It’s mind-boggling that “Al Shabakah (The Gang), a play based on a work by controversial of German playwrights Bertolt Brecht, was chosen to be one of this theater season’s highlights.
One wonders why veteran actors like Samiha Ayoub, Mahmoud Hemeida and director Saad Ardash didn’t opt for a more relevant work than a 1930s Brecht play (Mahagonny).
Before watching the play (now running in the National Theater) which was Arabized by Yousri Khamis, I got into a discussion with Sherif Abdel Latif, director of the national theater, about the issue of contemporariness and escapism in Egyptian theater. Why, I wondered, did Egyptian playwrights prefer to set their plays in mythical or imaginary surroundings that are meant to simulate the current state of affairs rather than directly probe them?
Abdel Latif explained that during the Nasser regime many European writers came to see the theatrical productions of the 1960s and asked why Egyptian writers had taken that attitude of diverting the setting away from reality.
The answer to that was simple: to avoid censorship at a time where the state had no tolerance for intruding or opposing cultural invasions.
Does “Al Shabakah follow that trend?
“No, says Ardash “The case of “Al Shabakah is totally different. Brecht wrote his play at a time his nation had been grappling with ills like loss of identity and absence of social justice and pressures aimed at bringing about change.
He added: “Those are more or less the kind of problems we are facing today, not only in Egypt but in the entire world that is required to adapt to globalization and other trends that favor the free market-economy system.
“Al Shabakah – a word that also came in Brecht’s original text – should not be taken at face value. It is the gang of capitalists and their principles, elaborated Ardash.
Al Shabakah is about Powell Acreman, Jacob, Hans Merck and Joe, four Alaskan woodcutters. Having spent seven yeas in the harsh and frosty jungles of Alaska cutting and selling expensive wood, they finally begin to prosper.
They decide to have a long break and stop over at Mahagonny, a town that is notorious for its residents’ epicurean and materialistic tendencies, one that raises the motto that everything is possible in Mahagonny as long as you have money.
Blinded by materialism the townsfolk see food, drink, sex and violence as the basis of life. But when the four woodcutters begin to indulge in these pleasures, they start to receive blow after blow.
Jacob overeats and dies; Joe, known as the fox of Alaska, engages in an unequal boxing competition and dies by a fatal punch; Powell (played by Hemeida), is left destitute after he loses all his money, having bet that Joe would win the boxing match.
Even Powell’s love for Jeannie, a call girl he gets to know in Mahagonny, fails to deliver him from the death sentence incurred as a result of his insolvency.
But the philosophical connotations of the work are even more powerful. Powell, the main character, begins to feel disgusted at this life of mundane pleasures.
The plot takes a different turn when a hurricane threatens to hit the town.
Bicbic (played by Ayoub) the panderer who masterminds the gang, asks whether it is worthwhile to enjoy life before the real end, or keep to abiding by restrictive rules even in the face of overwhelming natural disasters that man cannot confront.
Yet even when sheer materialism triggers these philosophical dimensions, the only reality for Mahagonny is money. As one of the characters says: “The worst crime is the dearth of money.
Originally titled “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, the play had caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with the Nazis in the audience objecting to it.
When Hilter took power Brecht left for the US where his play had also triggered ripples due to its open criticism of capitalism.
In his resistance against the Nazi and Fascist movements, Brecht wrote his most famous plays including “Galileo and “Mother Courage and Her Children.
Elka, a German expatriate in Egypt who attended the play, praised the production: “I didn’t understand the text but I know the work inside out, it’s one of our classics. Brecht is also the one who introduced epic theater, she said.
Epic theater, also known as theater of alienation or theater of politics, was a movement that rose in the early to mid-20th century and is inextricably linked to Brecht.
It assumes that the purpose of a play, more than entertainment or the imitation of reality, is to present ideas and invite the audience to make judgments on them. The audience should always be aware that it is watching a play, and should remain at an emotional distance from the action.
Technically Aradsh has been aware of this and that awareness was translated into screenings of images of extravagance and materialistic practices from our daily life on both sides of the podium to reinforce the playwright’s theme.
