’s neglect of the past glory of Egypt and of the family’s relationship with their ancestors. In addition, the play’s title may refer to a general societal tendency to neglect familial values. This socio-political satire draws our attention to the role of family, and didactically promotes family values while criticizing materialism, the domination of social media, and the deterioration of the educational system. Sobhi was famous for his collaborative theater work with the late playwright Lenin El-Ramly (1945- 2020). Their collaboration during the eighties produced famous comedic and political satires, such as, for example, You Are Free (1981), The Savage (1985), The Indecisive (1985), Hallucinations (1989) and Point of View (1989) . Later on, Sobhi directed and acted in a number of successful plays with Egyptian actress Simone; these included Carmen (1999), A Woman’s Plaything (2000) and The Road to Safety (2000). This play is a comedy that incorporates several songs, but its spirit is slightly different from the Lenin/ Sobhi comedic style, which was subtly satirical. Here, the play seems to be trying too hard to re-capture the previous commercially successful formula of comedy, song, political satire and nationalistic fervor. Sobhi’s directorial style depends on some physical slapstick, as well as satirizing social situations and changes in societal taste concerning the quality of music and songs. The comedic effect happens through the repetition of certain motifs and phrases that seem to slightly change across the scenes and times. For example, different scenes refer to the prices of goods and make fun of how prices have become inflated. But this comedic effect felt predictable and labored at times. The scenery also sometimes failed to evoke warmth and intimacy; this may have been intentional, however, to show the alienation of the family members and the coldness sweeping over their relationships. Despite some biting jokes about inflation and education, the play ends on a didactically nationalistic and hopeful note. Overall, A Family That Has Been Blocked is a pleasant family outing. The front of the house team at the theater is well-managed and punctual, the play is neatly blocked, and all participants appear to be well-trained and highly disciplined. Sobhi has managed to leave a mark in the history of Egyptian theater both as actor and director, and his years of theater experience show to good effect in his work. However, for this play, it may have been a better idea to train another actor in the leading role; more humor could have been created from the combination of Sobhi’s experience with the fresh perspective of a budding comedic theater talent. But Sobhi’s play is worth watching for its humor, values and professionalism. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Areeg Ibrahim is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts in Helwan University, Cairo. She was the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at Effat University, KSA in 2020. She has published widely in both Arabic and English on Arabic and international drama, and is the co-editor of a Routledge book, Rewriting Narratives in Egyptian Theatre . She has translated a number of theater books published by the National Center for Translation in Egypt. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction By Edward Ziter Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL By Marina Johnson Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL . Produced by Al-Harah Theater. Twenty performances at various venues in the Old City of Hebron, Bethlehem, and Beit Jala, OPT. August 27-29, 2023. Reviewed by Marina Johnson, Stanford University Between the 27 th and the 29 th of July I had the pleasure of watching the second edition of the Bethlehem Site-Specific Theater Festival, produced by Al Harah Theater in Beit Jala in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This year’s festival took as its foundation stories personal to the communities within which they were performed, a concept introduced at each performance by General Manager Marina Barham or Deputy Manager and Artist Nicola Zreineh. These stories were rooted in hakawati and storyteller Sally Shalabi’s interviews with community elders; after collecting the narratives, Shalabi summarized them, and directors prepared each piece for the stage. By placing the local stories in specifically chosen locations, in the town from which the story itself emerged, the pieces took on a layered meaning, allowing the setting to become an additional character in each performance. The festival included twenty different performances in nine total locations throughout the Old City of Hebron, Beit Jala, and Bethlehem. Each play was overseen by a new director who had received training from the Scottish theatre company Grid Iron, which specializes in creating site-specific and location theatre, and from Unga Clara Theatre in Sweden. Six of the directors who participated in these workshops were selected to participate in the festival. The festival highlighted the beauty and history of meaningful buildings in urban settings, showcasing the richness of the old cities while pointing toward a bright artistic future led by the newly minted directors. In addition to the beautifully showcased artistry, Al Harah Theater noted on their social media that through this festival, they were able to employ 50 artists and 10 technicians part-time, a sizable feat. Three stand-out pieces include I Was There , written and directed by Mo’Tasem Abu Hasan; The Freedom Fabric , written and directed by Sham Yousef; and Bokjeh , written and directed by Majeda Subhi. All of the pieces were performed in Arabic; the translations in this review are my own. I Was There opens with an Egyptian detective questioning a man from Bethlehem, Peter (Mo’men Sadi), who has gone to Egypt to study medicine and ends up in Iraq. Peter’s ambition is significant: الطموح فيه جريمة والاصرار انتحار، والوجود بحد ذاته انتصار. مع كل مرة كان في سقوط ونهاية، كان في اصرار اكبر على اني اكمل، وكلمة مستحيل ما كانت موجودة في قاموسي. In ambition there is a crime. Insistence is suicide. Existence is itself a victory. With each instance, there is a fall and an ending. I had greater insistence to continue, and the word impossible didn’t exist in my dictionary. The detective, a recorded voice, ominously informs Peter that he will be surveilled and insists that he follow a straight and narrow path: “لا شمال ولا يمن ، دغري بس” (“No right, no left, just stay straight”). The piece plays with time, providing glimpses of Peter’s life in Iraq and his membership in the Baath party; the detective’s continued presence in his life; Farid Al Atrash’s influence on Peter, first through his music, and then through their friendship; and the emotional core of the play, his father (Nabil Al Raee), who stands by silently throughout much of the piece, showing that he was in fact “there.” The warm and watchful presence of renowned actor Nabil Al Raee emanated through the room, creating a feeling of home even while the character Peter struggles with his place in the world. This performance took place in a historic home, emptied of all its contents, and the emptiness allowed for surprise after surprise. The play began in a room directly inside the entryway of the building, and the two subsequent scenes each drew the audience deeper into the house, simultaneously revealing more of the characters’ psychology as more architecture was revealed. Mo’Tasem Abu Hasan’s brilliant direction turned the home into an arena of potential, with moments of discovery as nooks and crannies revealed themselves to be areas rich with storytelling possibility. Issam Rishmawi’s design and lighting drew the audience’s attention to areas of transition, like the stairs, doors, and windows, and incorporated candles, flashlights, and the natural light of the early evening in ways that underscored the theme of hope in persistence. Image 1: Actors Mo’men Sadi (right) and Nabil Al Raee (left) as Peter and his father, respectively, in I Was There, directed by Mo’Tasem Abu Hasan. Photo credit: Ma’moun AlHerimi. Courtesy of Al Harah Theater. While I Was There features a group of men, The Freedom Fabric features a team of women, skillfully directed by Sham Yousef. The mother, Ferial (Salwa Nakkara), begins the play by looking for her children, particularly her daughter Arwa, whose birthday it is. She rolls dough to make a special dessert playfully called lisan al-asfour (bird’s tongue), while telling the audience in hushed and loving tones about how she learned to make it. As Ferial’s hands devotedly roll the dough, she reminisces about her late husband, who passed his love for this treat on to their daughter. This performance took place outside, on the steps of the Bethlehem Centre for Cultural Heritage. Sunlight shone on Nakkara’s face, bringing her eager eyes to life, and casting shadows on the stairs upstage of the playing space. As the script progresses, it becomes clear that Ferial is hallucinating. An unnamed female character (Hala Salem) joins her onstage, presenting probing questions and challenging Ferial’s memories, and gently guiding her to realize the truth—these stairs are not her stairs, this home is not her home, and Arwa is no longer alive. As the mother’s memories disintegrate, the other character, a surrogate for Arwa, performs a fast-paced and emotionally charged dance, showering the area around her with flower petals, as her mother murmurs words that describe the dissonant experience of invasion: Strike - He did not do anything - But he- Did not do anything - Arrest - Gas - Beating - Fear - Violation - Turn off the light - Anyone here? - On the roof - Forbidden to enter – Do not dare - Raise - Your hand - On the wall - Get out of here - Worry - Siege - Medal of Courage. As these lines—fragmented memories of the mother’s conversation, possibly with the soldier who killed her family—cease, the mother again calls for her children, effectively looping back to the beginning of the play, implying that the cycle continues. Image 2: Salwa Nakkara (left) as Ferial and actor and choreographer Hala Salem (right) as the unnamed female character in The Freedom Fabric, written and directed by Sham Yousef. Photo credit: Ma’moun AlHerimi. Courtesy of Al Harah Theater. In a similar vein, hakawati Majeda Subhi’s story Bokjeh asks the audience to follow the story of a family from the 1948 Nakba to the present moment, detailing moments of hardship and separation and what it means to navigate the Occupation as a family. Subhi directly addressed the audience, modulating her speech as she painted a vivid picture of the family being forcibly removed from their homes. Her soft, pleasant voice brought the audience into the story of the family who, in the days that followed their expulsion, took refuge in the YMCA. She underscored the mother, Um Faiza’s, desperate attempts to return to her home one last time to retrieve her children’s belongings and her prized sewing machine, which would later help her make a living. Um Faiza removed the items from her home and carried them in a bokjeh , a large piece of cloth in which Palestinian women would wrap clothes, food, and other belongings, tying it with a knot on top and carrying it on their heads. Subhi reminds the audience that “we see [the bokjeh ] in the scenes of the Nakba and of Palestinian alienation, and it has become a metaphorical term in which we express the search for a homeland.” This moving piece deftly divulged the family’s history to a cross-generational audience, children sitting in the front rows on cushions while older audience members sat or stood behind them. One of three hakawati who performed in the festival, Subhi’s storytelling is part of a hakawati lineage that shares oral history and tradition with members of subsequent generations. Image 3: Hakawati Majeda Subhi performing Bokjeh. Photo credit: Marina Johnson. Throughout the festival, intergenerational and community connection became apparent when the family members whose stories were being performed onstage were acknowledged after each play. Emotional plays took on a new meaning when family members who had allowed their story to be shared with the audience sat in the front row, visibly moved. The festival relied on audience and community attendance and response, which was overwhelmingly positive; most plays included a “standing room only” section for audience overflow. Al Harah means “neighborhood” in Arabic, and Al Harah Theater knows how to draw an audience and move them emotionally, and also physically, across time and space. Connections formed between performers and audience members as they moved from site to site together, breaking down hierarchical barriers, and activating the sidewalks and streets in imaginative ways. Personally, I will not be able to walk past any of these locations without remembering the stories I heard there. These newly acquired narratives are part of the embodied memory that these artists shared with me. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Marina Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Theatre and Performance Studies Department at Stanford University. Marina received her MFA in Directing from the University of Iowa. She is the co-host of Kunafa and Shay, a podcast produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons. Johnson is a member of Silk Road Rising’s Polycultural Institute and is a dramaturg with Golden Thread Productions’ 2023 ReOrient Festival. Prior to beginning her Ph.D., she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Beloit College for three years. For more, see Marina-Johnson.com . Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA By Sami Ismat Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF Publicity poster for Little Syria by Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. LITTLE SYRIA. By Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago. May 12, 2023. Reviewed by Sami Ismat, Columbia College Chicago As soon as you walk into the Old Town School of Folk Music you are hit with a whiff of nostalgia from the bazaar-style tables selling specialty items. In Syrian dialect, these street vendor tables are known as basta , and the one that attracts the most attention is placed strategically next to the hallway entrance leading into the theatre; it offers specialty Syrian soap from Aleppo and basboosa , a semolina-based dessert common in the SWANA region. After passing along the tables, audience members enter a proscenium-style theatre with a traditional Syrian furniture set, including an ornate mirror, inlaid with mother of pearl. The show begins with the three musicians entering the stage. Omar Offendum greets the audience, specifically calling on the “Shami people,” meaning the people from Damascus, and then the Palestinians in the house. He begins to recount to the audience a story, in the style of a hakawati , a hired storyteller common in Syrian coffee houses, dressed typically in a fez and a traditional robe. Offendum embodies the hakawati spirit—not surprising from an artist who identifies himself as a poet & lyricist—but adds his own contemporary touch to this persona with his love for Hip-Hop and his experience growing up in the diaspora. He is also not shy about wearing the imperialist Ottoman fez, or tarboosh —a questionable choice by today’s standards that strive towards historic justice and decolonization, but admittedly inseparable from Syrian identity and collective nostalgia. Omar Offendum, publicity photo from the NYC performance of Little Syria by Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. Omar Offendum in the NYC performance of Little Syria by Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. Smoothly and in a timely manner, musician Ronny Malley, DJ Thanks Joey, and Offendum turn the words of the story Offendum is reciting into a song. Malley plays multiple instruments including oud and piano, while Thanks Joey lays down beats, and occasionally, they sing backup or harmonize with Offendum. The focus of this show is Syrian-American identity and history, starting from the neighborhood of Little Syria, which existed in Lower Manhattan from the late 1880s to the 1940s. The show proceeds from singing about Syrian soap, to celebrating Syrian food, to boasting about the savvy entrepreneurial mindset that Syrians are known for. The lyrics include bilingual plays on words, and the musicians encourage the audience to participate by clapping along, repeating phrases, or doing a call and response with Offendum. The performance is full of messages about Syrian representation, Syrian excellence, and diasporic culture, incorporating carefully researched stories from Syrian-American archival history. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, this history is male dominated; this, however, does not diminish the years of effort that Offendum, Malley and Joey invested in anthropological and ethnographic research as they traveled around the US, with the support of residencies, to collect and document the materials needed to create this show. The NYC performance of Little Syria by Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. (RTL) Thanks Joey, Omar Offendum, and Ronnie Malley in Little Syria. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. The three performers do not hold back as they disparage white cultural ignorance and privilege as well as capitalism, and they use humor to belittle the powers of America’s imperialism in the face of diasporic Arab cultural identity. Yet grief is subtly present throughout the show—grief at the fact that Little Syria no longer exists, since it was razed to create the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel; grief in the songs about Offendum’s late father and our ancestors; and grief in the knowledge we hold in our bodies of what has become of Syria in the last decade. This grief is also visually evident from the black fez Offendum begins the show with, later changing to the more traditional red one. Regardless of political affiliations, ethnicity, or religious sect, it is no secret that Syrians hold tons of grief, including the second and third generation children of immigrants who inherit it or are surrounded by it. Grief and nostalgia have become almost an integral core of what it means to be Syrian, yet at the same time Syrians take great pride in their ability to persist, endure and make something out of nothing. This is truly celebrated and signified in Little Syria . One song even directly acknowledges that our region has historically witnessed countless wars and invasions—and as Offendum says, those have shaped us but will never break us. Aesthetically the production is overwhelmingly rich, with interdisciplinary elements from stories, bilingual rap lyrics, historical references, a traditional furniture set, multiple instruments, and Thanks Joey’s beats. Perhaps the strongest visual elements are the projections that complement every song. These projections contain a collage of videos and historical photos, often overlaid with cartoons and graphics, which change quickly and rhythmically, coherent with the fast-paced lyricism of most of the show’s songs. At times they reference a research document or relevant historical figures; at other times they emphasize the meaning of a song through symbols, words, or the text of certain verses from Arabic literary poems. Through this aesthetic combination, Little Syria creates a complex web of diasporic references expressed in a contemporary style. Its expressive power lies in its complexity because it provides countless threads of connections that every single audience member, regardless of their background or generation, can cling to. Props from Little Syria by Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. Omar Offendum in the NYC performance of Little Syria, directed by Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. Little Syria is by no means little; on the contrary, it is big, diverse, and most importantly, it does not shy away from performing stories and songs that represent the mosaic of Bilad Al-Sham , the Levant region. The topics are broad, culminating in a lengthy event that leaves you with much to appreciate. From songs that represent Muslim faith to songs about money, from a song about arak (a strong alcoholic drink common in the Levant) to the story-song of an infamous immigrant named Big Mike whom everyone in Little Syria feared, every part gives us a new glimpse into diasporic history. Syrian identity has become an amalgamation of nostalgia and grief, and we Syrians most embody these emotions when speaking Arabic during our most vulnerable and celebratory moments. The acknowledgment of this, and the emphasis on shared blood and spirit throughout the piece, is presented with a royal Basha (“kingly”) swagger. Overall, the performance experience is empowering and inspires belief in oneself, a familiar concept to the Arab and Sufi poets who are a constant source of inspiration for Omar Offendum’s work. The poem Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar specifically resonates here, with the mythical Simorgh bird being the symbolic representation of the divine beauty within oneself—the “I” that is one with the divine. Perhaps the best conclusion that can be drawn from Little Syria is that no matter how far away we go in search of a better life, there is a divine spirit reminiscent of the divine Simorgh bird within us, inseparable from the mythical place we come from, Bilad Al-Sham . Omar Offendum in the NYC performance of Little Syria, directed by Omar Offendum, with Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Photo Credit: Ridwan Adhami. Courtesy of Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley, and Thanks Joey. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Sami Ismat is a Research Practitioner in Theatre & Performance, from Damascus, Syria. He serves as an adjunct professor at several universities in Chicago. As a practicing artist he has directed, written, performed, produced, and consulted on numerous projects at various cultural institutions in the US. His work & research explores how the intersectionality of performance can present/represent memory, trauma, and the collective cultural consciousness of diasporic identities. He draws on practices stemming from contemporary performance art, devised & physical theatre, documentary practices, ethnographic research, and choreography. Sami’s latest publication was a chapter in Deconstructing the Myths of Islamic Art titled “Deconstructing Myths via Performance Strategies.” Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker By Sonja Arsham Kuftinec Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY By Zeina Salame Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY: THREE PLAYS BY MONA MANSOUR: THE HOUR OF FEELING; THE VAGRANT; URGE FOR GOING. United Kingdom, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022. 162 + xi. By Zeina Salame, University of Vermont Mona Mansour’s The Vagrant Trilogy edited by Hala Baki and Michael Malek Najjar, includes The Hour of Feeling , The Vagrant , and Urge for Going . Much in conversation with other texts (co)edited by Najjar such as Heather Raffo’s Iraq Plays , The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi , Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict , and Four Arab American Plays , Baki and Najjar thoughtfully curate an insightful volume which notably contributes to a growing body of work by artists of Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, and Southwest Asian heritage in the American theatre. These three one-hour dramas tethered by a common protagonist follow Adham from Palestine to London to a refugee camp in southern Lebanon. The first play offers audiences a portion of his origin story; the subsequent two plays illuminate each of two possible realities of what his life might be like, all depending on one important choice he faces – whether to stay in London or to return to Palestine. The book’s prefatory pages include a forward by Mark Wing-Davey, NYU Arts Professor, longtime collaborator to Mansour, and director of the New York Premiere of what he describes as this “major American trilogy” (ix). Following that, an introductory essay co-authored by Baki and Najjar gives relevant context on the playwright’s own life, her research, and details on the piece’s journey toward production in its current form. They next skillfully and succinctly introduce vital political background, especially surrounding historical events in 1967 which both, “reshaped the Middle East” and the events of the play (3). Finally, they offer summary of major plot points and foreground key themes in Mansour’s trilogy. In “Displacement and Its Dilemmas: The Hour of Feeling ” they describe the “difficult and life-altering” decision Adham has before him, finding himself “caught between the life he has in Palestine and the life he dreams of escaping to” (3). In “Exile and Discontent: The Vagrant ” they explain the pressure Adham faces to “be the voice of his people” and personal and professional retaliation he faces when his students and colleagues “misconstrue” his perspective (5). In “Liberation Lies Elsewhere: Urge for Going ” they observe that “Adham would have been unable to find happiness no matter what occurred,” but that there may be hope for his daughter Jamila (7). In “Conclusion: Hope for a Better Future” Baki and Najjar posit that in “humanizing Palestinian characters, Mansour challenges the dehumanization of Palestinians” as seen in mass media representation (9). In the “Author’s Notes” Mansour explains that each of the plays as featured herein is an edited down version crafted so that the three may be more easily presented together on a single evening. She suggests that all roles be portrayed by the same company of four men and two women, ideally all Middle Eastern, noting her “joy” in discovering what happens when “actors of color play the white people in England” (13). In “Part I – The Hour of Feeling,” set in 1967, Adham, a promising young Palestinian scholar with a passion for the English Romantics (especially Wordsworth) has been offered an opportunity to give a keynote speech at an academic conference in London. His overbearing but deeply loving mother, Beder, invites their entire village to a party in his honor. While avoiding the gathering, he meets Abir, a captivating young woman. After a brief courtship and despite his mother’s discouragement, they marry. Abir accompanies Adham to London. After a simultaneously warm and intimidating reception from his English hosts, Adham’s speech goes incredibly well. On the same evening of his success, they hear news of the beginning of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War. Adham and Abir must choose whether to stay in London long-term so Adham can pursue a fellowship, or to return to the Middle East and attend to family matters. The young couple argues, Adham chooses to stay, and Abir leaves him. In “Part Two – The Vagrant,” set in 1982, Adham has his PhD and is an instructor at the university. In this thread, Adham also struggles with bouts of anxiety and haunting memories of his past. He and Abir have been divorced for twelve years but remain friends. She is now engaged to an English-raised Palestinian man who Adham resents for his privilege. Abir and Adham argue because she feels he should be trying harder to bring his brother, who has been in poor health, to London. Adham is up for a promotion to Professor and receives ongoing pressure from senior colleagues to explore his Palestinian identity more in his approach to analyzing poetry. However, after a student accuses him of sympathizing with the IRA because of his Palestinian perspective, he is denied tenure. Mysterious dropped phone calls turn out to be from his older brother Hamzi whom he has not seen since young childhood when their mother fled the refugee camps with Adham. Hamzi was reaching out to check on Adham since he heard there had been bombings in London; he shares his great pride in and love for his little brother. Sometime later, the BBC news reports a massacre at the refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila and Adham understands his brother to be dead. “Part Three – Urge for Going” is set in the 2000s, in a refugee camp in southern Lebanon. We learn, “this is a different Adham, a different life, a whole different reality, had Adham taken a different ‘fork in the road’ …” (105). In this reality, Abir successfully convinces Adham to return home to see to his mother after his keynote speech in London. They, like thousands of displaced Palestinians, end up in a camp. They live there with each of their brothers and their college-aged children. Loving, warm, and distinctly comic family banter is juxtaposed with the harshness of the setting. We meet Jul, Adham and Abir’s son, who showed great academic promise and who they dreamed might be a doctor someday until he suffered brain damage after taking a beating for taunting a soldier. Jamila, their clever daughter, is desperate to register for her Baccalaureate exams so she stands a chance at going to college. After Adham refuses to try to go to the West Bank to renew his passport so Jamila can register for her test, they argue and Abir tries to use her own papers to get her daughter registered instead. Jamila is successful and the play ends bittersweetly as she prepares to leave her family and pursue a life beyond the camps. Following the plays is English Professor Diya Abdo’s Critical Essay: “Conditional Texts, Conditional Lives: Mona Mansour’s The Vagrant Trilogy . ” Abdo describes Mansour’s trilogy as “conditional” and Adham’s “conditional condition” as one which “mimics the Palestinian one” (147). She offers that the questions audiences witness Adham negotiating are questions many Palestinians living in diaspora painfully face – should they stay, or should they leave, and what are the implications of these decisions? Abdo subsequently shares a deeply intuitive and beautifully articulated close reading of these three plays, further opening-up Mansour’s project with displacement, tokensim, and identity for Adham and his family. Abdo’s perspective is an invaluable addition to this volume; her brilliant unpacking of Adham’s vagrancy as illuminated by Mansour’s engagement with Wordsworth’s vagrant character in “The Ruined Cottage” is a must-read. The book concludes with an interview between playwright Mona Mansour and the book’s co-editors, Baki and Najjar. It gives unique insight into the writer’s positionality and journey crafting these pieces. Mansour discusses her American upbringing, including some brief remarks on her family background and her father’s Lebanese diaspora story. She observes that she found herself “writing into that injustice” experienced by Palestinians living in refugee camps without options to change their circumstances (154). The three then go on to discuss Palestinian and immigrant narratives in the American theatre, some of the creative processes and collaborations which supported this piece, and additional topics and themes in The Vagrant Trilogy . Readers will especially benefit from this volume’s adroit synthesis of complex sociopolitical histories offered in the supplemental essays. These work well together to enhance appreciation for the richness of Mansour’s storytelling and the complexity of the issues addressed in the worlds of these plays. The plays themselves utterly avoid the didactic; they rather present purposefully flawed and distinctly human characters. Their failings intertwined with their lovingness and then contextualized by the fraught and tragic circumstances through which they exist make for compelling and relevant drama. Baki and Najjar’s edition of The Vagrant Trilogy will be of particular interest to scholars and students of contemporary American theatre and MENA/SWANA theatre and cultural studies. It is also an essential reader for any producing entities enthusiastic to mount Mansour’s work. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Zeina Salame (PhD, MS, MA) is an artist/scholar and Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of Vermont. She is a director, a performer, and a dramaturg. Recent collaborations include: Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference and National Music Theater Conference, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Artists Repertory Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Golden Thread Productions, Noor Theatre, Commonwealth Theatre Center, the Guthrie Theater’s Level Nine (New Arab American Theater Works), and the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation (Pangea World Theater & Art2Action). Zeina’s writing on theatre is published in Études , Al Jadid , Arab Stages , and Howlround . Her monograph building from her 2020 dissertation “Carried in One Woman: Reflections on Arab American Female Solo Performance” is forthcoming. Zeina is also a co-founder of Florida based theatre company, The 5 & Dime. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani By Suzi Elnaggar Published: May 1, 2023 Download Article as PDF Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution:

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly By Tiran Manucharyan Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF The author with El Salamouny. Courtesy of Karim Helemish. Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly By Tiran Manucharyan On 19 June 2023 I was working on the final edits of my upcoming book Of Kings and Clowns: Leadership in Contemporary Egyptian Theatre since 1967 , when I read that Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny (1941-2023) had passed away. El-Salamouny is one of the playwrights whose work is at the centre of my book alongside that of Yusuf Idris (1925-1991), Fathia El-ʿAssal (1933-2014), and Lenin El-Ramly (1945-2020). I was fortunate enough to meet both El-Salamouny and El-Ramly on two occasions, in 2015 and 2016 in Cairo (1). Both playwrights were extremely generous with their time in discussing their work with me, a foreign PhD student who was a relative newcomer to their work back then. For a long time, I could not see how such long conversations could be converted into publishable interviews because these were not interviews in a traditional sense but rather long discussions about their work, their visions of the state of theatre in Egypt, and of the political atmosphere in their country. After El-Ramly’s death on 7 February 2020 I wanted to publish parts of my conversations with him to celebrate his contribution to theatre and to invite the attention of a non-Arab readership and theatre public to this playwright whose work has been enormously popular in Egypt and in other Arab countries but has remained almost unnoticed outside the Arab world. Very little scholarship or indeed any information at all can be found in English on the playwright’s work, and I hoped that publishing my interview could have contributed to promoting his name outside the Arab world, even if only in a small way. However, shortly after El-Ramly’s death the world was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. We all needed to adapt to a new normality of isolation, and I had to postpone the work on the interview. El-Salamouny’s work has also been almost unremarked upon in Western academia, to an even greater extent than El-Ramly’s. This is despite the fact that he was a pioneering figure among his generation of playwrights. It was after the production of his play Revenge: Quest of Pain (2) in 1982 that critics began to speak about the revival of Egyptian theatre after the so-called decline that followed the Naksa —the defeat of the Arabs in 1967 Arab-Israeli war—and about the emergence of a new generation of playwrights onto the scene (3). Now after El-Salamouny’s death, it seems appropriate to gather together parts of my conversations with these two of the most influential Egyptian playwrights of the previous five decades, whose passing marked the end of an era in the theatre scene of the country. As artists El-Salamouny and El-Ramly are obviously very different and, as a result, unique in terms of their paths, writing modes and styles, and even in relation to the sectors of the theatre establishment they predominantly worked with. El-Salamouny mostly worked with state theatre and El-Ramly worked with the private sector, although neither of them shut themselves off from the other sector. What unifies them however is their lifelong devotion to theatre and their commitment to promoting and popularising this form of art. It is symbolic that El-Salamouny’s last public appearance was in a discussion at The National Centre of Theatre, Music, and Folk Arts, where he voiced his opposition to the Centre’s plans to close the print version of the journal Al-Masrah (‘Theatre’) and to keep only the online version of the periodical. As the Egyptian media reports of the meeting describe, El-Salamouny spoke enthusiastically about the importance of the journal in promoting theatre and its exceptional role for younger playwrights in disseminating their work. During his speech he felt unwell and lost consciousness. News of his death emerged shortly afterwards (4). One might wonder whether the playwright’s opposition to the publication’s proposed move from print to digital mode represented another clash of the old and the new: the representative of the older generation was unwilling to adapt to the changing world in which the online realm provides us with opportunities to engage in intellectual discourse with a wider public than ever. However, perhaps it is thanks to the devotion of people like El-Salamouny to this quite conservative art form that theatre still exists and that neither cinema and television nor the Internet have managed to take over the space that belongs to theatre. Even though these new modes might have occupied more visible, larger, and perhaps more effective spaces for public engagement, the directness of interaction between the art on stage and the public in the auditorium has remained irreplaceable. At the same time, both El-Salamouny and El-Ramly were always innovative in their playwriting, trying to find effective ways of maintaining and increasing direct contact between the stage and the auditorium. Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny: ‘ We felt that we were lost, so we held on to our roots’ ‘The influence of heritage surely brought a unique taste to Egyptian theatre and made it flourish’ Tiran Manucharyan: There seems to be a consensus among researchers in Egyptian culture that theatre in Egypt has declined since the 1970s, with the implication that the art form was not worthy of much scholarly interest. You started as a playwright in this atmosphere of the so-called decline. How would you describe the beginning of your path and of the path of your generation in Egyptian theatre? Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny: Our generation [of playwrights] is considered the third generation in Egyptian theatre. The first generation is the generation of the pioneers, up to Tawfiq al-Hakim. The second generation is the generation of the Sixties. The theatre of the Sixties was associated with the national project (5). This project collapsed in 1967. My generation succeeded those two generations and was informed by them. We have borne the responsibility of theatre after its collapse in the Sixties. As Faruq Abd El-Qadir, one the most important theatre critics, described our path, we rose onto the collapsed stage (6). We had experienced the Naksa of 5 June and at the end of the Sixties Egyptian theatre turned into a theatre of lamentation, mourning, and sorrow. Our generation has borne the responsibility of confronting this collapse by resurrecting hope. We felt that we were lost, so we held on to our roots. The medium of confronting defeatist thought in theatre was through revisiting the history of the struggle of the Egyptian people and through a return to our cultural heritage. We found inspiration in the history of our people. For example, my play Al-Nadim’s Story about the Uprising of the Leader was an attempt to raise the moral spirit of the people in the face of the occupation of Sinai (7). TM: In many of your plays, and Al-Nadim’s Story among them, the antagonists are the representatives of colonial power. However, the main target of your criticism seems to be the local, Egyptian system of power. Al-Nadim’s Story ends with anti-capitalist slogans which were not exclusive to Abdallah al-Nadim’s times but were also applicable to the time period when the play was produced. El-Salamouny: We live in an authoritarian society where there is oppression and lots of uneasiness. We have problems that have no beginning and no end: tyranny, corruption, poverty, ignorance. As a writer, I have to address all of these issues, but I cannot speak directly without my work being banned. I wrap what I want to say in a package, so it reaches out to the people. In my writing I did not aim to speak about or to glorify a specific figure. My aim was to learn from the history of people. History for me is a raw material which I cultivate. Art in general does not speak directly. Al-Nadim’s Story was indeed addressed to Anwar el-Sadat. I still remember the demonstrations against Sadat by the people who wanted to resist the occupation [of Sinai], but it is not just an anti-colonialist play. The chants at the end of the play refer to the realities of Sadat’s era and the capitalist direction of the country adopted by him which increased social injustice. Poverty, ignorance, and diseases started to spread. When we were arrested during a staging of this play, and later were taken in cars from prison to court, in cars we were chanting similar slogans, addressing Sadat. In The Man in the Castle I draw the example of Muhammad Ali’s fall as he gives up popular leadership (8). My quest here was to discuss the importance of democracy, because tyranny leads to failure eventually, as happened with Mubarak. In Revenge: The Quest of Pain , which dramatises the pre-Islamic poet and king Imruʾ al-Qays, I respond to Sadat saying that 99 percent of the cards are in the hands of America, but the play was only staged after Sadat’s death. Imruʾ al-Qays’s father was killed. He wanted to avenge his father’s assassination and thus he sought help from the great powers. He had to choose between the Romans and the Persians. The outcome was his defeat, and it was the great powers that brought about this defeat, because they were never interested in assisting him. TM: You have chosen a form of public engagement which is in general quite niche, particularly in an era when there are so many different ways for intellectuals and artists to access the public. How can theatre remain attractive for people when they have the choices of cinema, television and now the Internet? El-Salamouny: Perhaps the classical style of Revenge could be a bit difficult for the wider public. The target audience of the play was the elite, although in fact Revenge was my first big success on stage as well as my first play on a state-run stage. Before that my other plays had only been staged in cultural palaces (9). In my other plays I tried to reach out to the wider public, beyond the urban elites. It was our generation’s fundamental diligence to have our work reach out to the public. It is true that the theatre of the Sixties was triumphal and the enthusiasm then was predominant. In that same period, there was a movement of employing the popular heritage and the theatrical techniques that exist, for example, in samir , in folk personification, and in other forms of festivities and public performances (10). We resorted to the same means to reach out to the public. In Al-Nadim’s Story I reworked the folk performance in an historical setting. In The Man in the Castle I reworked a zar ritual (11). In my plays I also applied samir and personification, all of those with the same aim of reaching out to the public. Other playwrights of my generation have also experimented with local forms of performance, to such an extent that this is considered to be the predominant direction in Egyptian theatre. Even Lenin El-Ramly, who is a realist and mainly dramatises a contemporary reality, resorted to cultural heritage in at least one play, Welcome Beys . To what extent we have succeeded is a question that the critics and specialists should judge, but this influence of heritage surely brought a unique taste to Egyptian theatre and made it flourish. The use of cultural heritage in contemporary theatre usually contributes to making a good show and creating a nice atmosphere in the auditorium. I believe I have succeeded in this, although people know me more from television than from theatre because television reaches out to those people that theatre does not. If we speak about impact, unfortunately theatre does still not have any other impact than among the elites who watch it. TM: In most of your plays you rework a form of local folk performance or entertainment. I wonder whether it is also your intention to reaffirm the existence of the theatre tradition in the Arab world in the pre-modern era. El-Salamouny: There is a point of view which considers that this region did not know theatre before the Europeans introduced it. The reason for this perspective is that the Arabs were interested in oral and narrative forms of art, while they despised performing arts. They existed in Spain for 800 years and never spoke a word about theatre, not a single historian, a writer, or a poet. When the French expedition arrived [in Egypt], al-Jabarti mentioned that the expedition brought a theatre with it. Ibn Daniyal was a poet and perhaps a good poet, but because he resorted to folk performance, the educated looked down upon him: they would mention that he wrote poetry but would not mention theatre. When Tawfiq al-Hakim started writing plays for the Okasha Brothers’ Troupe at the beginning of his career, he would not use his name for fear of his father (12). Yaqub Sanu was rejected from Muhandis Khana School because he was practising folk theatre (13). The educated classes had double standards in regard to theatre. There is another example: when Muhammad Taymur acted in Ibrahim Ramzi’s play Azza, the Caliph’s Daughter , Sultan Hussein Kamel, the sultan of Egypt, attended the production (14). He applauded the performance, but he did not know about Muhammad Taymur’s involvement in it. When he learned that the son of Taymur Pasha, who was working at the court, had participated in the play, he banned him from practising theatre and sent him to the palace, to work with the protocol. Still today if your son practises theatre, for example, joins the Higher Institute of Theatrical Arts, he is questioned: what are you going to work as (15)? Will you work as an artist [ in a derogatory manner ]? Still the general stance is against theatre. TM: It seems that theatre inherently shatters the existing order of things. This is in line with the role that you attribute to various forms of performing practices in your plays, in that they confront authoritarianism, religious extremism, or societal stagnation. However, theatre can also be exploited by the system of power for its own agenda, a topic that is also touched upon in your work. How can the artist or the writer avoid that? El-Salamouny: In The Minarets of the Protected City I dramatised folk performances of muhabbazin performers (16). These were the local equivalents of clowns who personified a fool or a specific ruler in their performances, whenever this was needed. The events of the play take place during Napoleon’s expedition. Napoleon attempts to get close to the people through festivities in which the muhabbazin are involved but the muhabbazin manage to turn the tables on him. I wanted to say that the role of the arts is always to confront tyranny, power, and colonisation, and it has the means to do it even when the ruler tries to exploit art for his own interests. Similarly, in Abu Naddara I depicted a tyrant ruler who was against freedom of thought but was confronted by Yaqub Sanu and his theatre troupe (17). TM: Abu Naddara ends up with the exile of the artist who confronts the tyranny. In 1974 during the staging of Al-Nadim’s Story , you and the director were arrested for practising your own freedom of expression. What are your reflections on this event? El-Salamouny: I was kept in prison for four months. At the time, we were running a literary association in Damietta which was calling for a writers’ union. The idea was that this union would be independent from the government, whereas the government wanted it to be under its umbrella and under its control. The government created a political organisation called The Socialist Organisation and wanted us to be affiliated with it, while we wanted to be independent from official agencies. So we organised a conference in Port Said which took place at the time that Al-Nadim’s Stoy was being staged on the occasion of Victory Day, on 23 December, 1974. We were planning to work on the proposal during that night and convene the conference. We made a statement which we hung on the door of the Culture Palace in Port Said and started to discuss our cause. The head of the Palace was terrified and contacted the security services. They arrived and arrested everyone involved in the performance. We were all thrown into prison. This was done under the existing emergency law. For ages Egypt has been ruled by emergency law which allows the state to imprison people without investigation, without a trial or anything. Then we tried to inform the public, to leak the news and to make some noise until they arranged a trial. There was a court and in the first session they released us. We have had censorship in all ages, whether in the age of Mubarak or in the age of Sadat. Often the issues with censorship can be solved just by talking with the censors. They might have understood the text incorrectly and might object as a precaution before making the final report, but when they understand the matter, they might back down. My biggest issue is not with official censorship but with the mid-level artistic administration, those who act out of fear of losing their chairs. They are constantly afraid of being reproached by their superiors and of being told off for their mistakes. Higher-level authorities are not among us and do not see what we do. When someone reports on us, as happened in Port Said, the authorities or the police learn about the incident from the point of view of those who have reported it. The reactionary, backward, fearful, and cowardly mid-level bureaucracy, who act out of fear, with their hands trembling and have no daring, are our biggest problem. TM: Is there a specific theme that is more difficult to get past censorship? El-Salamouny: Often they are afraid when there is anything related to religion. If there is any mention of Islam in the play, they want to send it to al-Azhar. Then you need to explain to them that there is nothing to worry about. I have a big problem with various administrations in theatre itself as well as directors who do not want to host performances on the theme of religious extremism and terrorism, trying to be more royal than the king. There is an illustrative example that when I wrote the play The Chronicles of the Cows and Karam Motawie staged it, Dr Huda Wasfi was responsible for El-Hanager Arts Centre (18). She allowed the performance to happen despite all the pressures and nothing terrible happened. In other words, fear is from inside as those in responsible positions are the ones who are afraid. With a head of theatre like Huda Wasfi and a strong director like Karam Motawie a play like this could be staged even during the peak of terrorism in 1995. Meanwhile, in 1993 I wrote another play called The Prince of Assassins that portrayed what resembled the terrorist groups (19). The play was being staged by the director Saʿd Ardash. The rehearsals took place in El-Salam Theatre. The head of the theatre company was Fahmi El-Khuli. He had to stop the production because of the threats from extremist groups. In regard with my play The Incident that Happened in September , which is about 11 September, the heads of two different theatres mentioned in the newspapers that the play was against Islam (20). They should have said that it was against the Muslim Brotherhood rather than Islam. By doing so they give justification in shedding blood similar to what happened to Naguib Mahfouz and Farag Foda, who were both attacked as a result of announcements in the newspapers that their works were against Islam (21). How can a writer reach out to the public if such incidents occur in theatre administration? TM: When it comes to the plays that target religious extremism, as you say, higher authorities would be more willing to give the green light to productions whereas the mid-level officials are afraid of the reaction of Islamist groups. In a way your engagement with the theme of religious extremism since Mubarak’s era aligns you with the official politics. How do you maintain your independence as a writer in this new atmosphere? El-Salamouny: Throughout our history politics and religion have been intermingling, even if they seem to be in opposition with each other. Everything I write challenges tyranny, but the dangers of the extremist groups are still there. They are inside us, in our houses, and among my own relatives. So I invite these people to watch my plays and to see on stage the dangers of the ideas that they embrace, even if this makes me be seen with the system of power. We have military rule, the military authority, because of these groups. TM: Do you like what the younger generation brings to theatre in Egypt? El-Salamouny: I am very optimistic in regard to the current theatre movement as it relies on a group of talented young people. I consider that they are the future. The intellectual content of the new generation in current theatre is of a very high quality on the technical side. They brought their innovations and perhaps benefited from the Experimental Theatre Festival greatly, because it was a window on a world of experiments (22). We needed to see that and to see those experiments and movements that exist in theatre. But our directors need content. In the Sixties there was high quality content and less technique. Now while there are advanced directors as well as advanced critics, we need new writers. I believe that, with time, change will occur. The author with El-Ramly. Courtesy of author. Conversations with Lenin El-Ramly: ‘ My aim was to bring meaning to theatre rather than to hunt for laughter by “tickling” the audience’ TM: The start of your career as a playwright coincided with the so-called decline in Egyptian theatre. In your experience, what were the main factors contributing to this decline? Lenin El-Ramly: During the Nasserian age there was state support for the field of the arts, not exclusively for theatre. Books were published—there was a state politics called ‘a book every six hours’—and there were opportunities for the arts and for artists to flourish. The spirit of the revolution was in the air, which was also nourished by the powerful charisma of Nasser even though in fact he was a dictator. The generation of writers, directors, and actors of this period prospered in this atmosphere. After the defeat in the war in 1967, the belief in the revolution was completely lost. The writers started to expose the true nature of the reality that they had been falsifying before. As a result, many writers and their works were banned until Nasser’s death, although in their writings they were not even attacking Nasser personally, but rather the situation. It was not possible to criticise Nasser in person anyway. Then Sadat came to power. He was not interested in theatre or the arts at all and did not care much about the artistic field. However, the playwrights who remained on the scene still had to play safe, because of the restrictions enforced by theatre officials. Therefore, in the Seventies the quality of the plays declined. The field became corrupt. The writers who had connections in the government had more chances to get their plays onto the stage of the National Theatre than those who wrote good plays. The other factor that contributed to the decline of theatre was the emergence of the private sector. Troupes that worked in this sector would stage things only for commercial interest. Their productions were simplistic performances that aimed to provoke laughter through unsophisticated humour. TM: How did you negotiate your writing within the existing situation at that time? El-Ramly: My first play was staged at the end of 1974, in the period that I described. I deliberately refused to stage a play with a state-run theatre because of the reasons that I mentioned: I had a huge mistrust in the state-run sector. My friend from the theatre institute, a director, took my play, which had been published beforehand, to the National Theatre and offered to stage it. This was done without my knowledge. They had an unusual system of control with only one person responsible for deciding whether they would stage a play or not. The person in charge rejected it. When my friend asked her to explain, she told him that the play was very bleak. She did not have any further reservations in relation to politics. So I decided to write for the private sector. For my next play, I collaborated with Mohamed Sobhy who was an unknown actor then. The first play that we produced, called The Class Is Over, Stupid , ended up being a huge success (24). However, while working in the private sector, my aim was to bring meaning to theatre rather than to hunt for laughter by ‘tickling’ the audience and making the actors appear like clowns. In effect, with Sobhy I created a troupe which was different from anything that existed on the theatre scene at that point and was not related to the commercial theatre [of the time] at all (25). I wrote plays in which laugher is achieved through sophisticated and meaningful content. TM: While extremely funny, your plays are also highly political. What has your relationship with censorship been? El-Ramly: I don’t like to interject politics directly into my plays but that doesn’t forbid me from saying what I want. My dislike of direct references to politics is not due to my fear of censorship. Politics is inherent in what I write without the need for direct references. The people who watch the plays understand the political essence, but nobody ever banned my plays. The censors did not have any outstanding reasons for it. Only a few minor things were censored. Afterwards I went to Saʿd al-Din Wahba, who was in the government then. He got involved so that whatever I wrote was permitted (26). TM: Although your first attempt to access the National Theatre did not succeed, you eventually worked with state-run theatres and your plays, such as Welcome Beys , have enjoyed huge success in the National Theatre too (27). This is not a ‘bleak’ play, but it is as political as any of your plays. I wonder how it got past the censors. El-Ramly: Welcome Beys has been the most successful play in Egypt to date. The play is about two old friends who meet after a long time apart and during the meeting find themselves in Ottoman times. One of them is a scientist who adapts to the past and invents things in the service of the authorities so that they do not harm him. The other is a painter who wants to change the people and bring to them ideas from his own time, such as the liberation of women. When people watched the play, they would applaud the arguments of both the scientist and the painter. I asked the critics to explain why people applaud two contrasting opinions in the same way, and no one could find an explanation. Some might have thought that the painter should be more sympathetic, but the actor was criticised for representing the character as messy and confused. However, that was how I intended him to be. As a writer, I present arguments and all the sides of the reality. People reflect on what they watch and take from it whatever they want. It is from that position that I say I do not do politics and I do not take sides, but politics is inherently there in my writing. TM: In this play your stance seems critical of both characters. Neither of them manages to bring about change for the people. One is not interested; the other does not understand the reality in which he lives and does not know how to negotiate it. In the play there are also clear references to the politicisation of Islam. I wonder how the audience reacted to it. El-Ramly: I will tell you something funny about a specific scene, in which the shaykh in the past comes out of the mosque and with a microphone, he makes an announcement. He says: ‘God assigned science and progress to the foreigners, exploiting them so that they invent and create for our service, leaving us free to worship His Sublime Glory and enter Paradise through its wide doors’. These are the words of shaykh al-Shaʿrawi whom people used to worship in our country (28). I heard these words many times before writing the play. When people watched the play, they would applaud and laugh at this scene without realising where the line comes from. I wrote the scene so that first it represents an Ottoman neighbourhood and then the time frame changes with everything remaining the same, except three things: there is a microphone that the shaykh uses, there is a magazine seller and there is a radio playing some old and banal song that has gone out of fashion. I wanted to show how little change there is. The Prime Minister, Atef Sedqy, watched the play and after shaking my hand, he told me: ‘Bravo, it’s a powerful thing, but take care of yourself’. Although that was a joke, there was also a true warning in his words, of the dangers coming not from him but from the terrorists of the Muslim Brotherhood who also tried to murder him. As you know, they tried to assassinate Naguib Mahfouz, and they assassinated Farag Foda. The Brotherhood accused me of everything, their supporters wrote against me in the media, there were people who brought legal cases against me for insulting Islam and for contempt of religion. That is what they saw in my work, but these cases were not successful and were eventually dropped. When the film The Terrorist was in cinemas, for which I wrote the script with Adel Imam in the lead role, the cinemas were guarded by the police forces so that there were no terrorist attacks (29). The stores that were selling the video tapes of the film were being attacked. For Adel Imam the result was that his wage rose by forty percent. There were critics who alleged that the Interior Ministry requested that I write the film. These accusations first came from the left wing here, then an American critic repeated them. I never considered it worth replying to any of these accusations. TM: You mentioned about the meaningfulness of the details that you wrote into your play. You give so much detail in your plays that sometimes it seems there is nothing left for the directors to do but follow your directions. You also directed some of your plays yourself. How important is it for you that your directions are followed precisely? El-Ramly: When I direct, I do not like working with professional actors. I have worked a lot with amateurs as a director, but I work with them until they are recognised by the public. From then on, I am not interested in working with them. You are right in noticing that everything is detailed in my plays. When I work with a director, he can make two or three suggestions, as long as these suggestions are in line with my vision. If I see he is doing nonsense and doesn’t precisely understand my vision, I will not work with him. What I mean is I am not a dictator, but I only work with those [actors and directors] who like my work, understand it and are passionate about it. Every detail is important in my plays and nothing should be ignored. Perhaps later there can always be new perceptions of my plays brought by directors, as happens with productions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet , but even when some details are changed in these new perceptions, the details still matter as the public know what has been changed, what comes from Shakespeare and what comes from the director. TM: You have had a very productive, successful, and influential path in Egyptian theatre. People quote your plays in random discussions in the street and on social media. There is always something that one can quote from your plays in reference to almost any occasion that one might encounter in life. It seems you have written about everything that has happened and can happen. Are you working on anything new now? El-Ramly: After Welcome Beys I wrote another play with the same characters called Goodbye Beys , in which the scientist and the painter go to the future where they do not recognise anything (30). Here the scientist falls in love with someone and then finds out that she is a robot. The catastrophes that humanity is encountering are also the result of the stupidity of scientists and intellectuals, and in this play I wanted to expose that side of the scientist more vividly. So you are right that I have written about the future, but whether I write about the future, the past, or the present, the reality of my plays is the current reality, the present. Now I am working on a play that is similar to Welcome Beys but is blunter and more direct. I have a couple of pages to write to finalise this play, and I am writing my opinion into it in an honest and unconcealed manner (31). The characters here are in the present. Again they are two old friends. They meet after the revolution. The debate between them here is different than that in both Welcome Beys and Goodbye Beys . At some point in this new play, one of the characters says: ‘We still live in the Middle Ages’ and this is my opinion too (32). Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes My first meeting with El-Salamouny took place at the Higher Institute of Theatrical Arts in Giza in August 2015. In August 2016 I visited Egypt again when we met a second time in a café in Cairo. Both meetings with El-Ramly took place in his flat in the Mohandiseen district of Giza, in September 2015 and August 2016. Al-Thaʾr wa-rihlat al-ʿadhab was first staged in 1982, directed by Abdelrahim El-Zurqany (1913-1985), and published in 1983, English translation 1999. See, for example, the many reviews reprinted in the 1983 publication of the play. See Muhammad al-Khuli, 2023. ‘Abu-l-ʿIla al-Salamuni… al-sarkha al-akhira’. Al-Akhbar , 23 June < https://www.al-akhbar.com/Culture_People/364796/ > [2/10/2023]. El-Salamouny here implies specifically the attempts of reinventing an Egyptian or Egyptian-Arab national form of theatre in the 1960s, for example as discussed by Yusuf Idris in his influential series of articles ‘Towards and Egyptian Theatre’ (1964, ‘Nahwa Masrah Misri’) and implemented in his play 1964 play The Farfurs ( Al-Farafir ) as well as Tawfiq al-Hakim’s (1898-1987) book Our Form of Theatre ( Qalibu-na al-masrahi ). El-Salamouny referred to the influence of these two playwrights on his writing modes on many occasions. Faruq Abd El-Qadir entitled his study of the new playwrights of the 1970s’ and 1980s’ Egyptian theatre The Knights Rising onto the Collapsed Stage (1984, Al-Fursan al-saʿidun ila al-khashaba al-munhar ). Riwayat al-Nadim ʿan hoogit al-zaʿim , 1974, had several productions, including by Mohamed Salim in 1974, Abbas Ahmed in 1974 and Abdel Ghaffar Ouda (1940-2003) in 1981.The play’s protagonist is the 19 th century Egyptian intellectual and social reformer Abdallah al-Nadim (1842-1896). Rajul fi al-qalʿa was first staged in 1987 by the director Saʿd Ardash (1934-2008). There seems to be a clear parallel between the character of the early 19 th century ruler of Egypt Muhammad Ali (reign 1805-1848) in this play and the president Gamal Abdel Nasser (in power 1954-1970). Cultural Palaces are cultural centres in Egypt owned by the state, tasked with extending theatre, film, literature, and folk arts to a mass public across the country. By contrast, the typical audience of state-owned theatre venues in Cairo is the Cairene middle class. Samir is a rural form of evening entertainment with elements of performance, which Yusuf Idris discusses in his ‘Towards an Egyptian Theatre’. Zar is a dance ritual, practised in North Africa and the Middle East, for exorcising or pacifying spirits, often referred to as Masters (al-asyad) which supposedly possess the person for whom it is organised. The Okasha Brothers’ Troupe was an Egyptian theatre troupe founded in 1921 by Zaki, Abdallah and Abd al-Hamid Okasha brothers. Yaqub Sanu (1839-1912), known by the nickname Abu Naddara (‘the man with spectacles’), ran a theatre troupe in Cairo from 1870 to 1872. Muhandis Khana School is the School of Engineering. The play Azza bint al-khalifa by Ibrahim Ramzi (1884-1949) was staged in May 1916. The performance was famously attended by Sultan Hussein Kamel of Egypt (1914-1917). Muhammad Taymur (1892-1921), the Egyptian writer of short stories and plays and a member of the famous Taymur literary family, the son of Ahmed Taymur (1871-1930) and the brother of Mahmoud Taymur (1894-1973), participated in the performance. My first meeting with al-Salamouny took place at the Higher Institute of Theatrical Arts in Giza. Maʾadhin al-mahrusa was first staged in the courtyard of the Wikala of al-Ghuri caravanserai in Cairo by Saʿd Ardash in 1983. The play Abu Naddara (meaning : the man with spectacles ) was staged in 1994 at the Mohamed Farid Theatre in Cairo, directed by Mohsen Helmy (d. 2019). Diwan al-baqar was staged in 1995 by Karam Motawie (1933-1996). Amir al-hashshashin was staged in 2009 in the Cultural Palace of Badrashin. Al-Haditha allati jarrat fi shahr sibtambir was staged in 2010 in El-Taleaa Theatre. Farag Foda (1945-1992) was assassinated in 1992 by the members of the Islamist groups. In 1994 Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was stabbed by an Islamist extremist but the writer survived this attempted assassination. The Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre was founded in 1988. Who Killed al-Buraʿi ( Man qatala al-Buraʿi ) was staged in 1974 by the director Galal El-Sharkawy (1934-2022) under the title They Kill the Donkeys ( Inna-hum yaqtulun al-hamir ). The play Intaha al-dars ya ghabbi was staged by the director El-Sayed Radi (1935-2009). Sobhy (b. 1948) was in the lead role. The first production of Studio 80 , the troupe founded by El-Ramly and Sobhy, dates to 1981. It ceased to exist in 1993. The playwright Saʿd al-Din Wahba (1925-1997) held various posts in the Ministry of Culture from 1964 to 1980, including that of deputy minister from 1975 to 1980. Ahlan ya bakawat was staged in 1989 by the director Essam El-Sayed (b. 1952). This production became one of the longest-running performances in Egypt and was staged for around eighteen years, with only a few breaks. Shaykh Muhammad Metwalli al-Shaʿrawi (1911-1998) was an extremely popular Islamic preacher, whose sermons resonated with the public in Egypt and in the Arab countries. The film Al-Irhabi was released in 1994, directed by Nader Galal (1941-2014). Adel Imam (b.1940) is an extremely popular comedy actor in Egyptian cinema. Wadaʿan ya bakawat was staged in 1997 by the same director as Ahlan ya bakawat , Essam El-Sayed. Laugh When You Are Dying ( Idhak lamma tamut ) was eventually staged on the stage of the National Theatre in 2018, by Essam El-Sayed. The final published text of 2016 is hugely different from the manuscript that El-Ramly shared with me in 2016 and many of the more direct references to the political realities of the country have been removed. However, as in his other plays, the playwright’s vision is clear and uncompromised. The interviews are edited for length and clarity. The translation from Arabic is mine. I am grateful to Karim Helemish who accompanied me during both meetings with El-Ramly and the second meeting with El-Salamouny helping with the nuances of Egyptian Arabic when needed, as well as a lecturer from the Higher Institute of Theatrical Arts who did the same at the first meeting with El-Salamouny. I am also grateful to Ferdinand Arslanian for his help in transcribing the recordings. References About The Author(s) Tiran Manucharyan is an Associate Lecturer in Arabic at the School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews where he teaches various modules in Arabic language and culture as well as Comparative Literature. He completed his PhD at the same university in 2019. His thesis was devoted to studying politically and socially engaged Egyptian theatre in the second half of the 20 th and in the early 21 st century, focusing on the work of the prominent Egyptian playwrights Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly. His upcoming monograph, which derives from his PhD research, focuses on the work of these playwrights as well as the work of Fathia El-ʿAssal and the later work of Yusuf Idris for theatre. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 14 Spring 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly By Iman Ezzeldin Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF The author with Hassan El Geretly. Photo courtesy of Alaa Yehia. Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly By Iman Ezzeldin Hassan El Geretly is a theatre director who has also worked in cinema. He studied theatre and French literature at the University of Bristol (U.K.). He then got a higher diploma in audio-visual staging (cinema, video and radio) at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He has worked in the fields of theatre and cinema since the 1970's in France, then in Egypt. He worked as an actor, assistant director, and then as director in the Centre Dramatique National du Limousin in France. He founded the touring theatre company Les Tréteaux de la Terre et du Vent that toured in France between 1975 and 1980. In 1987, El Geretly founded El Warsha theatre company in Egypt. In 1988, he was appointed director of the first experimental theatre in Cairo. He resigned in 1992 to devote himself entirely to independent theatre. EL Warsha, the first independent company in Egypt, creates contemporary theatre works, and tours them locally and internationally. With a career spanning over 40 years as a director, dramaturge, and actor, Hassan El Geretly has been a pioneer in the realm of independent theater, reviving old traditions while embracing modern techniques. His artistic journey has left an indelible mark on the theatrical landscape, challenging conventions and inspiring countless artists along the way (1). Iman Ezzeldin: Good morning, Hassan. Could we start with your work at the Centre Dramatique National De Limousin? Hasan El Geretly: Of course. After graduating from the University of Bristol, I had the opportunity to work at the Centre Dramatique National De Limousin. It's an independent company based in Limoges, the capital of the Limousin region, that is recognized and subsidized by the state to operate outside of Paris. The company's main goal is to decentralize the cultural scene in France and shift it away from being solely centered in Paris. I worked there from 1972 to 1980, which was truly a transformative experience. Limousin, also known as "Le Désert Français," is sparsely populated due to migration and industrialization. Working in different governorates in the region was like an apprenticeship for me. I gained valuable experience and insights into French theatre and culture. During my time there, I worked as an actor, assistant director, and administrative staff member. Eventually, I became second-in-command and established my touring company Les Tréteaux de la Terre et du Vent, in 1975. This experience at the Centre Dramatique De Limousin shaped my perspective on decentralization and exploring different regions and cultures. It influenced my perspective on eventually returning to Egypt and seeking to move out of the centralized Cairo theatre scene to explore other provinces. IE: I've heard so much about your experiences in France and how they influenced your work in Egypt. I'd love to hear more about the "veillées" nights? Geretly: The "veillées" nights were inspired by the traditional concept of staying up late. In Limousin, these nights held a special significance as people would engage in various evening activities, such as singing, storytelling, and even working on tasks like mending socks. We aimed to recreate these nights through theatre, incorporating stories, songs and plays adapted from other regions that had a strong regional movement. For example, we adapted a play called Villages á Vendre or "Villages for Sale" from the nearby city of Marseille. The play focused on the invasion of rural areas by tourists from different countries who occupied the houses left abandoned by local peasants. We incorporated Limousin singers who performed songs in the regional language, between the various scenes, narrating the story of the countryside invasion by tourists. It was a way to bring the spirit of the "veillées" nights and the cultural heritage of Limousin to life through theatre. During my time in Limousin, I had the opportunity to explore the connection between theatre and education to some extent. There were certain activities where we would go into schools and transform theatre from something confined to pages on a desk into a dynamic and interactive experience for the students. Before our visits, the kids had a limited understanding of theatre based solely on what they studied through works by renowned playwrights. However, our engagements were sporadic, occurring perhaps only once a year, which led to a gradual fade in the memory of our interactions. In contrast, when we established our own theatre and education activities in El Minya, Egypt, we consciously tried to create continuity and regular engagement with the same children. We would visit the same places and meet the same children regularly outside of the school context through associations. This meant seeing the kids once a week during the school year and for two days during the summer holidays. The results of these sustained interactions were dramatically different from our experiences in France. The deeper connections we formed with the children and the regular engagement allowed us to have a more significant and lasting impact on their lives through theatre and education. IE: It's incredible how regular and sustained engagement with the same children can make such a difference in their experience of theatre and education. Now, I'd love to hear more about your work in marginalized or economically disadvantaged areas and with special needs children. Can you elaborate on how these experiences differed from the more traditional theatre curriculum in schools? Geretly: Working in marginalized or economically disadvantaged areas and with children with special needs was a particularly fascinating experience for me. These classes often faced neglect from educational authorities and unique challenges related to their social and economic situations. These experiences differed from the more traditional theatre curriculum in schools, as they required a different approach and focus. What made these experiences particularly rewarding was the opportunity to work with children who might not have had access to or benefited from the traditional theatre curriculum. These were children who needed additional support and resources to thrive. We aimed to provide that support by engaging directly with them and fostering self-expression. IE: Your work in marginalized communities and with children with special needs highlights theatre's transformative power. Now, let's focus on your decision to return to Egypt. Can you tell me more about the incident behind your motivation to return home and how it influenced your decision? Geretly: The incident that triggered my motivation to return to Egypt occurred while I was walking behind the opera in Paris. I caught the aroma of Oriental pastries from an Armenian bakery, and in that moment, a strong sense of homesickness washed over me. It was a powerful reminder of my connection to my home country. Reflecting on all I had experienced and accomplished while abroad, I realized I needed to return home. Initially, I left Egypt to pursue my education, theatre training, and apprenticeship. I was disheartened by the oppressive nature of the police state during the 1960s and sought new opportunities and perspectives. However, deep down, I always knew that I would eventually return. The political and social climate in Egypt, including the failure of the regime and the 1967 defeat, significantly shaped my perspective. I felt a calling to contribute my skills and knowledge to my home country. Once I became a master of my trade, I viewed myself as a "plumber of art" who clears the pathway for actors to express themselves authentically. My focus shifted from talent to discovering the hidden actor, particularly through my exploration of clowning. Returning to Egypt, I felt like an autonomous artisan prepared to collaborate with my actors and team. During my home visits, I had already established connections and plans with individuals in Egypt. They played a significant role in shaping my decision to return. IE: It's incredible how specific moments and experiences can trigger a profound sense of belonging and motivate us to make important life decisions. Now, I'd like to touch on the influence of foreign theatre and film on your creative process. Can you tell me more about the impact of watching thousands of plays and films during your time in the U.K. and France on your imagination, passion, and creative work? Geretly: Watching thousands of plays and films during my 15 years in the U.K. and France profoundly impacted my creative process. It became a wellspring for my imagination, passion, emotions, and feelings—all crucial elements in the creative journey. Experiencing such a wide array of theatrical and cinematic works allowed me to broaden my artistic horizons and draw inspiration from different styles, genres, and cultures. It deepened my understanding of storytelling techniques, character development, and the power of visual and auditory elements in evoking emotions and creating impactful narratives. Each play and film I absorbed added a layer of richness to my creative arsenal. IE: I'd like to touch on your experiences working with renowned filmmakers like Youssef Chahine and Yousry Nasrallah. Can you tell me more about your collaborations with them and the impact they had on your career? Geretly: With Youssef Chahine, I had the opportunity to work as an assistant in the art department for his film Wadāʻan Būnābarṭ [Adieu Bonaparte, released 1985] My role involved coordinating the set, costumes, and props, with a primary focus on props. I also had the privilege of assisting in coordinating the French designers for the costumes. It was a valuable learning experience to collaborate on such a grand production. Also, with Chahine, I initially participated in co-writing the scenario for the film Al-Yawm al-sādis [The Sixth Day, released 1986]; however, I soon realized that my ideas and suggestions didn't align enough with Chahine's unique vision. While some elements from my work were incorporated, they didn't have an essential impact. So, I shifted my role and offered my assistance in helping him bring his vision to life. Chahine's distinct imagination and how he colors his world is his own, and I recognized that no one else could fully share that with him. As a result, I served as a scenario assistant and assisted in directing the actors. I also had the chance to work with Yousry Nasrallah, who was producing his first fiction film, “ Sariqāt Ṣayfiyyah" [Summer Thefts, released 1988], under the banner of Misr International Films. I suggested to Nasrallah that real people from everyday life should be considered for the main characters in the film, individuals who weren't necessarily from the realms of cinema or theatre but had unique qualities that could bring depth to the roles. This approach brought authenticity and richness to the film and allowed me to explore the intersection between documentary and dramatic storytelling. IE: I'd like to explore further the visual aspects of El Warsha's work. Your plays often have a fluid and cinematic quality, incorporating precise images and capturing moments of stillness and subtle movement. Can you tell me more about how you approach the visual elements in your productions and how they contribute to the overall theatrical experience? Geretly: In El Warsha, we strongly emphasize the visual elements of our productions. The sets we design are carefully crafted, paying attention to composition, lighting, and spatial dynamics. We create a sense of rhythm within the space by utilizing the empty spaces and the actors' bodies. The way we approach scenarios and train actors has a connection with cinema, even if not always consciously. I've always had a deep appreciation for the art of cinema, which began during my childhood when I used to go to local cinemas to watch films. This upbringing fostered my interest in imagery, composition, and capturing precise shots or moments. These influences are reflected in our work at El Warsha, where our plays are often described as a sequence of vivid pictures, incorporating moments of stillness and subtle forward movement. This cinematic quality allows us to create a unique visual experience for the audience, engaging them with the story and evoking emotions through carefully crafted images. IE: Let's discuss the origins of El Warsha and how it came to be. Can you tell me more about the journey that led to the establishment of El Warsha as a theatre company? Geretly: We started our journey in 1987 by reviving Nawbat ṣaḥyān [Geretly first staged Nawbat ṣaḥyān or Waking Up by Dario Fo and Franca Rame in 1983 with students from the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University] and Menha El Batrawy's wordless play Yamūt al-Mu'allim [The Teacher Dies, an adaptation of a French translation of Peter Hanke’s Das Mündel will Vormund sein ]. Starting our career as a theatre company with a wordless play was quite unconventional in the Egyptian and Arab context, as the theatre scene thrived on words, dialogue, and the explicit expression of ideas. It was a radical choice, although we didn't consciously make that decision. We continued to explore the power of words in plays by playwrights like Harold Pinter, Dario Fo, and Franca Rame, where violence, ambiguity, and conflicts were conveyed through explicit dialogue and subtext, body language, and moments of silence. Our plays became exercises in finding meaning in the spaces between and behind the words. We also had a deep commitment to expanding the theatrical vocabulary beyond words. We explored the use of scenography, which encompasses costumes, lighting, and other visual elements that contribute to the language of theatre. Our aim was to create a rich, multi-disciplinary theatrical experience encompassing the actors' presence and physicality, the interaction with selenography, stage space, rhythm, and the spoken words, all working together like a symphony. Our adaptations of various writers, from Peter Handke to Harold Pinter, allowed us to explore different ideas, linguistic experiments, and diverse artistic influences. We were gradually developing our theatrical vocabulary that went beyond words, drawing from a wide range of artistic expressions and weaving them into our productions. The incorporation of social and political commentary, without resorting to slogans, further enriched the fabric of our plays. Kafka's writings profoundly impacted my exploration of the dangers of military logic. His work delves into the dark corners of power structures and the absurdities that can arise from them. The play I created based on Kafka's vision allowed us to comment on our reality without directly referencing specific political figures or events. Kafka's characteristic mix of irony and nightmarish visions provided a powerful framework for exploring these themes. Metaphors played a crucial role in this exploration. Metaphor is at the heart of art as it allows us to express ideas indirectly and delve deeper into their implications. By utilizing metaphor in the play, we were able to create a layered and nuanced reflection on the paranoid, megalomaniac military logic that has engulfed us since 1952. It allowed us to comment on the profound realities of our society in an indirect yet impactful way. IE: Now, let's shift our focus to Alfred Jarry's work and its exploration of power dynamics. Geretly: Certainly. Alfred Jarry's work is a fascinating commentary on power dynamics within society. Ubu Roi uses Shakespearean characters like Hamlet and Macbeth to illustrate these dynamics in a satirical and provocative manner. The play originated from Jarry's experiences as a student and his observations of the power structures within the school he attended, delves into the conflict between imagination, humor, and control. In our creation, Dāyirn dāir , [All round, 1989], we drew inspiration from Jarry's Ubu cycle of plays, which were part of the absurd theatre movement that emerged in Europe at the end of the 19th century. Drawing from Gamal El Ghitani’s novel, El Zeiny Brakat , [which is set in Mamluk Egypt] we created our own Mamluk version that incorporated elements of Jarry's vision. The themes somewhat inspired the events in our play in the Ubu cycle. The exploration of power dynamics and the use of absurdity and satire became central to our creation. Through this play, we aimed to comment on the power structures within our society, using Jarry's work as a springboard for our unique artistic expression. IE: Remarkable. Let's shift our focus to the overall theatrical experience that El Warsha provides. Can you tell me more about the importance of sensory elements like space, sound, light, and movement in your work? Geretly: In El Warsha, we place great importance on creating a multi-dimensional and impactful theatrical experience. We understand that theatre is about the spoken word and engaging all the audience's senses. The sensory elements play a crucial role in this. For example, the use of space is paramount. We often work in smaller spaces to maintain an intimate connection between the actors and the audience. This proximity creates a sense of immersion and allows the audience to truly experience the performance. Sound and music also play a significant role in creating the desired atmosphere. Whether it's the soundscape integrated into the play or live music performed on stage, it adds depth and emotional resonance to the experience. Lighting is another crucial element. We carefully design the lighting to create the desired mood and focus attention, enhancing the overall visual impact. Movement is integral to the theatrical experience as well. We pay great attention to the physicality of the actors, their gestures, and the way they interact with the space. These elements contribute to the rhythm and flow of the play, adding layers of meaning and impacting the audience on a visceral level. IE: How did El Warsha transition from performing established texts to producing its original work? Geretly: It surprised me that we had neglected the rich theatrical and dramatic sources in our own culture. Instead, we treated them as mere local color, adding a touch of flavor to our works but not fully exploring their material, spirit, and the inherent architecture of our indigenous performance arts. There was a tendency to remain within the Western model and use our culture as a decorative local element. For example, we would take a story from the Arabian Nights and turn it into a play that remained within the Western imagination without fully engaging with our cultural heritage. But then we started examining this neglected heritage, looking beyond the surface and delving into the material, spirit, and worldview these works represent. It was a process of utilizing our cultural sources and reshaping the hegemonic Western theater model, which had been dominant for centuries. It opened up many sources to explore, starting with our rich heritage. IE: Can you elaborate on how your encounter with the shadow players and the spirit of comedy and fear influenced your productions, particularly about the Ubu project? Geretly: The encounter with the shadow players in 1985 sparked a newfound interest in elements drawn from popular Egyptian traditional performance arts. Witnessing the performance by the last group of shadow players, who had reunited after many years, left a lasting impression on me. During the staging of Dāir maydūr [All Round, 1989] and Dāyirn dāir [All Round, 1990], adaptations of the Ubu cycle, these elements began to influence our work. We incorporated the essence of the art of shadow play into our techniques and performances. All the actors were trained in shadow play with puppets, and we even brought the masters to work with us. One of the masters, Hassan Al Farran, taught the children in our outreach work, sharing their artistic secrets and passing on their knowledge. The spirit of comedy and fear, elements inherent in shadow play, started to find their way into our productions. For example, in Dāir maydūr we incorporated shadow play on stage in shadow form, along with performances by belly dancer Hanan Youssef, who portrayed the wife of Mamluk Dayer and the mistress of Ibrahim Ibn El Sokar. We designed puppets specifically for the shadow players to perform with, using shadow forms as well. The practice of shadow play, which had nearly vanished, became an integral part of our production. Exploring popular Egyptian traditional performance arts allowed us to infuse new elements of comedy, fear, and creativity into our work. We learned from the masters and shared their techniques with our actors, further enriching our artistic expression. IE: Now, let's discuss your training in popular performance arts, specifically storytelling. How did storytelling serve as the core of your training, and what other art forms did you immerse yourselves in for inspiration? Geretly: Storytelling was central to our training, forming the core of exploring popular performance arts. We recognized the power and significance of storytelling as a means of communication and artistic expression. Through immersive training, we delved into the art of storytelling, embracing its techniques, narratives, and connection with the audience. In addition to storytelling, we immersed ourselves in various other art forms as a foundation for inspiration in our subsequent plays. For example, we incorporated elements of the al araguz tradition, a form of puppetry, into our productions. Scenes were designed to evoke the spirit of comics, adding a touch of humor and liveliness to our performances. Our exposure to these art forms allowed us to tap into the creativity and expressive potential they offered. By integrating storytelling, puppetry, and other traditional performance arts, we created a dynamic and multi-dimensional theatrical experience that captivated audiences and enriched our productions. IE: I'm intrigued by your exploration of the mulid or saint's feast as a setting for a play. Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind this concept and how you incorporated it into your production "Ghazīr al-layl" [The Tide of Nights 1993] Geretly: Certainly! The mulids have fascinated me for years. It's a rapidly disappearing phenomenon, much like many aspects of everyday life in Egypt. I saw it as the perfect setting and time for a play because it possesses a timeless quality, with a vibrant atmosphere and various popular arts being practiced. To bring this concept to life, I drew inspiration from the story of Hassan and Nai'ma, a popular ballad set in the countryside in 1926. This love story between a talented singer named Hassan and a young village woman named Nai'ma provided the narrative framework for the play. We wanted to explore her love for him and her family's disapproval. The mulid allowed us to move back and forth in time, as the essence of the celebration remains unchanged throughout the years. It allowed us to immerse the audience in the timeless ambiance of the mulid and incorporate various elements of popular arts practiced during the festivities. In addition to the love story, we intertwined other strands into the production. We incorporated elements of Pharaonic history, drawing on the possibility that the mulid originated from local Pharaonic manifestations of celestial power. We also included the Armenian story of 1926, incorporating an Armenian character played by Vania Exerjian, who sells tobacco at the moulid and interacts with the Egyptian characters. Furthermore, we envisioned a Greek bar where local landowners would gather to drink and buy alcohol. We created a poetic continuum with a unique structure by intertwining these different elements. The play was structured poetically, combining diverse stories, characters, and cultural influences. Through interviews and interactions with various personas, including a singer who felt jealous yet mourned Hassan's death, we aimed to create a rich and evocative theatrical experience. IE: Could you elaborate on the significance of the mulid and how it relates to the themes and emotions explored in the play? Geretly: The mulid holds deep significance both historically and culturally in Egypt. It is an annual religious ceremony in every quarter and town across the country. While its roots can be traced back to medieval times in Fatimid Egypt, I believe it has even deeper roots, possibly originating from local Pharaonic manifestations of celestial power. The mulid provided an ideal backdrop for our play because it carries a timeless quality. The atmosphere and practices associated with the mulid remained relatively unchanged throughout the years. It is a canvas for various popular arts, creating a vibrant and lively ambiance. In our play, the mulid was a setting where different characters and narratives converged. It allowed us to delve into the themes of love, family disapproval, and the struggle for justice. The mulid's inclusive and celebratory nature provided a symbolic backdrop to explore the complexities of human emotions and societal dynamics. Moreover, the mulid's connection to local traditions and cultural heritage added depth to the storytelling. By intertwining historical events, such as the 1919 revolution, within the context of the mulid, we aimed to evoke a sense of collective memory and reflect on the spirit of the times. In essence, the mulid became more than just a setting for the play. It became a metaphorical space that encapsulated the spirit of Egypt, its traditions, and the ongoing journey of societal transformation. IE: Now I'm curious about the production's scenography and the unique role of the storyteller. Can you elaborate on how you brought these elements to life? Geretly: The scenography of the production was designed to enhance the narrative and immersive experience for the audience. We incorporated a bed that served multiple purposes within the play's scenography, acting as a stage, shrine, and bed. This antiquated bed became a focal point, symbolizing different aspects of the story. It transformed into various objects and settings, allowing for seamless transitions and a dynamic visual representation of the narrative. In addition to the scenography, we introduced a unique role to the production—the storyteller. Sayed Ragab played this role and appeared on the bed, serving as the narrator and guide through the story. His presence added a layer of storytelling that connected the different elements and characters in the play. Ragab's role as the storyteller provided continuity and a sense of unity throughout the production. His interactions with the other characters and his narrations served as a bridge between the past and present, creating a cohesive and engaging theatrical experience for the audience. Overall, the scenography and the inclusion of the storyteller were integral elements in bringing the narrative to life and immersing the audience in the poetic continuum we aimed to create. IE: Let's dive into incorporating taḥṭīb , the stick dueling art, into the play. Can you elaborate on why you chose taḥṭīb [stick fight/ dance] to represent Hassan's murder and its significance in the play. Geretly: Taḥṭīb holds deep cultural and historical significance in Egypt, originating from ancient times and serving as a training exercise for the Egyptian army. Using taḥṭīb, we wanted to connect with our cultural heritage and showcase a recognized and respected art form. We saw it as a representation of the broken cycle of violence, as there is no expectation of revenge in this case. It allowed us to explore a different narrative where the focus shifted from vengeance to the tragic consequences of the characters' actions. The use of taḥṭīb also carries a symbolic meaning within the play. It represents a connection to ancient Egyptian culture, drawing on the war paintings and engravings that depict the Egyptian army practicing taḥṭīb as a training exercise. This connection to the past, combined with the fusion of traditional and contemporary elements in the play, adds depth and complexity to the storytelling. Tradition, to us, is about more than just idolizing the past. It's about actively preserving and continuing the flame of cultural practices and artistic traditions. In our engagement with popular culture, we strive to honor Egypt's rich heritage while bringing it into contemporary contexts. Rather than simply reviving or imitating popular traditions, we aim to breathe new life into them by integrating them into our plays and performances. By passing on these traditions through our work, we ensure their relevance in the present and future, allowing them to evolve and remain dynamic. IE: Can you tell us about the establishment of the Centre for Taḥṭīb Art and its importance in preserving this unique art form? Geretly: El Warsha and I established the center in honor of Medhat Fawzi, a young dancer and stick fighter from Malawi who sadly passed away in a car crash a few years ago. It is the only independent center for popular arts in Egypt, located in Malawi, Egypt. The center is in an old, abandoned cinema built in the 1930s. IE: Can you tell us about the training programs and groups at the center? Geretly: We have scores of young men, and sometimes young girls, who train twice a week at the center. Our company consists of men of different ages, and we now even have up to 8 generations of men in our company. In addition, we have a group of children who also receive training. Initially, finding trainers willing to teach others was challenging, so we had to train our own trainers. Only a few professional stick fighters or dancers were part of government institutions, like the Mass Culture Institution or the Palaces of Culture. They were reluctant to pass on their knowledge, so we took it upon ourselves to preserve and disseminate this art form. Stick fighting and stick dancing are martial arts and sports that are performed during popular ceremonies such as saints' birthdays and weddings. The art is always accompanied by music, although the duel itself is not performed to a specific rhythm. There is a distinct aesthetic sense as the stick fighters engage in duels. It's important to note that this art form is not about defeating your adversary but rather about contemplation and aesthetics. From the duel, the dance emerged, and Egyptian folkloric companies now incorporate stick dancing into their group choreography. El Warsha had acquired the reputation of a company that specialized in folklore. And of course, this is not really true. We worked during this period of the aforementioned performances in bringing this source into our work that has been neglected in the short history of Egyptian theatre, except in an artificial way, as I already pointed out. But because it was a very successful introduction, El Warsha was quickly identified with this stage of its history because it was such a powerful move that led on the one hand to an acknowledgment and recognition of this popular culture, and on the other hand to some virulent attacks on the Warsha claiming that we were creating shows for tourists, or creating shows to export to the West which was very interested in traditional cultures. And, of course, our moves didn't originate in this kind of motivation at all though we got invitations from time to time to the west. But our product was very unlike all the other products that were exported from Egypt. When it comes to our traditional art forms being exported to other countries, especially in the West, there is often a tendency to present them as folkloric versions rather than authentic representations of our culture. This happens because people in our own countries may not have a thorough understanding of these art forms. As a result, there is sometimes ignorance regarding the existence and significance of these arts in our own reality. This can lead to rejecting these art forms as belonging to a past that we should move away from to embrace modernity. This attack on our traditional arts has increased over time, but there have been companies that create plays inspired by our work to meet the desires of audiences who wish to explore our multiple identities, including the aspects we may have overlooked in the twentieth century with the rise of modernity. IE: Can you discuss your work on the Bani Hilal epic? Geretly: Bani Hilal is a medieval epic that surpasses even the scale of the Iliad and Odyssey combined. However, it has never been written down in its entirety. Instead, it exists in various versions told by different storytellers. Each storyteller adds their own variations and personal touches, creating diverse interpretations of the epic. When we wanted to bring the epic to life on stage, we divided the lines among different characters based on the versions of the great bards, such as Sayed El Dawwi. We kept the lines intact, without changing a single word, using the exact recorded version from Sayed El Dawwi. IE: It's fascinating to see how the epic was adapted for the stage. Could you share an example of how you turned the collective lines of different poets into a play during your experiment in Holland? Geretly: In our experiment in Holland, we took the collective lines from different poets and initially divided them between a chorus, responsible for singing the narratives, and the actors, who sang the lines of the characters. By doing this, the epic seamlessly transformed into a play without much effort. Our first play, Ghazal al-A'mār [Spinning Lives, 1997], was derived from a version of Sayed Al Dawwi's recordings. We edited the recordings into a play, introducing one quatrain to create a flashback since the original epic did not have flashbacks. This allowed us to adapt the epic to the theatrical medium. IE: Could you tell us about your ongoing work on the epic in recent years? Geretly: In recent years, we have resumed our work on the epic. We focused on the last book of the epic. Our goal has been to train a new generation of El Warsha performers in speaking, narrating, and singing the epic using traditional tunes. We have also been working on the dramaturgy of a new play based on the theme of the last book, which explores the disunity and internal conflicts among the Arabs after their triumph over Tunis. We delve into the economic motives behind their actions, as they left Yemen due to drought and invaded Tunis for its fertile land. This period of the epic reveals how the four Arab tribes and their 360 thousand soldiers fought among themselves for power and wealth, gradually losing their original purpose. We have been working closely with various storytellers, singers, and actors to understand the different versions of the epic and learn from their expertise. IE: Could you share your experience working with Sayed Al Dawwi and his impact on your artistic journey? Geretly: Working with Sayed Al Dawwi was a truly amazing experience. He was not just a teacher or a facilitator, but a master. We spent years immersed in his recordings, transcribing thousands of quatrains that became our primary source material. Sayed Al Dawwi considered himself responsible for preserving and propagating the epic throughout his life. His relationship to the epic was phenomenal. He carried it on him like a religious book. He considered himself responsible for this book and for propagating the epic throughout his life. He would sing nothing else. There were would be other singers in his music group that would sing the lighter songs for the audience to relax in between the dramatic episodes while he would take a break. His relationship to time, to the epic, to politics, to God, gave us lessons. He did not teach anything in a direct manner. We learnt off his tapes. IE: Let's move to talk about operettas in Egyptian theatre. You mentioned that they have played a significant role in exploring the history of Egyptian theatre. Could you tell us more about that? Geretly: Certainly! operettas have played a significant role in exploring Egyptian theatre's short but impactful history in its Western sense. We have brought back several masterpieces from the 19th century onwards, including Tawfik El Hakim's 1931 play Rusāṣah fī al-qalb , [A Bullet in the Heart, 2003] and two operettas from the 20th century. The most recent one you saw was Yawm al-qiyāmah [Doomsday, 2017] which we adapted as Qiyāmah qayma , [Domesday Has Come]. We also revived a 1924 operetta called Ayyām al-ʿizz [Days of Splendor, 2007]. IE: It's interesting how operettas have been revived in Egyptian theatre. Could you explain why Egyptians have a strong attachment to singing and how that has influenced our culture's popularity of musical plays and operettas? Geretly: Egyptians have a strong attachment to singing, and Egyptian cinema has evolved from silent films to singing films and eventually to talkies, much like Western cinema. Singing has always been a fundamental element of Egyptian cinema, so it's only natural that operettas and musical plays are popular forms of theatre in our culture. As a company, we train our actors extensively, focusing on voice, singing, and dance. This comprehensive training allows our actors to handle various styles of performance. IE: It seems that your company not only focuses on traditional operettas but also explores different forms of musical performances. Could you elaborate on this? Geretly: Yes, we are continuously exploring different forms of musical performances. Our productions are often musical, so they don't necessarily have to be operettas to include music and singing. Our adaptations of foreign plays and our original works often feature music, and the plays written in El Warsha typically include songs as well. We aim to create a diverse range of productions that incorporate music and singing. IE: I'd like to touch on your development of the "Nights of El Warsha" form. Can you explain how this form has evolved over the years and what it offers to both the performers and the audience? Geretly: In 1992, we started a form called " Layālī al-warṣḥah " [Nights of El Warsha] which allows us to experiment with different sources of writing and provides an opportunity for new members of the company to develop their performing abilities, especially as singers. It is a review or a musical play that contains stories, sketches, and sometimes short plays, but always includes songs. This evolving form changes its content while maintaining its structure. It has become a platform for our discoveries and experiments in writing, as well as a training ground for our performances. "Nights of El Warsha" has gained its own recognition and is always in demand. On average, we perform a "Night of El Warsha" once a month. Recently, we performed a production called Ṭuyūr al-Fayyūm [The Birds of Fayoum, 2014] as part of the Avignon Festival. It had a political theme, similar to a French cabaret. However, I should clarify that the Arabic term cabareh has a different connotation, referring to a lively nightclub. This form has been our most successful medium for exploring our creative ideas and experimenting with writing, and it continues to thrive as a unique style, always offering something new and enjoyable to the audience. IE: Your theater group explores the intersection of art and politics. Can you elaborate on how this connection is reflected in your performances and the role it plays in your work? Geretly: The connection between art and politics is a central aspect of our work. In our performances, we often integrate political texts and themes to create a dialogue with the audience. For example, we projected texts by Victor Hugo and La Fontaine during our shows, which had strong political undertones. We also introduced a powerful text by Alia Mossallam, reflecting on freedom and the significance of political activism. These collective works explore the notion of political engagement without directly addressing the political issues of the day. By choosing to create art that is politically engaged, we participate in a national dialogue that encourages Egyptians to openly discuss the realities of their country. IE: Your play, Ṭuyūr al-Fayyūm , incorporates themes of freedom and is a reflection on the political activism of imprisoned individuals. Can you explain how these themes are explored in the play and the impact they have on the audience? Geretly: In Ṭuyūr al-Fayyūm we drew inspiration from Alia Mossallam's reflection on freedom during a birthday outing with her daughter. This reflection and La Fontaine's "The Wolf and the Dog" story about freedom became integral to the play. The play serves as a reminder of the imprisoned political activists and the importance of freedom. By weaving these themes into the performance, we profoundly impact the audience. Through the projection of texts and the exploration of diverse cultural expressions, we encourage our audience to reflect on the idea of freedom and its significance in their lives. IE: The play Zawāyā [Perspectives, 2012] tackles the revolution of 2011 from different perspectives. Can you tell us more about the characters portrayed and how their varying viewpoints contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the revolution? Geretly: In Zawāyā , we present the story of the 2011 revolution from different angles through various characters. These characters include a mother who lost her child, a human rights woman, a henchman whose attitude towards the revolution evolves, and an Ultras who experienced the loss of fellow members during a football match in Port Said. Each character represents their own interests and points of view, providing a multifaceted interpretation of the revolution. By presenting these different perspectives, we challenge the simplistic narratives often presented by the media and offer a more nuanced understanding of the complex reality of the revolution. IE: Your exploration of themes also included the subject of Troy and the "Ḥikmat al-munkasirīn" [Wisdom of the Defeated]. Can you tell us more about your work on this subject and the challenges you faced in creating a contemporary interpretation? Geretly: "Hikmat Al Munkasirin" is a concept introduced by Mahmoud Darwish, which explores the wisdom that can emerge from the experiences of the defeated. In our play "Mahmoud Darwish, A Poet of Troy," we incorporated this theme to shed light on the complexities and nuances of defeat and its inherent wisdom. However, we faced challenges with the formation of the team, which led us to pause and shift our direction. Nonetheless, the theme of "Hikmat Al Munkasirin" remains a subject of interest and can be further explored in our future work. IE: Your approach to funding for your theater productions has been unique. Can you elaborate on how you sought funding and the role cultural institutions played in supporting your work? Geretly: We approached funding naturally by establishing connections with cultural institutions based on the nature of the plays we wanted to bring to Egypt. For example, the Goethe Institute supported our first play under the name of El Warsha, as well as other productions such as our adaption of Kafka's "The Penal Colony" [1989 and 2012]. Similarly, the British Council covered some of the costs for our productions during their 50th anniversary in Egypt. We didn't seek plays to fit these institutions; rather, we looked for institutions that were interested in the type of plays we wanted to bring, fostering a mutual understanding and partnership. IE: Your theater group faced criticism for receiving foreign funding. How did you navigate these criticisms and maintain your artistic integrity? Geretly: The criticisms we faced for receiving foreign funding revolved around accusations of aligning with imperialism and supporting certain political agendas. However, it was important to emphasize that the funding we received came from institutions managed by progressive intellectuals and individuals who had been active in movements such as the 1968 protests. We engaged in rich dialogues with them, and the funding provided essential support for our work. Over time, the criticisms subsided as it became clear that independent funding opportunities within Egypt were limited. Many institutions and artists who criticized us for foreign funding ended up receiving similar support themselves. It was important to maintain our artistic integrity and focus on the work we wanted to create, regardless of the criticisms faced. IE: You mentioned conflicting dynamics within the institutional structures and bureaucracy that hindered the creative process. Can you share your experiences in navigating these challenges and your decision to focus on independent initiatives? Geretly: I had experiences working within institutional structures, such as being the director of Al Hanager, the first theater for young experimental contemporary arts. However, I eventually resigned from that position due to the realization that the conditions required aligning with the state's propaganda machine. I wanted to be part of a movement rather than an isolated independent artist. Unfortunately, in Egypt, accessing state funding without being part of the established system or a theater that acts as a mouthpiece for the authorities is incredibly challenging. I remained committed to the idea that the theater should belong to the young independent initiatives in the country rather than an individual or company. Despite being told that I had the freedom to do as I pleased, I recognized the bureaucratic obstacles within the system and chose to focus on maintaining true independence with El Warsha. My father's experiences as a Minister of Finance in 1954 and the challenges he faced due to the price of being in power profoundly impacted me. Similarly, my own experiences within institutional structures, such as my position at Al Hanager, made me realize the difficulties involved in executing my decisions and the extent of external interventions. These factors reinforced my desire for true independence and freedom to negotiate my place within the system. Consequently, I resigned from that position and focused on El Warsha, making it clear that Al Hanager would be a theater for the new independent initiatives in Egypt rather than a personal entity. IE: How have you navigated the challenges of securing funding and the transition to alternative financial systems? Geretly: Securing funding has been a dynamic process for us. In recent years, we have faced funding limitations due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and a decrease in cultural support. We have shifted our approach by focusing on generating income through our trainings and maintaining social responsibility. For example, for every two trainees, we offer scholarships to two others or provide free training to a percentage of participants. We have also become proactive in marketing and branding our performances through social media and public relations. Additionally, we are exploring partnerships with the private sector and relying more on local resources to finance our productions. It has been a challenging transition, but we remain determined to maintain true independence and financial stability. IE: I'm curious to know how El Warsha, the first independent theater company in Egypt, came to be. Can you share the story behind its creation? Geretly: El Warsha was unintentionally created in 1987 while we were working on The Pupil Wishes to be a Master by Peter Handke and the revival of Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s Nawbat ṣaḥyān . We thought, why not continue? We named it El Warsha. Although we had discussed working together for years while I was in France, there was no preconceived idea. IE: As the first independent group, how did you establish yourselves and inspire others to join this movement? Geretly: We initially called ourselves the Free Groups, but as more groups emerged, we began referring to ourselves as independent. We held small festivals occasionally to celebrate the emergence of this movement. One significant event was when we invited all the groups to gather at the Greek Club and performed “The Wolf and the Dog,” a parable about freedom by La Fontaine. This gathering became a trend, and every amateur group started dubbing themselves independent. Individuals from various groups paradoxically met in the cafeteria of Hanager, the theater I built and then left. The phenomenon grew and developed, although it became confusing as some individuals belonged to multiple groups. IE: It's fascinating to hear how this movement gained momentum. Did the government support the independent theater scene during this time? Geretly: Throughout our 36 years of existence, the government contributed only to our travel expenses and provided pocket money to represent Egypt abroad. We were seen as a prestigious product of Egypt's artistic creativity. Despite this minimal support, we survived, and our continued existence encouraged others to enter the independent theater landscape. However, it's important to note that the government didn't provide substantial support, despite ongoing discussions within various institutions such as the Sunduk tanmia thaqafiiya [The Cultural Development Fund]. IE: I can imagine the challenges you faced without significant support from the government. How has the independent theater movement evolved since then, and what are some of the current challenges you face? Geretly: Looking back, the image isn't as glorious as it initially seemed. While some companies have managed to survive through traveling, funding, and outreach work, I wouldn't say there is a flourishing independent theater movement. The challenges we face are abundant. The ultimate issue is being completely marginalized and lacking dialogue with the authorities and the state. There is no space to work and be truly independent. Funding is scarce, and censorship fluctuates depending on the state's leniency towards expression. Additionally, the patriarchal nature of our society instills a longing for adoption by the state, which seems paradoxical. IE: Looking ahead, what are your aspirations as a theater professional? Do you have any upcoming projects or collaborations that you are excited about? Geretly: As a theater professional, I live without hope but with a strong desire that keeps me motivated. As I navigate the present, I carry the past within me, envisioning myself as a crescent holding the remaining piece of the moon, symbolizing my journey into the future. While hope may be absent, my desire propels me forward. In terms of projects, I have several in progress. One of them is the second version of the epic of Bani Hilal, titled The Orphans . This project brings together three generations: myself (the oldest generation), then the writer, Shadi Atif, and finally Ali Abdel Latif (the youngest), the actor who portrays Abu Zaid in the scene of his death. It reflects on our lives and the sense of despondency we feel post-2011, acknowledging the defeat of the uprising while recognizing the rich contributions and ideas that emerged during that time. We have already showcased a demo of parts of the play and are currently seeking additional funding to complete the project. Additionally, we have been exploring the roaring twenties and thirties following the 1919 revolution, which marked a significant period of unleashed freedom in Egypt. We are excited about this thematic exploration. We recently presented a night of El Warsha called "Ba'd El 'sha" [After the Evening Falls], which combines stories, songs, and sketches from this project. Beyond that, I am involved in various projects, such as developing podcasts based on Egyptian proverbs focused on sustainability, collaborating with a cultural center in Qena, Upper Egypt and supporting cultural activities in Malawi, Egypt. These projects motivate and engage me, fueling my passion for new ideas and societal development through art. As we conclude this captivating interview, we are left in awe of this remarkable theater figure's profound wisdom and artistic vision. With over four decades of experience, his contributions to the theater industry have been extraordinary. Through his commitment to reviving old theater traditions, while embracing modern techniques, he has bridged the gap between past and present, breathing new life into the theatrical realm. His impact as a director, dramaturge, and actor will continue influencing and inspiring future generations. We sincerely thank this theater luminary for their time, insights, and unwavering dedication to the craft. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes These interviews were conducted in English via zoom between 22 and 25 September 2023. The four and half hours of interviews have been edited for length and clarity. References About The Author(s) Dr. Ezzeldin is Assistant Professor at the Department of Drama and Theatre Criticism of Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt (founder of the department in 2006). She is the founder and coordinator of the "Film Criticism Diploma". She is also the former director of the "National Library of Egypt, Bab-Al-Khalq". A classicist by training and an active player on the wider cultural scene. She is a member of the IFTR and a jury member for many literary, cultural, theatre, and film awards. Additionally, she was a member of the Theater Committee of the Supreme Council of Culture, Ministry of Culture, Egypt, for many years. A visiting professor at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and the Kuwait High Institute for Theatre Studies in Kuwait. Furthermore, she acts as a consultant for the "El Nahda Scientific and Cultural Organization (Cairo Jesuit)". She has to her name many publications in Arabic, English and Italian. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Review: Mother Courage adapted and directed by Alison Shan Price Review of Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt written by Sonali Pahwa Review: Decolonizing Sarah: A Hurricane Play written and directed by Samer Al-Saber “Indigenous Avant-Gardes”: The Shiraz Arts Festival and Ritual Performance Theory in 1970s Iran Review: Baba written by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Hamid Dehghani Review of MUKHRIJĀT AL-MASRAḤ AL-MIṢRĪ (1990-2010): DIRĀSA SĪMIYŪṬĪQĪYAH [Female Egyptian Directors (1990-2010): A Semiotic Study], written by Hadia Abd El-Fattah Review of Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories: While They Were Waiting written by Fadi Skeiker Review: Layalina written by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat Up There by Wael Kadour, Introduction Review: Playwright Showcase, New Arab American Theater Works Two Giants of Egyptian Theatre: Conversations with Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny and Lenin El-Ramly Crossing Borders: A Theatre Practitioner’s Odyssey, An Interview with Hassan El Geretly On Writing Egypt from the Diaspora: An Interview with Adam Ashraf Elsayigh Performance Review: A FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN BLOCKED Performance Review: BETHLEHEM SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER FESTIVAL Performance Review: HOOTA. By Amer Hlehel Performance Review: LITTLE SYRIA Book Review: ACTING EGYPTIAN Book Review: MANSOUR, MONA. THE VAGRANT TRILOGY Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Robert Wilson Yearbook Volume 1 Visit Journal Homepage They Asked Me to Draw a City: Postdramatic Imaginings in Robert Wilson’s Direction of Strindberg’s A Dream Play John P. Bray By Published on May 1, 2026 Download Article as PDF In his online presentation on Zoom in 2021, as part of the Georgia Summit of Theatre Innovators, Robert Wilson took a marker and explained to his viewers that he was once asked to design a city as an assignment for an architecture class taught by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy at the Pratt Institute. He drew an apple with a crystal cube inside. He explained: “the crystal cube is the core of a community. It can reflect the universe, the world.” Wilson equates the crystal cube with a space such as a cathedral in the middle of a medieval village, a place for communal and personal reflection. “A cathedral is a place where if you are rich or you are poor you could enter. It was a place where composers showed music, played music. Painters showed paintings. [...] It was the center, the core of the apple.” [i] As quoted in Cathy Turner’s book Dramaturgy and Architecture, Wilson says “What I learned from her was to apply order and disorder in a way that was meaningful. I think that’s my fascination with architecture. An architect can design a structure, but within that structure, you can let your imagination run free.” [ii] He continues, During her [Sibyl Moholy-Nagy] lectures she presented us in rapid succession with a car from 1950, a Renaissance painting, a Baroque chandelier, a Byzantine mosaic, a chair by Frank Lloyd Wright, a shoe from the early 19 th Century – so that I could hardly avoid grasping the inherent correlation between architecture and theatre. [iii] This correlation between architecture and theatre would speak to Wilson’s process, his vision, for theatrical creation, and by “theatrical creation,” I mean his dance plays and silent operas, as well as his approach to scripted plays and established stories. He creates a visual book (the elements of design and movement) and audio book (spoken text and so on) separately, so that, as he says, “when I put them together, they are running in opposition, but I find moments of shifting so they are in line.” [iv] He furthermore notes, “My work is not arbitrarily placed. At the end, when they come together, it is not a collage. I consciously construct the dualism between what I am hearing and what I see [...] and how they reinforce each other.” [v] It is with Wilson’s direction of established, Modernist plays that this essay is primarily concerned. I am going to focus on his 1998 production of Strindberg’s A Dream Play which I had the opportunity to see at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in November of 2000. The piece has stayed with me for over twenty-four years. My argument is Wilson, through his process, was able to penetrate an impenetrable play. I will begin with a brief overview of August Strindberg’s view of A Dream Play ( Ett drömspel )—sometimes translated as The Dream Play — and his suggestions for staging what many felt was unstageable at the time. I will then move into an overview of Wilson’s approach to the work, followed by an analysis of Wilson’s production. I will contrast Wilson’s approach with Strindberg’s suggestions, placing focus on a midpoint sequence in the work where I will argue that Wilson—by not having strict fidelity to the text— has found a way to make an impenetrable play easily understood through his use of the postdramatic techniques of playing with time, removing the primacy of the written text, and foregrounding the play as a meditative question rather than a problem that has been solved. [vi] In other words, with A Dream Play, Wilson has offered audiences a privileged seat inside the crystal cube. August Strindberg The Swedish playwright, painter, poet, and essayist August Strindberg is often mentioned in the same breath as Norwegian competitor Henrik Ibsen and Russian contemporary Anton Chekhov. Strindberg cemented his status as a great writer of Naturalism with Miss Julie in 1888, but he would move towards abstract, Symbolist works that would anticipate Expressionism. To sum up his biography, in his life, Strindberg would marry and divorce three times. He was an atheist, a Catholic, a spiritualist, an occultist, a misogynist, a champion of women’s rights, a painter, a photographer, and a deep sufferer from paranoia and a persecution syndrome. Contradictions abound. Put succinctly by Linda Haverty Rugg: “Strindberg was insane,” and the evidence she lists for his insanity range from his “imagining someone is trying to electrocute him through his hotel wall,” to his belief “that he has inadvertently caused his child to fall ill by sending telepathic messages to her via photograph.” [vii] One only needs to read his numerous essays to understand that Strindberg lived in a perpetual state of paranoid agony. His life was that of a tormented seeker, driven by madness, lust, wonder, and despair. By 1890, Strindberg had moved to Paris and would later move to Germany (though he remained very itinerant, in part due to a somewhat founded belief he would have been institutionalized if he returned to Sweden). During this period, Strindberg became involved with artists and thinkers, such as Edward Munch, who believed truly that there was something beyond the physical, natural world. As Ann-Charlotte Gavel Adams notes, Strindberg had come in contact with ground-breaking works on the subconscious in neurology and psychiatry by such names as Jean-Martin Charcot, Théodule Ribot, and Hippolyte Bernheim. Strindberg referred to his Ockulta Dagboken ( Occult Diary ), which he started in February of 1896, as “Min journal öfver drömmar” (“My diary over dreams”), perhaps as a reply to Swedenborg’s Dream Diary (“drömdagbok”), which he had become acquainted with in the 1890s. [viii] Some of the lectures he attended were also attended by Sigmund Freud, who would be inspired to develop his science of dreams. [ix] This is contrary to a popular assumption that Strindberg was reading Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams while plotting his Inferno plays; on the contrary, both To Damascus I and II were written in 1898, one year prior to Freud’s publication. Rather, Strindberg and Freud both found their inspiration in the lectures they had attended. [x] Based on these new discoveries and theories about dreams, Strindberg would reject Naturalism in the theatre and move towards writing plays that would foreground the inner spirituality of the unconscious mind. [xi] The Damascus trilogy imaged, as Rugg states, an associative logic in a dreaming consciousness, a logic that disregards ordinary constructs of space and time, a logic that disregards distinctions between persons, a logic that argues for a vast unknown territory of mind beneath the light of consciousness [xii] Strindberg was not only seeking signs that there was something outside of the natural world, but he was also in a way seeking himself through different media of artistic expression. Harry Carson, a Strindberg translator and scholar, argues that through his photographic and painted works Strindberg was attempting to find himself via a process of control and surrender of the vision confronting him. [xiii] This act of seeking through dreams, through spirituality, via a process of control and surrender speaks to the central character Daughter’s (or Agnes’s) plight in A Dream Play , as she climbs down to understand why humans suffer, what makes them suffer, and perhaps, how by living as a mortal she may ease suffering, hoping to gain not just an understanding of despair but control, ultimately learning the futility of such hopes but gaining compassion. When discussing the origins of the A Dream Play , Ann-Charlotte Gavel Adams notes that it “was based on two shorter drafts or fragments “Korridordramat” (“The Corridor Drama”) and “Bosättningen” (“Setting up House”).” [xiv] These dramas dealt with the agony of married life and a loss of life’s meaning if the ontological will was surrendered or ignored. As a result, the finished version, A Dream Play, feels fragmented, dreamlike, ponderous, and utterly humorless. The structure of A Dream Play emulates that of a medieval morality play, in which a central protagonist (in this case Agnes or Daughter, the daughter of the Hindu God Indra) meets allegorical characters who, even if they have given names stated in the dialogue, are known by their work or position: Officer, Poet, Glazier, etc. As she journeys, her father Indra warns of humans in which “Complaint is their mother tongue.” [xv] Agnes befriends a soldier, kept prisoner in a castle built on manure adorned with a chrysanthemum bud, who pines for an actress named Victoria. He will age, age backwards, and wait. Time and space have no meaning in this journey. She marries Lawyer, a pragmatic man who works for the poor and is tormented by the anguishing repetition of life’s tasks—once the handkerchiefs are clean, they need to be cleaned again. A maid takes care of their house, pasting the cracks in the windows and the walls, saying “I paste, I paste.” Towards the close of the play, the various allegorical characters gather outside of the castle near a high, closed-door upstage. There is a fire. Each character casts an object that represents who they are—the fisherman’s net, the glazier’s diamond, the soldier’s roses—into the flames. Behind the large door is the answer to the mystery of life. The learned men debate the theological, scientific, and political ramifications of opening the door which has always remained closed. The door is opened and there is nothing behind it. Daughter returns to the heavens, recognizing that humans have spiritual hopes, spiritual reflections, awakenings—but lack the potency to affect real change. She declares with compassion, Oh, now I know all the pain of being, this is what it’s like to be human.... You miss even things you didn’t value, even wrongs you didn’t commit, You want to go, and you want to stay...and so the heart is divided. [xvi] The last image Strindberg leaves us with is the castle burning, the wall behind being made of human faces “questioning, grieving, despairing,” as the chrysanthemum blooms. [xvii] Strindberg considered A Dream Play “My most beloved drama, the child of my greatest pain.” [xviii] In dreams, Strindberg writes, “Anything can happen; everything is possible and probable; time and space do not exist . . . imagination spins and waves new patterns made up of memories, experiences, unfettered fantasies, absurdities, and improvisations." The notion that “time and space do not exist” seem to speak to Wilson’s postdramatic sensibility. [xix] Strindberg notes that the people that inhabit the play are “split, doubled, multiplied, evaporated, are condensed, float away, assemble. But one consciousness stands above it all, that of a dreamer: for it is there there are no secrets, no inconsistency, no scruples, no law. He does not judge, does not repudiate, only relates.” [xx] With the play as written, one gets the sense that it is Strindberg himself who is the dreamer. In Wilson’s production, the dreamer is the audience. Staging A Dream Play as written is a daunting task. As Sue Prideaux writes in her substantial biography of Strindberg, he had initially “wanted to use a magic lantern in order to create a set of dissolving images like a dream in which the action takes place, but the technology could not be mastered so he stipulated the scenery must be stylized, not naturalistic.” [xxi] In the end he suggested abstract drops to be quickly moved to not break the flow of action—another near impossible task. The play was staged for the first time in Stockholm in 1907 by Victor Castegren (starring Strindberg’s then-wife Harriet Bose). It was not a success, in part due to the technological innovations that had not yet been created. (Had Strindberg lived into the 1930s, his desire for multimedia would have been fulfilled.) As Adams notes, Strindberg asks for the following in his stage directions: “The wings, which should remain unchanged throughout the play, are stylized wall paintings, suggesting interiors, exteriors/buildings and landscapes simultaneously;” and in his Preface to the 1907 production, Strindberg writes that the play should move “as a symphony, polyphonic, now and then a fugue with a constantly recurring main theme, which is repeated in all registers and varied by more than thirty voices.” [xxii] Since its original staging, A Dream Play has enjoyed numerous productions helmed by the likes of Max Reinhardt, Ingmar Bergman, and Robert Wilson. Ingmar Bergman has the distinction of directing the play four times, including once for television in 1963. Prior to mounting it a final time in 1986, he wrote, I had been dissatisfied with my previous three productions of the seminal play. The Swedish TV version had come to grief over technical disasters (video tapes couldn’t be edited in those days); the performance on the small Stage (Lilla Scenen) turned out poor despite excellent actors; and the German adventure had been ruined by overwhelming sets. [xxiii] For his fourth production, he had determined to be true to every word of Strindberg’s text, including the passage in Fingal’s Cave: “How to create Fingal’s Cave so that it doesn’t sabotage itself? How shall I maneuver the Writer’s great lament directed at Indra? It consists largely of complaints. How shall I create that storm, the shipwreck and, most difficult of all, Christ walking on water?” [xxiv] His solution was to stage the sequence as a play within a play, in which the Writer assigns roles, adorns a Crown of Thorns, and commences with the lament. [xxv] Bergman’s approach, to try to capture every moment to the letter, is an approach to dramatic literature that many (what we will call) “literal” or “translator” directors (insofar as directors translate a script to the stage) may take, and it certainly has its rewards. I argue, however, that the most effective way to stay true to the spirit of Strindberg is to ignore his stage directions completely. This is how Robert Wilson was able to solve the riddle of the staging of the work, all the while asking the unanswerable question, “What is it?” Robert Wilson If one is reading this essay, then one is already familiar with Robert Wilson’s work, the effect that the happenings of Cunningham and Cage as well as the choreography of George Balanchine had on his sensibility. In sum, Cunningham and Cage’s happenings were improvisational, with the music and movement not necessarily following each other, but had moments of congruence. Many of Balanchine’s ballets did not necessarily follow a plot and relied on minimal technical values to create abstract lyrical visuals with bodies in space. These are names frequently mentioned by Wilson himself when he discusses his earliest pieces, which have been codified as postdramatic works (though Wilson sees himself as a Classicist). The term postdramatic theatre , coined and defined by Hans-Thies Lehmann, provides a new way to discuss theatre as a total event that is not intrinsically tied to the study of the playscript-as-theatre. Lehmann writes: Theatre and drama seem so closely related and quasi identical to many (even to many theatre studies scholars), a tightly embracing couple, so to speak, that despite all radical transformations of theatre, the concept of drama has survived as the latent normative idea of theatre . . . spectators will say after a theatre visit that they liked the ‘play’ when they possibly mean the performance and, in any event, do not clearly distinguish between the two. [xxvi] In other words, audiences, scholars, and critics are so accustomed to considering drama and theatre event as the same object, the term postdramatic theatre is a necessary interruption to this monologic way of thinking. [xxvii] Lehmann also uses the term postdramatic theatre to demonstrate how directors such as Wilson create forms of theatre rather than performance art with each functioning according to their own different guidelines. This approach, in turn, demonstrates how the “post” in postdramatic reminds us that there is and has been theatre before and after the dramatic text on the page ( predramatic may include the earliest works of Greek playwrights, or the chorus that created the dithyramb to Dionysus). Prior to his staging of Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken (1991), Wilson worked primarily outside of scripted plays. As Maria Shevtsova argues, “For Wilson, the autonomy of a production was beyond question: a production was a work in and of itself not merely an animated text.” [xxviii] In other words, the established practice of the director serving as translator of the literary canon was at odds with Wilson’s process. Any utterances in his dance operas ( Einstein on the Beach, CIVIL warS, and so forth) were not in the service of a cause-and-effect fabula . However, his interests would develop over the 1980s. When considering a move towards staging established texts, Wilson said: The creation of new works is what I do best, but I also think it’s important to do other things, and so I want to interpret other people’s works. I’m doing a new opera with Gavin Bryars, an English composer, which is based on Euripides’ Medea. . . . I liked the architecture of the story. . . . I also plan to do Parsifal in 1986 or 87, and then a King Lear, yes, to Shakespeare’s text, and maybe later I’ll do some contemporary works. [xxix] During his work on Medea (1984) , Heiner Müeller (as Maria Shevtsova notes) gave Wilson his play Despoiled Shore Media Landscape with Argonauts to use as a prologue to the opera. [xxx] Müeller would also give Wilson Description of a Picture to be used as a prologue for Alcestis, an opera featuring music by the performance artist Laurie Anderson. It was through these collaborations with Heiner Müeller that Wilson would become open to staging not only operas but established plays. To quote Shevtsova, Wilson “no longer saw language solely as a sonic effect . . . but as a vehicle for dramatic structure,” even if Wilson “continued to bypass language as a medium for semantic meaning.” [xxxi] Through Müeller and other collaborators, Wilson would soon recognize the power of the spoken word. In 1991, Wilson directed Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken , the first of three Ibsen plays he would stage, the others being The Lady from the Sea (1998) and Peer Gynt (2005). In her considerations of Wilson’s work with Ibsen, Giovanna Zanlonghi’s thoughts tally with those of Shevtsova. Writing about Wilson’s direction of The Lady and the Sea, Zanglonghi states: It is the opposition of the word against the image, depth against surface, a plunge into darkness against the transparency of light, the density of the human psyche and pulsions against the geometric rendering of gesture and body language. The fact is that Wilson’s visual theatre is based on silence and on evocative sensations, and hardly tolerates the intrusion of the spoken word, which disturbs the contemplation of the eye. . . . And yet the meeting between Bob Wilson and Ibsen’s plays seems to be by now—after three stage renderings—far from improvised or incidental.” [xxxii] Strindberg is also quite verbose in his plays. When reading the play, one gets the sense there is very little air in any of the conversations. As various productions of Strindberg’s plays sought to find the meaning of the work, few would pare down the language. Zanlonghi offers that Wilson intentionally focuses on Ibsen’s plays that are not of the “drawing room” variety, “for Wilson has chosen those plays where he could single out his favourite key themes—mystery, silence, the process of interior liberation, a utopian identification between man and nature—and in which he could express his peculiar stage language, at the same time crystal-clear and symbolic.” [xxxiii] A Dream Play also offers mystery, but perhaps not silence, and a less than ideal identification between humanity and its own nature. As with Ibsen, Strindberg was interested in “plumbing the depths” of humanity’s psyche either through material realities or the fragments of dreams. For Strindberg, the dream-life became key to recognizing the pain and misery of the human story, something that could not be achieved either through positivist thought or Naturalistic theatre which offered surface representations posturing as depth. Wilson, however, does not seek to understand human behavior in his works, rather he creates aesthetic experience. He is not intending to plumb the depths but rather present the surface. The surface (the total theatre experience) becomes a space, a cube inside of an apple, where the audience, situated as dreamer, can question the aesthetic experience they have just encountered—what is it?—rather than their own humanity. This is not to say there is not an affect. On the contrary, the dance between Strindberg’s words and embodied philosophies, paired with Wilson’s consciously slow yet pregnant direction, becomes a spiritual experience. This is where the metaphor of the crystal cube becomes necessary to an analysis of the production. I will return to this point in the next section. When Wilson directs modernist stage plays, Shevtsova says, “the point, for Wilson, was not to accommodate his methods to these principles [of drama, spoken and sung], but to shape them to his staging methods.” [xxxiv] Wilson’s methods with his dance plays, operas, and established plays are similar. He is both improvisational and classicist. There needs to be a form. “Formalism,” Wilson has said, “means looking at things from a distance; like a bird who looks into the vastness of the universe from a branch of its tree—in front of it spreads infinity, whose temporal and spatial structure it can nevertheless recognize.” [xxxv] His works, therefore, are more mise-en-scene and less montage. We receive the entirety of the picture rather than short, fragmented scenes (as often is the case with Western drama). There is a clear structure to Wilson’s theatre events, but the structure is visual rather than dramatic. He explains, I made a twelve-hour [silent] play in seven acts. One and seven are related. Two and six are related. Three and five are related. And it spirals in the middle of the fourth act and it spirals out. This is the same structure as Shakespeare’s King Lear. This part [early parts] the King is in the Man-Made World. This part [the later parts] he goes into Nature. The center line—“I shall go mad,” says the King – is the turning point. [xxxvi] This approach to structure—with scenes spiraling towards a center (the turning point) and then spiraling out—is important to note as we discuss his approach to A Dream Play. Wilson’s A Dream Play Robert Wilson begins his process by asking his co-directors and dramaturgs to summarize each scene, so he can begin a movement score and create the visual book for the piece. His dramaturgs for A Dream Play were Holm Keller and Monica Ohlsson. His co-directors for the play were Giuseppe Frigeni and Ann-Christin Rommen, the latter of whom (at the time of the production) had worked with Wilson for fifteen years. In her conversation with Maria Shevtsova, Rommen described Wilson’s process thus: The work usually has three stages. The first stage is called the table workshop, which means sitting with a group of people who are going to work on a piece—the dramaturg, set designer, musician, Bob, and me—all round a table and talking through the piece. This means we tell Bob its content, not by reading it to him, but just telling him. [xxxvii] As part of this first stage, Wilson would “draw” the set (even in interviews, Wilson is always drawing). From there, his set designer (or in the case of A Dream Play, his scenic assistant, Gordana Svilar) would “look for images and materials.” [xxxviii] The images for Wilson’s visual book for A Dream Play were inspired by photographs taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston, a turn of the century American photographer. Johnston had received a commission from The Hampton Institute, a vocational school for Inuit and African Americans, to be used to “illustrate contemporary African American life” for the 1900 Paris Word Exhibition. [xxxix] Johnston had taken more than 150 photos which were shown at the Exposition Nègres d'Amerique (American Negro Exhibit) pavilion, which, according to MOMA, “was meant to showcase improving race relations in America.” [xl] The opening tableau in Wilson’s production, for example, was an image recreated from Johnston’s photo titled “Stairway of the Treasurer’s Residence at Hampton Institute: Students at Work” (1899-1900). [xli] The photograph shows six student workers building (or possibly fixing) a staircase that moves up from the left to a platform and then continues to the right. The students are dressed in button-down shirts, some in overalls, some in vests, with a couple wearing hats. These students would become the choral bricklayers in Wilson’s production. Another photograph by Johnston that inspired Wilson was “A Hampton Graduate’s Home” (1899-1900), in which two girls are standing outside of a white, two-story American farmhouse. The house had three windows upstairs, four on the side (two upstairs, two downstairs), a front porch with a small awning, and a front door to the left (rather than center). A recreation of this farmhouse would be projected during Scene One: The Rising Castle and Scene Thirteen: The Burning Castle (structurally, the first and thirteenth scene are visually connected). It seems appropriate that Wilson worked from photographs from the turn of the twentieth century. After all, Strindberg himself was a photographer. He had created a series of self-portraits (which Carlson and Rugg have both suggested was his attempt to find himself), and he also created a process he called “celestography,” or “writing the stars.” As described in The Public Domain Review, Strindberg’s process was to lay out “a series of photographic plates on the ground,” thereby “[r]emoving the ‘middle-man’ of a camera (and even lens), using the light-sensitive plates directly, he was attempting to capture images of the night sky above;” and while he believed himself to be successful, the images he created were in actuality the result of chemical exposure on the plates. [xlii] Through both naturalistic and experimental photography, Strindberg was attempting to find himself and to unmask secrets from the unseen universe. Whether by coincidence or not, Wilson had tapped into another artform of Strindberg’s when creating his look for A Dream Play, blending the natural images of Johnston’s photographs with the celestial blue lighting evocative of Strindberg’s attempt to photograph the heavens. For the second phase, Wilson creates a “silent play” with the actors to create the overall movement and physicality for each scene, without consideration of the spoken dialogue. For this production, Wilson worked with the resident company at Stockholms stadsteater (Stockholm’s City Theatre) and the play was performed in Swedish. Rommen said the company was “very well prepared” for Wilson’s process, having “seen a lot of videos and read books about Bob’s work.” [xliii] The creation of the overall movement of the piece is what Shevtsova calls “the movement score,” which is learned through repetition. [xliv] When creating the silent play, Rommen says that Wilson, [L]ooks at his drawing, at the space he has drawn for the scene. Then he directs the actors, puts them in relation to each other, and finds their position and movement. Or else he will step into a character himself. He “feels” a scene for someone and will ask him or her to reproduce his movement, like a dance, a choreography. Many times, a piece of music will help him to find the right “mood” for a scene. [xlv] This focus on mood and movement is incongruous with Western theatre training, in which actors are asked to find psychological motivations for the characters. Because his approach is abstract, Rommen acted as an intermediary. In her own words, Rommen says, “In many cases I tried to help them find subtexts for movements so they had a ‘reason’ to do them. Bob never wanted to know what actors were thinking about—‘Don’t tell me’—but they had to tell someone, so that was my part.” [xlvi] The marriage of movement and the photographs used for the tableaus became Wilson’s visual book for the rest of the production, and the incorporation of the movement and sound becomes the third phase of his process. In the first scene, for example, Agnes walks down a diagonal platform that evokes a seesaw or possibly part of a hobbyhorse or workstation for the five choral builders. The projected image is reminiscent of the large staircase captured by Johnston. The blue lighting gives the world a sleepy, dreamy quality. Jessica Lieberg as Agnes is still, pausing, moving ever so slightly, evoking the notion of Craig’s Übermarionette married with the contemplative nature of Noh theatre. One gets the sense we are watching a photograph slowly come to life. In Strindberg’s script, this is Agnes’s journey from the Heavens to the Earth. Strindberg’s stage directions are elaborate, in which he asks for backdrops with “clouds that resemble crumbling slate mountains with ruins of castles and fortresses,” noting that “constellations of Leo, Virgo, and Libra can be seen. Between them is the planet Jupiter, shining brightly. Indra’s daughter is standing on the highest cloud.” [xlvii] Liedburg’s Agnes also holds a shoe, which Robert Brustein notes, is “a symbol of the earthly possessions that she, along with the others, will divest herself of in the final scene.” [xlviii] Her movement is controlled; there is a formal stillness; every little motion is noticeable, resembling a Noh-styled dance. In her review for Theatre Journal, Judylee Vivier observed that Liedberg demonstrated “the exquisite physical control of a slow-moving gymnast.” [xlix] Again, Brustein notes: “nowhere has the influence of George Balanchine been more manifest than in the physical twists and turns of this production.” [l] Indeed, Wilson cast this piece (as with his other pieces) not in terms of how performers can speak a text, but rather “by how accurately they can count time.” [li] This opening moment takes time, allowing the viewer to think about what they are experiencing as it happens. The text metamorphosizes into a part of the movement, the controlled formalized dance of the actor. The actors, meanwhile, each found a way to make the moment their own; they “filled out” the movements ascribed by Wilson, as if performing stylized choreography. “The movement of actors,” Lehmann states, which is in slow motion always produces . . . an experience that undermines the idea of action . . . These figures remain solitarily spun into a cosmos, into a web of lines of forces and—quite concretely through the lighting design—"prescribed”paths. The figures (or figurines) inhabit a magical phantasm that imitates the ancient heroes’ enigmatic path of fate drawn by oracles. [lii] With A Dream Play, the movement of the performers, and their sounds, created (along with the lighting, music, and so forth) the rich, mesmerizing dreamlike space over the course of the entire production: the Glazier with his squinted eyes and chuckle, the milking maids who, when each opened their mouth, let out a sound, including glass being broken. Jai-Ung Hong notes that in the production, “the actors did not look anybody in the eye on stage . . . , all actors on stage looked as if they were playing for themselves,” rather than for each other or for the audience. [liii] Soldier sings some of his lines, and when the characters gather by the fire to burn their precious objects in effigy, Wilson, rather than have them stand around a fire, has the characters sit on bleacher-like stairs in front of the farmhouse, holding their objects, including Agnes’s shoe, a rose, a hat, a scarf, a book, and a box. As the characters let go, each object raises up, floating center stage, as if becoming the smoke. This is one of the most striking moments of the production—there is a hushed quiet, as if we in the audience are not just watching but experiencing something sacred. In short, by blending the visual images from Frances Benjamin Johnston’s photos with verbal images from Strindberg’s play and the very controlled movement of the performers, Wilson metamorphosizes Strindberg’s A Dream Play into a dream experienced entirely by the audience. In terms of his visual dramatic structure, Wilson’s production begins and ends with the tableau of the same staircase. Because we understand the first tableau will tie in with the last, the play will end with Agnes journeying back up the see-saw in the opposite direction, but without the shoe. As Wilson described earlier, each scene in the first half is married to a scene in the latter, with a turning point in between. The scenes are in fact reflections, with every moment in the first half spiraling towards a center and each moment spiraling outward after. The seventh scene of the play as written is the turning point. In this scene, the Lawyer laments to Agnes (Daughter) that he has been refused doctoral wreaths at a ceremony in town. The setting is described as a church chancel. Agnes, speaking with Lawyer, says she will plead his case to the heavens to ease his misery. In their fragmented conversation, she says when she looks into a mirror, she sees as the world as it really is. Lawyer suggests that life is the false copy, the reflection the real. This is important for how Wilson will stage the scene. Church bells are heard, and Daughter entices Lawyer to marry her. As she does so, Strindberg tells us the background will transform into Fingal’s grotto, with water crashing behind them, “producing a sound ensemble between winter and waves.” Lawyer laments “But I’m poor.” Daughter: What does that matter as long as we love each other? A little beauty costs nothing. Lawyer: Maybe the things I like you’ll dislike Daughter: Then we’ll compromise Lawyer: And if we tire of each other? Daughter: Then a child will come and bring us delights that are always new! Lawyer: And you’ll have me, an outcast: poor, ugly, and despised? Daughter: Yes, let us join our destinies. Lawyer: So be it then. [liv] In Wilson’s presentation, we have an arch created by bricks upstage, with a shorter wall of bricks downstage. The bricklayers/chorus members are working, while the music swells beneath them. The entire scene is played twice: the first time, if memory serves, the lighting in the backdrop was red, with the bricklayers’ work being more gestural, each holding onto a brick of their own, placing it, and bringing it back up, representing the building of a wall. The second time, the background was blue, with the bricklayers all sitting and singing under the spoken text (longtime collaborator Michael Galasso created the beautiful music for this play). We are watching both the original and the mirror, the first and the copy. The second time, the lights in the audience pulsed as we in the theatre became both the copy and the original, entwined with what we were experiencing onstage. We were inside the cube inside the apple. The space for reflection. This moment also encapsulates Wilson’s own thoughts on the entirety of the play itself. In his words, What he called A Dream Play— in a sense, it’s very concrete. . . . You just blinked your eyes. What did you see. You don’t know, but it’s a part of seeing. It’s a negative image. Maybe for a fraction of a second you were dreaming? I don’t know—but this interior image was there. We see both interior and exterior things all the time. [lv] Metaphorically speaking, inside the crystal cube we are both the original and the reflection. We are fragmented, and we are whole. Wilson offers Strindberg’s contradictions in a way that is remarkably concrete while retaining the quest of the spiritual aspirant. As Joseph Melillo, the former Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, states: “I think it’s magical how a playwright and Wilson coming together reveals itself in unique, distinct ways. When Wilson put on Strindberg’s Dream Play . . . , the surprise was that you found yourself saying ‘oh, yeah! He made sense out of this obtuse play.’” [lvi] Or, to borrow from The Guardian critic Michael Billington who was moved by Wilson’s production, “If life, as Strindberg suggests, is a meaningless dream, it is one to be suffered with maximum grace.” [lvii] Critic Robert Brustein also lauded the production. He writes, Wilson solves the insoluble problems of the play largely by ignoring them completely. There are, in this production, no Faustian prologues in heaven between Indra and his daughter, no contrasting views of Fairhaven and Foulstrand, no quarantine stations, no flaming castles flowering into chrysanthemums. . . . Wilson, in short, is not uniting with the play as much as running along side it. It is as if he were dreaming A Dream Play, adapting its subterranean melodies to his own unheard music. [lviii] Brustein also notes that Wilson’s production has a sense of play, a humor that allows the audience entrance into the work, rather than the tortured visions of an author begging for redemption. As an audience member, this was also my experience with the production: there was a humor, a joy, an understanding that life is suffering, but there is still music, still the hope for love, still a question behind the door (rather than an answer) that not even the learned could begin to appreciate, to behold. Time and space did not exist; I was aware of my own contemplation, my own feeling of harmony. I surrendered any sense of control over to the production. Wilson’s process was ideal for this play, as Wilson and Strindberg together created the most wonderful and haunting dream. Echoing Strindberg’s introduction again when he writes: “[O]ne consciousness is superior to them all: that of the dreamer.” [lix] And while the dreamer for Strindberg is Daughter, for Wilson’s production, we in the audience are the dreamer, which is what makes Wilson’s postdramatic production sublime. Giovanna Zanlongnhi notes that a crystal is “something that both encloses and reveals.” [lx] Robert Wilson offers audiences the crystal cube through his production, seating us within his own reflective theatron , and through his process Wilson finds the play, creating Strindberg’s desired space for personal reflection and compassion. Endnotes [i] Robert Wilson, Lecture: Georgia Summit of Theatre Visionaries, January 27, 2021. [ii] Catherine Turner, Dramaturgy and Architecture: Theatre, Utopia and the Build Environment, (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 126. [iii] Ibid., 127. [iv] Robert Wilson, Lecture: Georgia Summit of Theatre Visionaries. [v] Ibid. [vi] I should note, I have a secondary reason for discussing this work. I am a playwright, and I have noted (with some alarm) that there has been a tendency with both playwrights and scholars in the burgeoning field of Playwriting Studies in the US to consider every word of the playwright as sacrosanct. Indeed, The Dramatists’ Guild (the open-shop union for US-based playwrights) in recent years has used the hashtag #DontChangeTheWords to warn directors and actors of the contractual violations of altering stage direction or dialogue without the author’s consent. The notion is any change whatsoever will damage the playwright’s intention. And yet, Wilson’s approach to A Dream Play gets to the heart of the intention, indeed, makes Strindberg’s impenetrable play lucid, playful, and rich with meaning (even if Wilson himself suggests the work is a question, not an answer), that he can capture the essence of both the play and the playwright by ignoring the stage directions completely in the creation of his visual book. While there isn’t space in this essay to unpack this argument, I do feel it necessary to make a note for possible future research. [vii] Linda Haverty Rugg, “August Strindberg: The art and science of self-dramatization,” The Cambridge Companion to August Strindberg, edited by Michael Robinson, (Cambridge University Press: 2009), 8. [viii] Ann-Charlotte Gavel Adams, “From Dream Play to Doomsday : Enter LePage, Wilson, Ek. Exit Strindberg. Stagings of A Dream Play 1994-2007, Northwest Passage 6 (2009): 40. [ix] “'Strindberg: A Life' Author Sue Prideaux Interviewed by Yale Books.” YouTube. Nov. 7, 2012, accessed July 22 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRyTFcJhZyo [x] So pervasive is this assumption, even New York Times critic Bruce Weber implied Strindberg was influenced by Freud is his unenthusiastic review of Wilson’s A Dream Play. See: Review, Bruce Weber, “Strindberg, Influenced by Freudian Slip,” review of A Dream Play , by August Strindberg, directed by Robert Wilson, Howard Gilman Opera House of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Times , November 30, 2000. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/30/theater/theater-review-strindberg-influenced-by-freudian-sleep.html [xi] Rugg, 16. [xii] Ibid. [xiii] Harry G. Carlson, “Strindberg and Visual Imagination , ” Strindberg and Genre, edited by Michael Robinson, (Norwich: Norvik Press, 1991), 258. [xiv] Adams, 39. [xv] August Strindberg, A Dream Play, translated by Harry G. Carlson, in Drama and Performance: An Anthology, edited by Gary Vena and Andrea Nouryeh, (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), 670. [xvi] Strindberg, 692. [xvii] Ibid. [xviii] Erland Josephson, Program Note, The Dream Play, directed by Ingmar Bergman, Royal Dramatic Theatre Stockholm, March 14, 1970, 5. [xix] Robert Brustein, “Dreaming a Dream Play,” Review of A Dream Play by August Strindberg directed by Robert Wilson, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, January 15, 2001, The New Republic, 21. [xx] Josephson, Program Note, The Dream Play, directed by Ingmar Bergman, 5. [xxi] Susan Prideaux, Strindberg: A Life, (New Haven: Yale UP, 2012), 86. [xxii] Adams, 40. [xxiii] Ingmar Bergman, “Reflections on A Dream Play, ” originally published in The Magic Lantern, reprinted in Drama and Performance: An Anthology, edited by Gary Vena and Andrea Nouryeh, (New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1996), 666. [xxiv] Bergman, 666. [xxv] Ibid., 667. [xxvi] Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre, translated by Karen Jürs-Munby, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 33. [xxvii] A larger semiotic reading of a theatre event should include the bodies in motion, the ways in which space exerts its influence. Ric Knowles has argued, a material semiotics approach to a theatrical production would also consider the conditions of rehearsal, the training of all artists involved, the front of house, and so forth. The material semiotics approach is in stark contrast to “play” and “theatrical event” meaning the same thing; rather, the script (if there is one) may be one part of a theatrical event, but it is not foregrounded as with traditional western stagings. See Ric Knowles, Reading the Material Theatre, (Cambridge University Press, 2004). For a longer discussion on how space exerts its influence on both the audience and the theatre artists, see Marvin Carlson, Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture, (Cornell University Press, 1993). [xxviii] Maria Shevtsova, Robert Wilson, (New York: Routledge, 2007), 35. [xxix] Laurence Shyer, “Robert Wilson: Current Projects,” in Robert Wilson: The Theater of Images, (New York: Harper & Row), 108. [xxx] Shevtsova, 31-32. [xxxi] For a longer list of Wilson’s adaptations from prose works as well as his approaches to Shakespeare and the Classics, please see Shevtsova, 31- 36. [xxxii] Giovanna Zanlonghi, “The Crystal and the Flame. Robert Wilson’s Interpretation of The Lady from the Sea, ” North-West Passage, ” 5, (May 2008), 173. [xxxiii] Ibid.,174. [xxxiv] Maria Shevtsova, “Robert Wilson Directs When We Dead Awaken, The Lady from The Sea, and Peer Gynt, Ibsen, Studies , 7:1 (2008), 84-85, accessed July 21, 2024. DOI: 10.1080/15021860701488975 [xxxv] Quoted in Lehmann , 127. [xxxvi] Robert Wilson, Lecture. [xxxvii] Ann-Christin Rommen, “Ann-Christin Rommen in Conversation with Maria Shevtsoka Experiencing the Movement: Working with Robert Wilson, ” New Theatre Quarterly, 23.1 (2007), 59. [xxxviii] Ibid, 59. [xxxix] Adams, 45. [xl] “Frances Benjamin Johnston, American, 1864–1952,” MoMA, accessed November 15, 2024, https://www.moma.org/artists/7851 . [xli] Adams, 45. [xlii] The images were not of the sky but were a mix of chemical reactions that seemed like imagined celestial bodies. See: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/august-strindberg-s-celestographs-1893-4/ [xliii] Rommen, 61 [xliv] Shevtsova, “Robert Wilson Directs,” 88. [xlv] Rommen, 60. [xlvi] Ibid. [xlvii] August Strindberg, A Dream Play, translated by Harry G. Carlson, 670. [xlviii] Robert Brustein, Review: “Dreaming a Dream Play ,” The New Republic, (January 15, 2001), 22. [xlix] Quoted in Jai-Ung Hong, Creating Theatrical Dreams: A Taoist Approach to Molander’s, Bergman’s and Wilson’s Production of Strindberg’s A Dream Play, (Doctoral Dissertation, Stockholm: University, 2003), 279. [l] Brustein, “Dreaming a Dream Play ,” 22. [li] Ibid. [lii] Lehmann, 78. [liii] Jai-Ung Hong, 280. [liv] Strindberg, 676-77. [lv] Jai-Ung Hong, 290. [lvi] Joseph V. Melillo, “Of Bob and BAM,” Robert Wilson from Within, edited by Margery Arent Safir, (The Arts Arena: The American University of Paris Press, 2011), 148. [lvii] Michael Billington, Review: “ A Dream Play,” The Guardian, May 30, 2001, accessed July 5, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2001/may/31/theatre.artsfeatures , [lviii] Robert Brustein, 22 [lix] Harry Carlson, “Author’s Note, A Dream Play by August Strindberg,” 669. [lx] Zanlonghi, 192. About The Author(s) Dr. John Patrick Bray is a Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Georgia Robert Wilson Yearbook The Robert Wilson Yearbook, published annually by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, offers a dedicated platform for scholarly and creative engagement with the life, artistry, and enduring legacy of Robert Wilson (1941–2025), one of the most original visionaries in contemporary theatre and performance. The Yearbook seeks to explore and expand upon Wilson’s groundbreaking approaches to staging, lighting, movement, and visual composition. Each issue will feature a diverse range of content—including original essays, critical commentary, archival materials, artist reflections, and photography—examining facets of Wilson’s multifaceted practice across genres, eras, and geographies. The Robert Wilson Yearbook is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - This Issue “Going on a Journey”: Space, Time, and Experience in Robert Wilson’s Installations and Museum Interventions Re-Viewing Stefan Brecht’s The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson from a (B.) Brechtian Perspective Towards a Formalist Ritualistic Theatre: An Artaudian Reading of Robert Wilson’s Aesthetics The Theatre of Autobio-hetero-thanato-graphic: The Life and Death of Marina Abramović Time’s Shadows: Crisis of Subjectivity and Reconciled Concord in Robert Wilson’s Performative Reading of Shakespeare's Sonnets They Asked Me to Draw a City: Postdramatic Imaginings in Robert Wilson’s Direction of Strindberg’s A Dream Play Robert Wilson's Oedipus: The Postdramatic Journey of the Oedipus Story from Sophocles through Freud Robert Wilson and Norway Robert Wilson’s Art of Senses and Emotions Listening to Deafman Glance Robert Wilson's Production of Henrik Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken Thinking in Structures: Working as a Dramaturg with Robert Wilson Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson: The Dialectical Triad of Playwright, Director and Berliner Ensemble Actors in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Robert Wilson Yearbook Volume 1 Visit Journal Homepage Robert Wilson's Oedipus: The Postdramatic Journey of the Oedipus Story from Sophocles through Freud Antal Bókay By Published on May 1, 2026 Download Article as PDF Oedipus and Wilson Robert Wilson' s Oedipus is a major Wilsonian production that presents all the elements of Wilson's magical theatre—its soul, theory, and postdramatic theatrical character. It is Schauspiel , the director's “show game” with himself, with us, with the audience. On July 5, 2018, it was first performed in Pompeii at the Teatro Grande Scavi, followed in fall 2018 by the early Baroque Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, and then Naples on the traditional stage of the Teatro Mercandante. I saw it in a traditional stage space in 2021 at the National Theatre of Budapest. Why is Oedipus Rex interesting? The significance of Sophocles' drama lies in the fact that 2,500 years ago it articulated an experience, a knowledge of life, which for centuries had preoccupied us, forcing us to repeat and reflect on the nature of personal life, that is, on ourselves. Sophocles put the process of the formation of the individual, of the creation of personal life, into a play, making it perceptible and articulate. A kind of genetic primacy is thus conferred on it; the drama is an arche-écriture which, despite all its factual absurdity, enchants the spectator and reader. Wilson's theatrical presentation was always titled as Oedipus , not Oedipus Rex , not Oedipus Tyrannus , just Oedipus , the man himself, without rank, without social position. Everywhere, the prior announcement of the theatrical event emphasizes that it is not the Sophocles drama that will be on stage but that what we are seeing is only “based on Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex .” The primary purpose of my writing is to interpret this “based on.” For in these words lie the secret, the essence of Wilson's theatre. For Wilson, the work of Sophocles is a borrowed narrative and structure, an associative possibility, a connection, which makes the director's (and, because of the elemental effect of the process, the spectator's) expression a theatre of cruelty, his visual and textual experience of trauma, which is doomed to repetition, articulable in fragments. There is a radical difference between the theatrical, dramatic representation of Sophocles' drama and Wilson's postdramatic Oedipu s. According to Lehmann, "Wilson's theatre is a theatre of metamorphoses. He leads the viewer into the dreamland of transitions, ambiguities, and correspondences," [1] and this, on the postdramatic viewer's side, "leads to another mode of theatrical perception in which seeing as recognition is continually outdone by a play of surprises that an order of perception can never arrest.” [2] The production, through the metonymies of the Oedipal scene, showers the audience with a flood of images and sounds, engaging them in the event, the creation, and the effect of the performance, taking on an essentially therapeutic character. Wilson does not seek to make the audience “understand” the performance in the traditional sense but to evoke a radical compulsion to participate. Oedipus' story, the representational interest of dramatic theatre, is absent, erased by postdramatic theatrical techniques. Umberto Eco asked: if Wilson turns off the story, what is the audience responding to? Wilson replied, “I think that figures like Sigmund Freud, Joseph Stalin, and Queen Victoria are the gods of our time. They are mythic figures, and the person on the street has some knowledge of them before they enter the theatre. We in the theatre do not have to tell the story because the audience comes with a story already in mind. Based on this communally shared information, we can create a theatrical event.” [3] The important phrase "based on" is present in Wilson's answer. There is, however, an intermediate layer in Wilson's reading of Oedipus : it is now impossible to read the Greek drama without including in the reading the Oedipus complex idea of psychoanalytic interpretation. [4] Oedipus Rex suggested to Freud a personal and general human background that creates an unconscious narrative of individual life, one that appears in psychoanalytic therapy, one whose metapsychological term becomes the Oedipus complex. Freud confronted the story of the drama's protagonist with his own personal fate. Still, beyond this, or extending it from his own fate, he also recognized and created psychoanalytic therapy as a performance re-enacting the Oedipal conflict. Referring to the Oedipus play Andre Green states that "There is a mysterious bond between psycho-analysis [sic] and the theatre," [5] and that is why, he continues, "Sophocles tragedy has become for a whole civilization the very essence of tragedy." [6] With genius sensitivity, the Greek playwright conceived the primary, at that time, hardly visible traumatic event and process of the creation of the individual. I suppose it would have been impossible to read Sophocles in 2018 without Freud; it would have been impossible even more for Wilson, who, in 1969, with his production of The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud , came into close proximity with the creator of psychoanalysis. Wilson was always sensitive to psychoanalysis. The 1969 Freudian play was a product of Wilson's first period, in the "florescence of vision." The theatrical logic was markedly different from that of the second period, which began after 1974, and which was at the heart of the “Assault on speech. Decline of the theatre of visions.” [7] Holmberg, under a subtitle "How To Do Things with Words" [8] places Wilson's fourth creative period as the director's turn towards Sprachteater with the Orlando monologue of 1989 . Oedipus is a late production in which speech “blossoms.” “In theatre no one has dramatized this crisis of language with as much ferocious genius as Robert Wilson.” [9] The discourse of Wilson’s theatre is extraordinary: its form is a multiplicity of languages, from sound to word and back again, and the translation of meaning into action into performative. It is a technical sign that the texts in Wilson's Oedipus are extremely abbreviated excerpts of Sophocles' drama, and they are almost identical to what Freud evokes in The Interpretation of Dreams. More importantly and more relatedly, Wilson constructs the same therapeutic theatrical happening in the public space through free associations, as Freud used in his self-analysis and his transference in therapies. Hans-Thies Lehmann called Wilson, with absolute aptness, not a director, not an author, but (like the choreographer) a “scenographer.” [10] Wilson’s theatre is scene "writing” in the écriture sense that Derrida speaks of. But Freud was also a scenographer, the performative, therapy-structuring activity he developed and followed in response to King Oedipus : stage space writing, scenography. But the original scene ( the arche écriture ) is always "somewhere" else, "the scene of dreams is a different one" [“ dass der Schauplatz der Träume ein anderer sei ” ] [11] because it is essentially linked to the unconscious. Freud's theatre, like Wilson's, is a theatre of metamorphosis, a play that is never fixed, a transition between the unconscious and the conscious. It is not unconscious because it is ineffable, nor is it conceptual-conscious because it is partially meaningless. This in-betweenness is a key characteristic of Wilson's theatre and psychoanalytic therapy. Freudian self-analysis taps into it, and two-person analytic therapy acts out the copies of this other scene, the in-betweenness of the imagination available at the moment. It is worth looking at the more general strategic features of Freud's theatre of Oedipus, for in his own more conceptual and simplistic way, Freud also turns drama into postdramatic theatre. Freud’s postdramatic Oedipus Freud's first encounter with King Oedipus is the most straightforward and earliest example. On October 15, 1897, in a letter to his friend Wilhelm Fliess in Berlin, he writes: “My self-analysis [ Meine Selbstanalyse ] is, in fact, the essential thing I have at present and promises to become of the greatest value to me if it reaches its end.” [12] In this “other scene,” an unconsciously based childhood story, a mini-play, emerges, pointing towards a long-repressed mother-element: Thereupon, a scene occurred to me which, in the course of twenty-five years, has occasionally emerged in my conscious memory without my understanding it. My mother was nowhere to be found; I was crying in despair. My brother Philip (twenty years older than I) unlocked a wardrobe [Kasten] for me, and when I did not find my mother inside it either, I cried even more until, slender and beautiful, she came in through the door. [13] Freud turns to the drama of Sophocles that he had seen earlier: A single idea of general value dawned on me. I have found, in my own case too, [the phenomenon of] being in love with my mother and jealous of my father, and I now consider it a universal event in early childhood. If this is so, we can understand the gripping power of Oedipus Rex, despite all the objections that reason raises against the presupposition of fate; the Greek legend seizes upon a compulsion that everyone recognizes because he senses its existence within himself. Everyone in the audience was once a budding Oedipus in fantasy, and each recoil in horror from the dream fulfillment here transplanted into reality... His conscience is his unconscious sense of guilt. [14] The drama of Oedipus evokes associations that create a story with its own unconscious roots without directly stating the unconscious content. A mini theatre is thus born. In the next step, Freud takes this own experience out of the personal frame, speaks of it as a general human experience—this is done in The Interpretation of Dreams — and narrates the plot of the Greek drama in detail suggesting that this is something that everybody lives through. [15] But there is no word here of the “Oedipus complex”; the presentation takes place in the chapter "Typical Dreams.” The "Oedipus complex" as a metapsychological concept had not yet been invented; that happens much later, in 1910. From our point of view, the third step in inventing Oedipus is essential, and the Oedipus complex becomes a defining element of all psychoanalytic therapy. Psychoanalytic therapy is a scenic, theatrical event; it is a theatrical performance of two people. In it, imagined or real memories of early childhood are elaborated as scenes, imagined stories, created and relived through associations. The same creative-cognitive event occurs in Freud's self-analysis, the psychoanalytic therapeutic situation, and even in dreaming and dream interpretation. My hypothesis is that Wilson's theatrical creation is patterned on precisely this process, using this strategy. What then is the essence of this staged spiritual activity? The complexes of unconscious energy and imagery, the desires banished into the unconscious, are repressed and, therefore, cannot be expressed directly, and the everyday or scientific referential language cannot reach these inner energies and images. Psychoanalysis, however, makes use of discursive techniques that can create a “substitute for the repressed” ( Ersatzbildung ), a substitute to fulfill a desire. There are two discursive mechanisms involved: free association and dream-work. Free association, independent of the limitations of logical language, can represent themes and contents related to unconscious energy and image constructs using this substitution. Dream-work, which we might more generally call "psychic work," assembles and directs the process of free association through formal, figurative, and performative constructions. Freud's self-analysis quoted above also produced a scene from a formally constructed series of free associations exploring memory. This duality is essential, both free association and, alongside it, a formal organizing force, a technique that constructs a narrative. The associations are directed towards hidden meaning, but the images, fantasies, and dreams that emerge in this way cannot reach the memory of energy plus images once stored in the unconscious. Free associations, however, if not directly expressing the repressed contents of the unconscious, create a mediating mechanism that works with the background of the unconscious, transforming its energies and images into dreams, fantasies, and hallucinations. "Free association is memory in its most incoherent and therefore fluent form; because of repression, the past can only return as disarray in de-narrativized fragments. And the analysis reveals the patient's unofficial repertoire of incoherence.” [16] Free association is like a collage, adds Adam Philips. Dream-work, often intertwined with free association, is a linguistic-visual activity (dream, joke, fantasized or real memories) that can activate and translate the related unconscious contents. The elements and processes of dream-work are condensations, displacement, image substitution, and, finally, secondary elaboration. The dream-work "does not think, calculate or judge in any way at all; it restricts itself to giving things a new form" Freud warns. [17] The dream-work, which Freud considered increasingly important throughout his work, is a set of formal, predominantly rhetorical (metaphorical and metonymical) and/or performative procedures. About its nature in 1925, Freud added a critical note to the text of The Interpretation of Dreams. He writes: [The psychoanalysts] seek to find the essence of dreams in their latent content and in so doing they overlook the distinction between the latent dream-thoughts and the dream-work. At the bottom, dreams are nothing other than a particular form of thinking made possible by the state of sleep. It is the dream-work which creates that form, and it alone is the essence of dreaming. [18] Freud then, in 1925, made dream-work a central activity at the expense of free association. Yet in 1900, when the book was published, in the analysis of the Irma dream, the specimen dream, the steps of interpretation were born around free associations. Free association is a meaning-giving action, while dream-work is a meaning-editing activity. Creating Theatre – Free association and dream work What does all this have to do with Wilson's theatre? My hypothesis is that Wilson's Oedipus , in an act of genius, draws Sophocles' drama into a therapeutic, dream-like discourse that can be connected to spectators simultaneously. Oedipus of Wilson excludes all traditional dramatic elements: no story, no characters, no dialogue. What we see on the stage consists of Wilson's free associations with Sophocles’ drama and the dream-work [19] formalizations linked to them. Lehmann has already very sensitively indicated that Wilson creates a scene by projecting a dream-like vision, i.e., free associations. This dream-like quality has a definite formal, even sometimes mathematical (i.e., dream-work) character: A definite connection exists between the dream-like certainty with which Robert Wilson's theatrical images and figurations are chosen and Wilson's ability to allow himself to be guided by the impulses and memories that beckon to an adult from childhood. (...) A deep-rooted association with, even a regression to, early childhood experiences are so closely linked with radical mathematization and composition that they produce the paradox of a profoundly reflected infantility that excludes any vague sense of self-sufficiency. Some elements of the free-associative projection, the images of the stage and the objects and persons appearing on it, are sometimes decipherable allegories and sometimes childhood traumas unknown to the audience. What is interesting, however, is that Wilson regularly and willingly talks about these overwhelming childhood traumas in his many interviews, about life in a small Texas town, about a firm, abusive father and an unavailable mother, and about the agonies of his own growing up. Wilson's associative background is his own childhood memories, which are excluded by the movement, the dance, and the dream-work of the fragmented text. But the selection, as I will show later, is very personal. Concrete memories of his own, many of them repressed, are woven into the sequence of images and texts we see on stage. In this discourse, the director is both the analyst and the analyzed. [20] We, the audience, identify with this self-analytical original production. At the same time, we glimpse the secrets of our own Oedipal life management, transformed by Wilson into a 21st-century one. Wilson consciously uses free association, as a basic acting technique for himself and to influence the audience's behavior. In an interview with Holger Teschke in 1997, he precisely defined the function of free association as a basic staging technique. In his youth, long before a career in the theatre, Wilson studied architecture at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He says the following about the lecture style of his "most important teacher," Sibyl Moholy Nagy: You could not take notes during his lectures. There was only a light on it, and behind it were three screens on which images were projected in rapid succession: a car from the 1950s, a Renaissance painting, a Baroque candelabra, a Byzantine mosaic, a chair by Flloyd Frank Wright, a shoe from the early 19th century, different artistic and utilitarian objects from different centuries, and these images changed very quickly, so that there were 100 in a single lecture. But there was nothing to connect the images to the performance, and that was very confusing at first. After a while, however, our thinking changed, as we started to associate freely both what we saw and what we heard. The course was announced for five years, and after five years and five years, one was able to put together for oneself a wide variety of information and images, and I was surprised again and again at the conclusions I drew from all this material. I think this had a huge impact on my theatre firstly because the visuality was completely independent of what I was hearing, and secondly because so many unexpected connections could be made through free associations. Audiences and critics often go to the theatre trying to find meaning in a performance, even though the performance in question, at least in the logical sense of the word, has no meaning except in terms of free associations with a theme or a very personal experience. [21] However, this is only one side of Wilson’s theatrical technique. Lehmann's study of Wilson as scenographer also indicates another process, the role of the dream-work in giving form: “Wilson could be echoing Artaud's words: ‘I yield the fever of a dream, but my aim is to obtain new laws.’” [22] Free associations lead to a dream-like regression, "regression to the experiences of early childhood," but this process also "implies the strictest formalism, geometric construction, and aesthetic calculation." Wilson regularly returns to the definition and emphasis of this formalism in his interviews, and it is to this that his work as a visual artist is linked. Wilson's artistic performance is strongly formalized; the way he wants it to be perceived is highly informal. His images and sketches for theatrical performances are always formal, indicating structures. Dream-work is exactly this; it is "an operation which transforms the raw materials of the dream . . . so as to produce the manifest dream.” [23] Wilson’s favorite painter is Cézanne. In an interview, he states: Cézanne is my favorite painter. My work is closer to him than to any other artist. My production of Hamletmachine is like a Cézanne painting in its architecture. Cézanne simplified and purified forms to reveal classical structure and composition. I learned everything from Cézanne, including his use of color, light, diagonals, and space - how to use the center and the edges. His images are not framed by the boundaries. [24] Cézanne's key concept is “realization,” an analytical-structural projection of reality that avoids the lightness of the surface, which is misleading for the modern, and it reveals an often-destructive structural depth behind this surface. Wilson also projects a structured plane onto the stage. The figures—shapely, usually masked, strange, often in geometric shells and costumes—play in a two-dimensional space, not in contact with each other. The planes of the stage are separated by bright lines, which no one crosses. Structure and Narrative Wilson (through free associations and the dream-work activities) deconstructs the play by Sophocles, disrupts all the elements of a dramatic, coherent referential play, and creates a postdramatic double-faced visual-verbal sequence. He does not stage the play but recreates it through fragmented visual and verbal associations. "In the first period, Wilson ignored language; in the second, he deconstructed it," writes Holmberg. [25] The purely visual plane precedes speech. The beginning and end of the play (the prologue and the epilogue) are speechless visual-dance performances, a series of visual associations. In the intervening passages, the parallelism of the two discourses dominates. The visual events of the scene, however, are usually not connected to the themes of the speech; very rarely, for a flash, is there a connection between them. In his introduction to the Budapest production of Oedipus , Wilson briefly outlines the structure of the play: The performance is structured in a classical way: five parts and a prologue, the first part being echoed in the fifth part, the second in the fourth. The third part, a wild pagan wedding ceremony, is the centrepiece. Each part is defined by the materials of scenic elements used onstage: wooden planks, leafless branches, steel paper and sheets of galvanized metal, green branches, contemporary folding chairs, tar paper, and vegetable woven fabrics with silk. Music plays a central role. [26] This logic does not belong to the speech level. (There is always the theme of the prophecy and the repetition of events that connect with it). Wilson’s description refers to the image level where it is a little bit easier to sense a narrative sequence. Moreover, the logical listing of the five parts in Wilson's reference does not really prevail. The events of the drama are mixed on the stage. Oedipus' self-blinding occurs once in the middle of the play but is followed by earlier events like the patricide and the incest scene, and only at the very end of the play does blind Oedipus return. The individual episodes are built, like the shells of an onion (see Peer Gynt) , around the enigmatic, never shown but always suspected center. This center is the unconscious energy of desire. The individual parts are different, heterogeneous examples and spaces of Oedipal desire-realization. The sketch, told in Wilson's voice, is both illuminating and concealing, both helpful and misleading. The structure Wilson asserts and confesses is a construction of the dream-work of theatrical performance. But speech is crucial to the production. The spoken text, however, never follows the drama's narrative; its fragmented representation brings an unmarked and immeasurably repetitive mixing of different speakers and linguistic positions in the past story. Moreover, all this is done in different languages—ancient Greek, modern Greek, German, French, and English. Wilson's voice and announcements separate the parts and the scenes; he is the master of the time structure of the formal theatre world. In the beginning, his announcements seem logical, but "Part One" is spoken twice, and immediately after the second, we hear the distinct sound of "Headline A," but there is no Headline B or Headline C; only in the later part are “Headline D” and “Headline E” spoken. But at the two-thirds mark of the play, between two scenes on a completely dark and silent stage backdrop, Wilson retells the text of the adult Oedipus' Corinthian escape and the prophecy given to him. In addition to him, three narrators—Witness 1, Witness 2, and Woman—speak in Budapest and Epidaurus. Witness 1 and Woman narrate the prophecy and its consequences in different styles. Witness 1 is intense and often aggressive, representative of the unconscious part of the superego, speaking from the lower level of the scene. Woman talks in a soft voice, but she is objective with Oedipus’ situation and also often reacts with ironic laughter. She is always on the upper part of the middle level of the stage. No character position is owned by any of them, they all mix the sentences of Oedipus, Iocaste, Tiresias, and the Chorus. Witness 2 narrates the father-murder, the text of the Iocaste-Oedipus dialogue; she is kinder, more maternal, unsuccessfully trying to talk Oedipus out of his search for the past. An additional voice is inserted into the text of Witness 2, Christopher Knowles's destructive-deconstructive speech; this spoils the meaningful speech and shows language in its materiality. The Oedipal Edifice of Existence In his introduction to the Budapest theatre, Wilson states the absolute essence of the performance: The main theme of the story of Oedipus to me is darkness. He vows to shed light on the murder of Laius in order to free the city of Thebes from the plague. But can he bear the light when it finally shines on him? Is he able to confront his own past, his origins? As Tiresias, the blind seer, puts it: as long as Oedipus has eyesight, he is blind. When he starts to see the truth, he blinds himself. Can we bear to look at the truth today?" [27] For Wilson, the scene, the living, performative scene, the natural-objective environment in light, was always of absolute importance and priority. The prologue, drawn into this duality of light and dark, marks out, even without words and speech, the foundational being and story-position of the play. But the text, the speech, is already present here; obviously, every spectator knows who Oedipus was, what happened to him, where he started, and where he ended up. Therefore, the scene that begins before the play depicts three allegorical-metonymic, easily understandable themes. One is the sun, Apollo himself, Phoebus the Sun-God, the source of the blinding light, the source of the prophecy, in whose light a definite responsible self of Oedipus (never fulfilled here, only realized in death in Colonus) is born from the many and varied, confused desires. With Apollo's allegory, the Sun, we are confronted not only by Oedipus but also by us, the spectators, while everyone else who will appear on stage does not perceive it, only Oedipus and us, the spectators. The role of the Sun/Apollo is decisive in the construction of the self and the construction of Oedipus' life. He is the gaze whose existence and self-creating/destructive capacity were described by Sartre and Lacan in this concept. Man looks at the world and believes he exists as a coherent, reliable and powerful center. This was Oedipus' mode of existence, his relation to the world and Thebes, until the beginning of the drama. In Wilson’s project (unlike in Sophocles’), however, there is the power of the gaze, the danger of the otherness of desire, the impossibility of the organization of one's own desire into life, from the very first moment. This is on the visual level (and shortly after the prologue, in the text too). The gaze is such a view of ourselves, says Lacan, from where we never see ourselves and never want to see ourselves. In Wilson's theatre, this gaze has a decisive effect; this is the blinding light in which the subject is absorbed. Figure 1 The allegorical establishment of the Oedipal scene. Oedipus is blinded by the sun, and by the darkness into which he stares, but by too much light. He begins blind and ends blind. Photo credit: © Lucie Jansch. The other allegorical-metonymic element of the opening image is a knotted rope in a ring, sharply (blindingly?) illuminated (put into the light), the rope with which the father (Laius), under the influence of the prophecy, pierced the legs of the three-day-old infant, tied his ankles, wanted to make Oedipus' growth, his life, impossible. Neither in Sophocles nor in Freud is this severe, fate-defining event, experienced after birth, a fundamental central component. Wilson, on the other hand, makes it a dominant visual message. The rope is an allegorical metonymic symbol of trauma. The trauma is an event, a memory that is imperceptible when it happens; Oedipus, the infant, freed from the rope, becomes a successful man, a royal successor in Corinth, and has no memory of his origins or early fate. As an adult, however, this traumatic past returns in a fate-turning way (Freud described it in terms of Nachträglichket ); his, in that time, unknown past helps him in solving the riddle given to him by the Sphinx. Later, in the course of the revelation of his own fate, he fully understands his own history. In Sophocles and Freud, this event, the attempted infanticide, is not mentioned, but it is of crucial importance in Wilson's stage, and it is an important component of his personal past, his childhood. Figure 2 The complete structure of the Oedipal space (here from Vicenza). Light strips separate the space of the scene. Photo credit: © Lucie Jansch. The third, much less clearly allegorical and perhaps more symbolic-metonymic pictorial component of the introductory image component is the gap, the dark entrance between the walls. The gap, in my interpretation, is the body of the mother, the abjected place of birth and the place of the incest. It is the rightful realm of the Father, Apollo (and Laius). But after arriving to Thebes it is a great joy of jouissance and a disgusting horror at once. The purely visual prologue happens very slowly; it is impossible for the viewer not to be drawn into the event; it is not a spectacle; it is happening. In the black gap, in the closed, darkened mother body, the light appears, the sun, the ancestor, shedding rays, sometimes fading, sometimes intensifying to unbearable sharpness, blinding the spectator. Meanwhile, there is a confused confusion of annoying noise emanating from stringed instruments, which fade away as the color darkens and the sun disappears. Quietly turns into soft, embracing music. The sun reappears in this black, total darkness. Oedipus moves exceptionally slowly toward the light; his clothing is a translucent shroud, and his body remains a dark drawing with no shadow. He is standing in an absolute light, and his entire upper body (hands laden with sin, the bodily part of sex) disappears, absorbed in the light, leaving visible in the sun’ blinding light only the two legs, the once cruelly bound legs for which he is named. That was the prologue. The pictorial vision is essentially figurative, working in a very mixed dream-work, rhetorical modality. At times, it is hermeneutic, symbolic-metaphorical-allegorical (sun=Apollo and rope=pictures of infantile trauma); at other times, it is metonymic-catachrestic, without any reference to meaning, literally unintelligible, “displaced” to something else. The series of images, the vision of the scene, works in such a way that the director freely associates (in a psychotherapeutic way) certain parts and fragments of Sophocles' drama. The free association breaks up the logos and opens up the subjective, receptive dimension of the text. Still, the meanings are organized and arranged by the rhetorical, performative machinery of the dream-work. As a next step, the space is transformed and furnished with Oedipal figures and objects. Figure 3 Another element of the allegorical setting of the scene, the infant Oedipus and the rope that sends him to his death, piercing his legs. Photo credit: © Lucie Jansch. Sometimes, one or two horizontal light lines divide the space into two or three parts. The stage, divided into these planes and layers, is a typical stage technique of Wilson. This was already done for Freud in 1969, and Wilson mentions it in his 1969 Speech before Freud : The stage is divided into zones - stratified zones one behind another that extend from one side of the stage horizontally to the other. And in each of these zones there's a different "reality"-a different activity defining the space so that from the audience's point of view one sees through these different layers, and as each occurs it appears as if there's no realization that anything other than itself is happening outside that particularly designated area. People might associate this with Freud and the layers of consciousness-different levels of understanding-but that kind obvious intention has been erased or eradicated from this production. I see it more simply as a collage of different realities occurring simultaneously like being aware of several visual factors and how they combine into a picture before your eyes at any given moment. [28] Oedipus , however, is a tragedy of the inner soul, and the tripartite division here is definitely Freudian. The lower level is the unconscious, the ancestor. This level is forbidden even to Oedipus, and he does not enter it. In the middle is the world of the self, the performative actions and gestures, the conscious human world. Up on the top is the superego, the divine presence of Phoebus, the Sun, and Apollo. In the opening scene, which remains valid for the whole performance, Oedipus stands under the sun, a shepherd to the left, telling the authentic story, with another narrator, an elegant black woman in mask-like make-up (she later tells the prophecy in French), Iocaste in a strange cloak-like costume, Oedipus in the middle, and a saxophonist to the right, who wrote and plays the music. Then, the narrator of the lower level disappears, and the event is shifted up to the top, to Oedipus and the sun. A young female figure running through the stage appears; she is then absorbed into the light. Forms of Narration Image and language occur in parallel, side by side, against each other, or even building on each other after the prologue. The narration is referential, it is a storytelling, as opposed to the figurative level of the image. However, the speech is systematically deconstructed, and in a hermeneutic sense, clear meaning is excluded by various means. The text is not narrated by the characters, for example, not by Oedipus, but only by narrators. The classical dramatic position of the "actor" ceases to exist. There are no actors; Oedipus appears in the form of one actor or dancer or another. Sometimes, there is more than one Oedipus on the stage at the same time, the adult confronted with Apollo, who is already in the prologue, a nearly naked dancer dancing with the rope; there is also an actor with a face distorted by a glass plate, all are of course mute. There is no dialogue, only narration in a proclamatory mood; Oedipus never speaks; his lines, like those of Iocaste and the chorus, are spoken by narrators. The narrators' texts are not linked to a person; each narrator's speech is interspersed with the characters' sentences in the drama, sometimes the chorus is spoken, sometimes Oedipus is quoted, and quite a lot of Iocaste's text is spoken. The text is very sparse, and the same theme and the exact text are repeated many times. Wilson deconstructs the narrative in its very form, in that the language the narrators speak is often echoed, noisy, and indeed unusual because of the mixture of languages. Sometimes, a single narrator speaks in several languages, switching from one to the other sentence by sentence. It is a real Babelian situation; a kind of "untranslatability" prevails. The audience will not understand a large part of the text. For them, the spoken word is a material sound, with only its accents indicating moods. A gesture helps the situation (I wonder if Wilson required it) at the Budapest performance; translations in English and Hungarian were displayed above the stage. The costumes of the narrators are interesting. Witness 1, who speaks at the lower, unconscious level, appears in a black cloak with mask-like face paint; the narrator, who is called Woman, is in a colorful floor-length dress, her repeated ironic laughter emphasizing his white teeth and the white paint around his eyes, which is similar to Iocaste's. Finally, Witness 2 is wearing ordinary clothes with a small cap on her head, which resembles a contemporary housewife. Wilson's procedure for the reductive representation of the indicated text shows another interesting poetic character. At the center of the text is the oracle, which is not constative and does not refer to a situation; it is an action prescribed by language. The oracle is performative; it is a speech act. The space of Oedipus' existence, of his coming into being, is performative; he cannot create his life, but the oracle creates it. Language can act; it is not referential or imitative but has something powerful: a subjective plus and an energy of action. This purified, aggressive performativity is itself an Oedipal story. The prophecy is of divine origin, coming from Apollo himself. Apollo does not appear on the scene in person, but only through his allegory: the sun, in the form of blinding light, is almost ever-present. He himself does not even make a prophecy. His semi-divine agents, Pythia and Tiresias tell the oracle. In the case of the performative, contextual (i.e., subjective, personal, and at the same time relational, communal-social) expectations, traditionally accepted communal mechanisms must operate behind the validity of the act of illocution. In Sophocles and textually in Wilson, it is the scene of the Delphic oracle, a transcendental scene, a strange theatrical event with sacral and creative powers. In psychoanalysis, the super-ego is in place of Apollo. In Oedipus's life, this initially unconscious superego forces itself into real life, “blinding” compulsion. The oracle also provides the structure of the play, the two significant actions created in the prophecy, the murder of the father and the incest with the mother. The prologue and the first long section, which sets up the oedipal situation, present the fate and life of a determined self cursed by gaze and trauma. The third and fourth sections bring the two most important moments and performances of the oedipal fate, patricide, and incest, to the stage. The Patricide On the stage, dance and noise from the iron plates are given while the female voice, recorded text, repeatedly retells the killing. On the visual level, there is dancing on metal plates. Five men, Oedipus in the middle. The harsh sound of the metal plates may evoke the beats of the patricide event, the projection of aggressive unconscious anger. Besides them, we see a single woman, Witness 2, Angela Winkler; her recorded voice evokes what really happened at the time. The text spoken is primarily a fusion of the dialogue of Iocaste and Oedipus. Figure 4 The wedding scene of Oedipus and Iocaste. Photo credit: © Lucie Jansch. There are five, Witness 2 says of the event, and Oedipus is the sixth. But here on the stage with Oedipus, there are only five: Oedipus facing the light, facing Apollo, and the other four victims facing the audience, with their backs to Apollo. I assume (and this can be an important Wilson message) that the fifth is none other than the Sun, Apollo. Is he Laius? Is Apollo punishing the rebellion against the father, that is, against him, by the oracle? The images weave an associative web, a translation of the prophecy story, breaking through from the text's conscious level to the emotional-intellectual performance of the unconscious. The images tell a story through their associative compulsion, but this story is fragmented and hermeneutically indecipherable. The viewer is compelled to make associations, to invent something; it is so shocking. Incest Headline E – announced by Wilson, Iocaste, and Oedipus are standing in the middle level of the stage facing the audience. Above them, the sun. A single statement is repeated many times, first in Greek and then in various languages: "Oedipus marries Iokasta, King Laius's widow. They have four children.” Figure 5 The murder of the father. "There were five of them,” Iocaste tells the story. Photo credit: © Lucie Jansch. Wilson's voice joins the narrators here, saying the sentence in English. The pictorial association mixes allegorical and indecipherable catachrestic figurativity. Oedipus's face and head are not visible, and his whole head is covered with a giant mask. The mask, however, has a phallic form, showing the acorn of a penis. Oedipus has a metallic tree branch in his hand that he sometimes moves before Iokaste; at this point, she reacts by raising her hands in a defensive gesture. Then, the lower, unconscious level of the stage opens up. It is, probably, the level of sexual pleasure of jouissance. Male dancers in masks similar to Iokaste's face painting, holding green tree branches, dance to the forbidden desire. Above them, in the superior self, is the sun watching. The linguistic plane is monotonous, an annoying repetition, the same sentence repeated several times in different languages, thus spoken in the present tense. Closing scene It starts in total darkness, and then, with the arrival of the light, we see Witness 2, Andrea Winkler, sitting on a chair. Her speech is not live but in a recorded, replayed voice; she sits silently and speechlessly in the chair. The text recalls the confused, disjointed conversation between Oedipus and Iocaste. But the whole text is told by Andrea Winkler: The wise seer told me horrible things! I have no idea what to think of this. What can I say? Laius was killed by thieves, at a three-way cross road. What height what age was Laius? Tall; He looked quite like you do now. I look at you, and I am terrified. There were five of them Laius was in a carriage. As I got to that spot, both, man and driver came and tried to push me out of the way. In a very rough manner. Oh, Zeus! / Ó, Zeusz! What do you have in store for me next? There were five of them Laius was in a carriage. I got so angry that, in the fight, I hit the charioteer. And the old man. O Zeus, / Ó Zeus! what have you planned for me? With these very hands I had gripped at the man whose wife I hold now. I killed them all The narration mixes the texts of Iocaste and Oedipus. This is the moment when Oedipus discovers the truth: he killed the old man and that he was his father. Another important theme in this narration is the early history of the infant Oedipus. The key question is: Who am I, and how did I become me? "Tell me who my father was. Who was my mother?" The Corinthian king and queen? Or Laius or Iocaste? Figure 6 Chairs. Two women illuminated by light. On the left, Witness 2, narrating in German, retells events, the story, in a low voice with maternal accents. The other is Iocaste in silent scream. Photo credit: © Lucie Jansch. Meanwhile, more modern folding chairs arrive on the stage; the chair on which Andrea Winkler is sitting multiply, and unlit shadows, man and woman dancers bring them in, sometimes looking at the seated woman, who does not perceive them but tells the story. In Pompeii, Iocaste, her face contorted into a scream, appears sideways. And, of course, the sun comes out in the gap between the walls. The German-Italian monologue is interrupted by the ragged, disordered voice of Christopher Knowles, repeating in English, "My name is Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus, my name is known to, who can be confident, how can be, Creon, my old trusted family friend, I ask you to stand by, words, words..." The speech and language here revert to the preoedipal, the meaning, the Lacan sense of symbolism disappears, the Father's Name is bracketed, and the speech slips back to an earlier phase of a life in turmoil. Wilson is known to have been "obsessed with collecting chairs since he was young" and recalls his mother as saying that "no one could sit like her." [29] In his conversation with Umberto Eco, Wilson returns to chairs twice. He says: "I think chairs are sculptures. They are pieces that you can sit on, or be seen sitting on, or imagine someone sitting on. They create their own personality, they evoke associations and thoughts." [30] In the play's penultimate scene, Oedipus appears at the end, destroys the row of systematically arranged chairs, and for a moment seems to be contemplating a deadly revenge on his mother. But (unlike killing Laius) he does not. This scene is Wilson's own personal therapeutic arena, his self-interpretation, and it carries forward and comprehensively extends the model of psychoanalytic therapy onto the stage. The therapeutic performance takes place. Indeed, analytic therapy is the activity of the self-creation of the pathological self, the performativity of the self, a life activity that is also a fundamental deconstructive process of personal existence. This is the subject of Wilson's staging, his figurative-textual transcription. A parallel process is the dismantling of language, the symbolic, the denunciation of the power of the father's name. Christopher Knowles’s fragmented text, sometimes wholly devoid of symbolic logic, indicates that "who am I" is absolutely inexpressible because "I" becomes identical with what the gaze, the Apollonian light, demands. And from this gaze, from the influx of monsters, one can only protect oneself by losing sight. Apollo's prophecy is fulfilled, yet the gaze he has created is eradicated by Oedipus' blinding, castrating himself. In the final scene, monsters enter, and a disharmonious flood of sound is heard while the lone mother figure continues to sit motionless on her chair, still oblivious to everything. In the final minutes, Oedipus emerges from the monsters, now blind but as naked as a baby. Once again, two iterations of Oedipus are present, as the shepherd leads the dancer who plays the naked infant by the hand. Oedipus crawls on all fours, returning to the moment he is pierced through the leg and thrown out on the mountain. Blindly, he turns around, climbs to his feet, and walks towards the increasingly bright sun, just as he did at the beginning of the play—the lifeway returns to itself. But the light has a different role, a different potential here. The light does not blind a blind man; Apollo's power of light fades into nothingness. We do not know, however, what happens in the end, whether the blind Oedipus can enter Apollo's light because before this happens or not; the play ends. Endnotes [1] Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre (London: Routledge, 2006), 78. [2] Ibid., 77. [3] Robert Wilson and Umberto Eco, “A Conversation,” Performing Arts Journal 15, no. 1 (January 1993), 89. [4] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 305–331. [5] André Green, The Tragic Effect: The Oedipus Complex in Tragedy (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1. [6] Ibid., 188. [7] Stefan Brecht, The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson (London: Methuen, 1994), 41. [8] Arthur Holmberg, The Theatre of Robert Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28–40. [9] Ibid., 41. [10] Hans-Thies Lehmann, “Robert Wilson, Scenographer,” Mercury: German Journal of European Thought 7 (1985): 554–63. [11] Sigmund Freud, Traumdeutung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1996), 527. [12] Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams , vols. 4–5 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , trans. and ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1985), 270. [13] Ibid., 271. [14] Ibid., 272. [15] Ibid, 260–64. [16] Adam Phillips, On Flirtation (London: Faber and Faber, 1994), 67. [17] Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams , 506. [18] Ibid., 506. [19] Holmberg has an entire chapter titled “The Dream Work” in The Theatre of Robert Wilson (19960. This dream work concept, however, connects only to this psychoanalytic concept's very surface. [20] The biographical component often returns in Wilson's work. See Egri (2022.) [21] Robert Wilson, “Listening with the Body, Speaking with the Body,” in Drive b: Brecht 100. Workbook. Theater der Zeit 1997/10 / The Brecht Yearbook , ed. Marc Silbermann (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 1998), 47. [22] Hans-Thies Lehmann, “Robert Wilson, Szenograph,” Pittura/teatro (1998): 50, ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, e-periodica, https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=ptt-001:1988:0::983#266 [23] Jean Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis , trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 12. [24] Holmberg, 79. [25] Ibid. 9. [26] Robert Wilson, quoted in Ildikó Gáspár, “(Szem)tanúk – Witnesses,” Szinhaz.net , September 28, 2021, https://szinhaz.net/2021/09/28/gasparildiko-szemtanuk-witnesses [27] Wilson, quoted in Gáspár, “(Szem)tanúk – Witnesses.” [28] Robert Wilson, “From Speech Introducing Freud,” in Twentieth Century Theatre: A Sourcebook , ed. Richard Drain (London: Routledge, 1995), 60. [29] Ildikó Gáspár, “(Szem)tanúk – Witnesses,” Szinhaz.net , September 28, 2021, https://szinhaz.net/2021/09/28/gasparildiko-szemtanuk-witnesses [30] Robert Wilson and Umberto Eco, 89. About The Author(s) Antal Bókay is a Professor of Theatre at the University of Pécs, Department of Modern Literature and Psychoanalysis, PhD Program in Hungary. Robert Wilson Yearbook The Robert Wilson Yearbook, published annually by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, offers a dedicated platform for scholarly and creative engagement with the life, artistry, and enduring legacy of Robert Wilson (1941–2025), one of the most original visionaries in contemporary theatre and performance. The Yearbook seeks to explore and expand upon Wilson’s groundbreaking approaches to staging, lighting, movement, and visual composition. Each issue will feature a diverse range of content—including original essays, critical commentary, archival materials, artist reflections, and photography—examining facets of Wilson’s multifaceted practice across genres, eras, and geographies. The Robert Wilson Yearbook is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - This Issue “Going on a Journey”: Space, Time, and Experience in Robert Wilson’s Installations and Museum Interventions Re-Viewing Stefan Brecht’s The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson from a (B.) Brechtian Perspective Towards a Formalist Ritualistic Theatre: An Artaudian Reading of Robert Wilson’s Aesthetics The Theatre of Autobio-hetero-thanato-graphic: The Life and Death of Marina Abramović Time’s Shadows: Crisis of Subjectivity and Reconciled Concord in Robert Wilson’s Performative Reading of Shakespeare's Sonnets They Asked Me to Draw a City: Postdramatic Imaginings in Robert Wilson’s Direction of Strindberg’s A Dream Play Robert Wilson's Oedipus: The Postdramatic Journey of the Oedipus Story from Sophocles through Freud Robert Wilson and Norway Robert Wilson’s Art of Senses and Emotions Listening to Deafman Glance Robert Wilson's Production of Henrik Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken Thinking in Structures: Working as a Dramaturg with Robert Wilson Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson: The Dialectical Triad of Playwright, Director and Berliner Ensemble Actors in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Robert Wilson Yearbook Volume 1 Visit Journal Homepage Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson: The Dialectical Triad of Playwright, Director and Berliner Ensemble Actors in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera Pia Kleber and Shiu Hei Larry Ng By Published on September 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson: The Dialectical Triad of Playwright, Director and Berliner Ensemble Actors in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera Introduction Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson are both theatrical giants who have transformed the mode of presentation and communication in the 20 th century. Both recognized the representation of theatre as an artifact but also the significance of the man-the-actor, the live performers’ activities. However, for Brecht and Wilson, the intended effect on the audience is quite different. Brecht targets the underlying socio-political reality, whereas Wilson explores a pre-verbal reality of synesthesia. Thus, we can also argue that they develop different types of Verfremdung and dialectics, corresponding to the divergent missions they assign to their theatres. Wilson’s 2007 production of Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera at the Schiffbauerdamm theatre of the Berliner Ensemble, can be considered a special case among Wilson’s works. He has much less freedom in editing and re-organizing the music and the text, and there is a linear narrative and pre-existing structure to follow. In his later artistic stage, Wilson usually enjoys disintegrating, cutting and re-sequencing the text, or inserting other texts, so that the classics are vivisected under Wilson’s aesthetics. He deconstructs and plays with language and opens up a space for pre-verbal reality and pre-cognitive mental activities of the spectator. In addition, in this production, Wilson mainly worked with actors from the Berliner Ensemble, who were not only familiar with the classical interpretation of Brecht’s plays but also trained in “gestic” acting. They were used to a rehearsal process where actors were co-creators with the director and designer which seems to be incompatible with Wilson’s usual way of directing, having great control over the mise en scène . This became a second restraint Wilson encountered in this production. Therefore, an interesting question is: Without his freedom to edit, do Wilson’s unique aesthetics still work? How did he deal with such constraints? Do the aesthetics of Wilson and Brecht clash with each other or can they in some way dialectically co-create a unique third aesthetic? How can Wilson’s directing and dominant aesthetic structure collaborate with the Brechtian actors’ training? To demonstrate the dialectical complexity between Brecht and Wilson concretely, this paper first analyzes the scenography and the costume design in Wilson’s production of The Threepenny Opera. These combined components create a Wilsonian visual space that is, on the one hand, different from historical materialism and dialectical realism by mixing historically specific details with an abstract space of theatrical artificiality. On the other hand, these sister arts support the Brechtian Verfremdung and dialectical thinking in an even more effective way, especially in the contemporary context. In addition, we will examine the acting of two actors, Juergen Holtz and Angela Winkler, who acted with different styles but both helped the holistic aesthetics of Wilson by enhancing the depth of Brecht’s dialectical play. In this part, we shall also look into the rehearsal process to see how Wilson collaborates with strong actors, their spontaneity and individualized inputs. Mise en scène For an analysis of the chemistry between Wilson’s mise en scène, we shall focus on some moments from the Prologue, the first scene in Peachum’s shop, and the wedding scene. Wilson explains in the Berliner Program what he finds interesting about Brecht’s theatre "...is the space 'behind it': behind the text there is the finest irony, behind the story there is an idea, behind the characters there are stories, behind the space there is tension. It is a great challenge to find this other side of the work, far beyond what is on paper." (Wilson 86) The production is introduced by the boisterous voice of Walter Schmidinger announcing the content of the scenes. Then, in true Wilsonian fashion, the characters parade in robot-like movements across the apron, backed by a black curtain with flashing swirls of light reminiscent of a circus atmosphere ( Video 1 ). Mac sings the song "Mac the Knife" with his back to the audience, exposing a naked shoulder. At the end, Jenny stands next to him, facing the audience and informs them: "This is Mac the Knife. " The association with a 1920s cabaret is striking, and the introduction of Jenny’s perspective as a narrative setup adds multiple layers of interpretation. Wilson’s set design ignores Brecht’s stage theory which juxtaposes realistic theatrical signs, designating milieu and time and linking stage space to non-theatrical reality. The Model-book of the 1928 Berliner production, showed the use of a huge wooden door, indicating the wedding scene’s location as a typical stable. Figure 1 & 2. Scene images from Brecht’s Model Book Figure 3. Wilson’s stable in the wedding scene Figure 4. Drawings by Wilson Instead, Robert Wilson sees the stage abstractly and begins every production with sketches and drawings: "Once I know the space it is much easier for me to decide what to do in it." (Wilson 32) Inspired by the American minimalist artist, Dan Flavin, who created installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures, Wilson describes the Peachum shop in the following words: The Peachum shop is a series of low screens with vertical and horizontal lines as if to suggest movable racks of clothes. Together they make a low horizontal line across the space. (32) And the marriage scene as a high barn-like space, as if light was coming through the boards of a barn. Sometimes parts of the back wall of lights disappear and change the depth of the space (32) By confronting two modes of representation - visual (the abstract neon lights) and verbal (Brecht’s text) - that complete and conflict with each other, Wilson highlights the arbitrary and inadequate nature of all systems of representation but adds another dimension to Brechtian critique. At one point in the wedding scene, when Mac and Tiger Brown sing the Cannon-Song, Polly is hanging high up like a religious icon amid the vertical lines, giving the illusion of a church with Madonna. Religious associations are not new for Wilson. For the occasion of the Passion Play, 2000, in Oberammergau, he was commissioned to create 14 stations, temporarily bound up with the staging of the passion play next door. At the thirteenth station of the strongly stylized tableaux “Jesus is taken down from the cross and laid in Mary’s arms,” the Mater Dolorosa was printed on a thin curtain with the face of the pop star Madonna, as a modern relic. Figures 5, 6 & 7. “Madonnas” in Wilson’s installation and “Madonnas” in The Threepenny Opera The dialectic of Wilson’s abstraction, his lighting, the body of the actor and Brecht’s text can be seen as a higher dialectical synthesis revealing religious aspects not written in the text. Accordingly, the renowned playwright and novelist, Roland Schimmelpfennig, comments on the production: ”I was very taken by the friction between Wilson’s strong vision and Brecht’s anarchy; that was something I did not expect. I find the Threepenny Opera always a bit difficult because it is so anchored in specific social settings. Take for instance the beggars who are represented as running a business in the play, and Wilson depicts this in a refreshingly comical manner that surprised me quite a bit.” (Schimmelpfennig) Jacques Reynaud’s costumes don’t give concrete statements about the dramatic characters. They are all black and white - except for Macheath and Polly - and reveal strong silhouettes, according to Wilson. On the one hand the costumes are reminiscent of German silent films, Expressionism and the seductive world of Weimar-area cabaret. On the other hand, they evoke some of the central themes of the current political climate like gender issues, androgyny and sexuality, “far beyond what is on paper”. Stefan Kurt as Macheath has a blonde wavy, lacquered dandy hairstyle, wears elbow-length gloves, big painted eyes with false eyelashes, and fetish underwear underneath a shimmering, sequenced black suit, a kind of corset that emphasizes the missing breasts. Getting up from the wedding bed, he displays a tiny black slip with the corset. Figure 8. Macheath’s costume with gender fluidity Later, when he briefly puts on his friend Tiger Brown's top hat, the association with Marlene Dietrich is obvious. Once back in jail, after having shown up at the whorehouse, Mac is dressed like a Wall Street Banker. Fleeing from his father-in-law, he was supposed to hide in the heaths of Highgate where his outfit had to blend in with the locals but he could not resist making a visit to the Turnbridge whorehouse before his departure. This series of costume changes underscores the fluidity of Macheath’s identity, navigating between private and public spaces. Juergen Holtz as Peachum looks like a clown or mime reminding the audience of the circus-like atmosphere of the Prologue and Tiger Brown is a caricature out of the 1920 film Nosferatu. Figure 9. A series of costume changes underscoring the fluidity of Macheath’s identity Figure 10. Peachum’s costume like a clown or mime alluring an atmosphere of the circus Figure 11. Tiger Brown’s costume like a caricature out of the 1920 film Nosferatu From the few details mentioned above, we can see that Wilson’s visuals simultaneously perform a threefold function in their interaction with Brecht’s text: Echoing what the scenes require according to the text via visual suggestions Adding new associations, including both socio-political and non-political ones, to the socio-political themes and topics in the text, especially in relation to the contemporary context where the socio-historical conditions and social concerns have changed Injecting rich visual aesthetics of expressionism, symbolism, surrealism and abstractionism to Brecht’s dialectical-sociological text, exposing the contradiction and limitations while at the same time letting them enrich each other, allowing the audience to make their own associations. Besides interacting with Brecht’s text, Wilson’s visuals also form a self-sufficient aesthetic space, through his signature elements, like his use of light and contrast, his huge horizontal proscenium stage, and a spatial configuration that compresses a 3D theatre stage into a 2D canvas. The actors and settings become part of a larger painting that is evolving, as can be clearly seen in the Prologue and many other moments. Moreover, his use of sound effects and the time-prolongating moments of silence create intentional interruptions to the original flow of the text, although Wilson cannot change the musical score. This allows Wilson’s own aesthetics to temporarily dominate, and make Brecht’s narrative subordinate to Wilson’s aesthetic cosmos. All this creates a possibility of reading Brecht under Wilson, which can be non-political but purely poetic and dreamy, different from a reading in which Wilson’s mise en scène serves and enriches Brecht. This possibility of opposing readings, provides chances of mutual Verfremdung between Brecht’s dramaturgy and Wilson’s mise en scène , actualizing the dialectics among sister arts that Brecht envisioned. Therefore, in The Threepenny Opera , the non-political (from Wilson) and the political (from Brecht) are dialectically assisting each other. The contradiction and interruption between modes of representation create Verfremdung through which spectators get even more space to experience and think, a space that Wilson promised in the Berliner Program quoted earlier. Acting Now let’s turn also to the acting to see how the dialectics between Wilson and Brecht worked to create a dialectical relationship between Wilson and strong actors. In Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, Wilson offers his usual extravagant, often grotesque visual aesthetic like Tiger Brown’s macabre and abstract dance during an interlude making only his hands and face visible in front of the black background. Another example would be when Mac’s bandits prepare the wedding scene by entering the “stable“ in the same manner as they paraded across the stage in the prologue having pieces of furniture under their arms which also serve as props in their well-choreographed ballet. But there are also many Brechtian moments. Juergen Holtz as Peachum worked throughout his career with many former Brecht students like Benno Besson and Heiner Mueller. He can’t help himself translating vague, stylized Wilson gestures into a Brechtian Gestus . His pronunciation of words is crystal clear, but his body posture often contradicts the text. ( Video 2 ) When Filch pays his dues, Peachum’s body mimes the dropping of the coins into his hand and pocket accompanied by a prolonged and exaggerated clanking of the silver as if falling into a metal can. Peachum’s face changes from a grim expression into a laughing grimace. Money seems to be the principal motivation for most characters. ( Video 3 ) Polly’s announcement to her parents of her wedding causes her mother to faint. She badly needs a drink and every sip she takes is accompanied by dripping water sounds. Her husband closes his ears with his hands - he hates his wife’s drinking - and then points silently at his wife making it clear that his daughter’s marriage is all her fault. This scene clearly corresponds to Brecht’s wish that a production should be understood without text and just through precise body language. Christina Drechsler as the wide-eyed fluttery and doll-like Polly transforms her girlish behaviour when singing the Pirate-Jenny song. Suddenly one can recognize the cold, tough daughter of Peachum behind the childish façade equipped to take over both businesses, her father’s and Mac’s. ( Video 4 ) The wedding is like a business transaction. Mac drags his bride along the floor onto the stage like a sack of potatoes. ( Video 5 ) The two hardly ever look at each other and when they do kiss, they are rather like two women, which also questions Polly’s sexual orientation. Their body postures dispel any notion of sexual tension or “love” between them. They both radiate loneliness and cold calculation. ( Video 6 ) On the other hand, there is clearly a strong erotic connection between Mac and Tiger Brown while Mac tells the audience how the chief of the London police was covering up all his crimes. ( Video 7 ) A very special place in Wilson’s production which was lauded by most critics was Angela Winkler as Mac’s ex-lover and whore, Jenny. Winkler does not give a damn about acting jargon like Verfremdung, she is a great actor who always finds the “right” way to bring out the meaning of the text. In a conversation, she related that Wilson never imposed any gestures on her, he just tells her stories and allows her to find her own body posture and voice. She said, “Bob needs strong personalities, not small actors who just want to imitate him”. Winkler’s Solomon-song is like a unique mini mise en scène devoid of any Verfremdung, singing in a brilliant vibrato how she is torn apart by love for and hatred of Macheath. This almost delirious scene by Angela Winkler is like an accident in Wilson’s theatre. He is not interested in the soul of his characters – neither is Brecht – but precisely because he keeps the characters of his Threepenny Opera production so distant, Angela’s realistic and emotional rendering provides such a powerful contrast. ( Video 8 ) Roland Schimmelpfennig found "the acting and singing sensational, Angela Winkler in particular; she only had a small role but she was unbelievably great. The familiar music score was given different layers of meaning, forcing the audience to listen with fresh ears. Brecht’s text can be rather old-fashioned and sometimes feels a bit antiquated, but Wilson almost made it seem dangerous." (Schimmelpfennig) Dialectics between the political and the non-political in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera Besides being a director, Wilson is also an architect and a painter. To sum up the subtle, dialectical relationship between Wilson’s directing and canonical texts like Brecht’s, in addition to Wilson’s earlier quoted words, another quote of Wilson from Arthur Holmberg’s book can be helpful. Besides digging into the space behind Brecht’s text, directing Lear , Wilson said the following during rehearsals: I don't have to make theatre with Lear […] Shakespeare already made the theatre. What I have to find is a way to put this theatre on a stage with enough room around those words so that people can hear them and think about them. I don't believe in talking back to masterpiece. I let it talk to me. (Holmberg 30) The same applies also to Brecht. The key here is creating space for the text to be listened to and reflected upon. Wilson also created space around the text, building a place for the spectators to meet the text and form their own associations. Here, Wilson’ works like an architect, which he was really trained to be. Meanwhile, Wilson the painter and visual artist, took moments to interrupt the text in The Threepenny to show his painterly vision, in which the architecture he built on stage, the actors, and Brecht’s text all turn into images that are parts of this painting. Both Wilson’s architectural and painterly design interact with Brecht’s text, supporting and renewing the latter with visual-audio suggestions as well as rich imaginary possibilities of association and creative ambiguities. However, Wilson’s mise en scène and Brecht’s text as two modes of representation also interrupt and contradict each other at different moments. This is the first layer of additional dialectics that Wilson’s aesthetics give to the original dialectics already present in Brecht’s play. Moreover, Wilson’s openness to and utilization of actors with strong but different qualities and strengths during rehearsals also adds on another layer of dialectics to the text. The result is a synthesis of three aesthetics: Wilsonian, Brechtian, and Stanislavski’s naturalistic-psychological acting. This enriches both Wilson’s and Brecht’s mode of acting and opens even more space in the play. The Threepenny Opera was a special opportunity for such dialectical synthesis to happen, not just because Wilson encounters constraints that he seldom has, but also because Brecht’s text is special in its episodic structure, its equal emphasis on realism and artifact, and its inherent dialectical dramaturgy. These are absent in other canonical texts that Wilson worked with. This case demonstrates an important example of how the non-political and the political can be combined. It opens up a possibility of dual reading and a space with ample freedom of association on the audience’s side. Such dialectical synthesis of art and politics ensures a space to prevent a socio-political text from turning into propaganda and shows us the importance of the non-political in the political. Wilson’s visual-audio cosmos is in itself non-political, but it has also a threefold political significance, enriching the political dimension of Brecht’s text: Each audience member has freedom in making their association and interpretation. There is a space of creative ambiguity and contained chaos for “ordinary” order to dissolve or to be deconstructed, and for new order to come into formation. There is a space for the non-political to exist, which is important to avoid everything being subordinated to the political interpretation as the only single possibility. Conversely, the political horizon of Brecht’s play also enriches Wilson’s non-political cosmos because, even if the political is not necessarily the only or the most important human quality, it is still an important and inevitable dimension of human existence and can be reflected upon within the Wilsonian universe. Contemplating Wilson’s world as seen through Brecht’s lens, and vice versa, cruelty and isolation among people is not only political but also metaphysical. The meaning of the political is expanded. Not only does it refer to the vertical politics regarding the individuals and dominating infrastructures and ideological hegemony, it also includes the horizontal politics of interpersonal relationship among individuals. As we see in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera , the isolated individuals are cruel to each other, taking other individuals as means instead of an end. The only exception could probably be Jenny played by Winkler with her authentic acting that expresses her pain and emotions towards Macheath and the whole crazy world. However, all of them, including Jenny, inevitably get caught in isolation: they can only speak in a monologue-like fashion despite being in a dialogue situation. This is amplified by their moments of singing which interrupt the play, and it is intensified by Wilson’s insertion of pause and his directing choice of making the characters not look at each other. It leaves room for the spectators to think, imagine and explore whether it is the political-economic conditions that make individuals cruel to and isolated from each other, or whether it is such cruelty and isolation being existential characteristics of the conditio humanae that create politics with cruelty and isolation. The dialectics between Wilson’s and Brecht’s aesthetics maintain an open space for us to keep contemplating on these conditions and phenomena, preventing us from jumping to any easy conclusions. It deepens our contemplation that is both political and metaphysical. V. Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera in the contemporary debates about ‘political theatre’ Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera explores the interplay between political themes and a contemplative, indeterminate space. This duality engages with contemporary debates on the nature of political theatre. Specifically, it addresses the dilemma of how theatre can remain politically relevant as it avoids reducing performances to mere thematic engagement and avoids unintentionally adopting forms that are politically conservative or even oppressive. On the other hand, it also avoids formalism that, while appearing politically progressive, risks becoming self-enclosed and detached from the real world. Often categorized as post-dramatic theatre, Wilson’s works, as described by Hans-Thies Lehmann, respond to the sociocultural shifts of the late 20th century, where media technology and globalization transformed traditional dramatic theatre (16-17). Post-dramatic theatre emphasizes form over fictional representation, narrative unity, coherent characters, and passive spectatorship. These elements, as Jürs-Munby et al. argue, redefine political theatre by rejecting mimetic storytelling in favor of non-linear, participatory, and perceptually immediate experiences. This approach shifts from "making political theatre" to "making theatre in a political way." (9) However, critiques expressed by the likes of Thomas Ostermeier highlight potential pitfalls, including the risk of formalism leading to political apathy, which ultimately becomes part of the oppressive system (Boenisch 459). Ostermeier argues that some post-dramatic works inadvertently reinforce the ideological status quo through "capitalist realism," rendering them self-referential and detached from social relevance (Boenisch and Ostermeier 2). This critique underscores the tension in post-dramatic theatre between formal innovation and meaningful political engagement. Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera , combining Brechtian dramaturgy with post-dramatic aesthetics, offers a potential resolution to this tension. Brecht’s use of fable and socio-economic causality, while contrasting with Lehmann’s critique of narrative structures, retains its political sharpness through strategies of estrangement and interruption. Wilson enriches this dialectic by blending Brecht’s political intent with his own visual and structural innovations, creating a layered experience that resists superficial coherence, as discussed earlier in this essay. By maintaining loose, multilayered, and often indirect connections to external realities while also fostering imaginative reflection, the production bridges the divide between form and theme, avoiding the pitfalls of formalism and expanding the possibilities of political theatre. In this synthesis, Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera affirms the value of combining political and non-political elements, offering a model for addressing contemporary complexities. It preserves the political dimension through open-ended engagement, enabling audiences to explore nuanced interpretations of societal and existential dynamics. Bibliography Boenisch, Peter M. "Thomas Ostermeier: A ‘sociological theatre ’for the age of globalised precarity." Contemporary European Theatre Directors. Routledge, 2020. 455-476. Boenisch, Peter M., and Ostermeier, Thomas. The Theatre of Thomas Ostermeier . Routledge, 2016. Brecht, Bertolt, and Weill, Kurt. The Threepenny Opera , directed by Robert Wilson, performed by Angela Winkler, et al., Berliner Ensemble. Opening Night: September 27th, 2007. Holmberg, Arthur., The Theatre of Robert Wilson . Cambridge University Press, 1996 Jürs-Munby, Karen, Jerome Carroll, and Steve Giles, eds. Postdramatic Theatre and the Political: International Perspectives on Contemporary Performance . A&C Black, 2013. Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre . Routledge, 2006. Schimmelpfennig, Roland. Interview Nov. 16th, 2024, Toronto. conducted by Pia Kleber Wilson, Robert. The Threepenny Opera, Programmheft Nr.91, Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, 2007. -------. “The Threepenny Opera: Drawings.” Journal for performing Art , Jan.2008, Vol.30, No.1, pp.31-41 About The Author(s) Pia Kleber is Professor Emerita and Helen and Paul Phelan Chair in Drama at the University of Toronto. Shiu Hei Larry Ng is a PhD student in the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies in the University of Toronto. Robert Wilson Yearbook The Robert Wilson Yearbook, published annually by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, offers a dedicated platform for scholarly and creative engagement with the life, artistry, and enduring legacy of Robert Wilson (1941–2025), one of the most original visionaries in contemporary theatre and performance. The Yearbook seeks to explore and expand upon Wilson’s groundbreaking approaches to staging, lighting, movement, and visual composition. Each issue will feature a diverse range of content—including original essays, critical commentary, archival materials, artist reflections, and photography—examining facets of Wilson’s multifaceted practice across genres, eras, and geographies. The Robert Wilson Yearbook is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - This Issue “Going on a Journey”: Space, Time, and Experience in Robert Wilson’s Installations and Museum Interventions Re-Viewing Stefan Brecht’s The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson from a (B.) Brechtian Perspective Towards a Formalist Ritualistic Theatre: An Artaudian Reading of Robert Wilson’s Aesthetics The Theatre of Autobio-hetero-thanato-graphic: The Life and Death of Marina Abramović Time’s Shadows: Crisis of Subjectivity and Reconciled Concord in Robert Wilson’s Performative Reading of Shakespeare's Sonnets They Asked Me to Draw a City: Postdramatic Imaginings in Robert Wilson’s Direction of Strindberg’s A Dream Play Robert Wilson's Oedipus: The Postdramatic Journey of the Oedipus Story from Sophocles through Freud Robert Wilson and Norway Robert Wilson’s Art of Senses and Emotions Listening to Deafman Glance Robert Wilson's Production of Henrik Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken Thinking in Structures: Working as a Dramaturg with Robert Wilson Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson: The Dialectical Triad of Playwright, Director and Berliner Ensemble Actors in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.