The 20th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theater thus far has been a surprising mix of well conceived works. I’m not quite certain though if I’m just having temporary good luck.
By far, the best and most convincing work on view at the festival, if not in my international reviewing of the year, is “SUB ZERO, a striking production from the National Company for Acting Present of Iraq.
The play features an old clown and a young man presenting their different perspectives and commenting on the occupation with an aptitude for tragi-comedy in league with Charlie Chaplin. The work is brilliantly acted by Yahia Ibrahim (the young man) and Abdulsattar Albasry, who as the old man, drives the work forward with close attention to detail.
From a random meeting on the football field, the two exhibit a tender and violent beauty in every word and action. Able to conjure playful hilarity one moment and hard hitting torture imagery the next, the backdrop of war is butted against the sensitive insight of the performers and their text. Together, they kept the audience on verge of overwhelming emotion the entire duration of the show. What is amazing about the work is that it never allows itself to lapse into careless sentimentality or self pity.
Constantly working its own edge, the play delivers powerful blows, one after the other, to a striking climax of multi-media force: a staged snow fall from wind machines, a sweet movie with the two actors goofing around on a playground, and a mural with images of doves of peace – images illuminating a brightness that make the reality of war ever darker.
“I am not young man, I am old man – 61 years, Albasry bellowed in a voice that shuddered with the knowing of one who, in his clownish white pants and suspenders, walks the line between the world’s vulnerability and cruelty. Ibrahim, for his part as the young man, bore the role of the old man’s questioner, follower, persecutor, son – all the while wearing a white karate uniform. Ibrahim’s performance dazzled with humility and support.
Toward the show’s conclusion, the two meet in a desperate hug. Immediately, a video backdrop jumps up and instantaneously transports them to a detention center. Both performers moved me to tears several times.
At the bows following the opening night performance, Albasry met his standing ovation with the cry “Peace to Iraq! Indeed. Brilliant work also by director Emad Mohamed and playwright Thabit Allaythi.
Along similar lines, a young company from America is participating with “Super:anti:reluctant, a deft comedy about the nation on the other side of Iraq’s devastation.
Collectively written by the company Mugwumpin, “Super:anti:reluctant was staged last Tuesday at El Horreya Theater. The theater itself, clean, swathed in hues of bright red and royal blue evoked the very nature of the shows’ content: the super-hero. The San Francisco-based company evoked emblematic heroes in their own ways, far beyond the standards – Bat, Spider, Superman.
The cast of three, Rebecca Noon, Christopher W. White and Joseph William, tout the powers of the everyday hero such as a young woman’s father who dropped out of society to build his own house in the woods, and a cappuccino maker working at a busy Starbucks – everyday people endowed with small but precious gifts.
Woven through fast paced dialogue and well executed (if not slightly obtuse) Le Coq inspired movement, is a commentary on the pitfalls of capitalism and the “American Dream from which the notion of these super-heroes are originated. The strong acting and self styled monologues of the three performers are wonderfully adept and intelligent.
The staging and use of video is equally inventive. The paper backdrop, vaguely reminiscent of German expressionistic film sets, is smartly used; torn to create tiny windows, projected on, employed as a handy backstage. Inside the summoning of popular American references – “Little House on the Prairie, a wounded Olympic gymnast forced to compete with an injury, and the American fixation on cafe lattes – are an eerie emotional telling. America lives in a fantasy land, a bubble, and in the midst of the highly materialist society people experience an irreparable emptiness.
My only critique of the otherwise playful and inspired work is the consistently changing scene and character, cramming wit and invention at breakneck speed. Only in the last few minutes of the work does the piece allow the audience to sink into the tragedy on the other side of the lighthearted farce.
An average to possibly interesting show on view this week is Algeria’s Republican Theater of Sidy Belabbas’s “Falso. Interesting set and staging signify this moderately acted piece on the inner conflict of a young man moved from one religious fascination to another. An attempt at humor and ironic commentary weave through the dramatic conflict between religion, politics and the inner life of a naïve soul searching for his place in the world.
