While strolling down the jam-packed avenues of the Cairo International Book Fair, a team of oddly dressed foreign-looking men and women can be seen mingling and talking with the baffled fairgoers.
After encountering these eccentric personalities, you will find yourself automatically following them around the fair grounds out of sheer curiosity and amusement. These world-renowned comic visual performers are the Natural Theater Company.
Formed in 1970 by Ralph Oswick and Brian Popay, the Natural Theater Company has performed all over the world. The internationally acclaimed company is famous for both its indoor and outdoor comic-visual performances that employ recognizable comic characters and place them into inappropriate or surreal situations.
The work transcends language barriers and intends to change the audience’s perception of familiar public spaces. They don’t just perform on the streets, the group sometimes appear in an aircraft carrier, on trains and planes, in shop windows, on Bondi and Copacabana beaches, in circus rings, in a cage at the zoo and even occasionally on stage as well.
Whether they are performing outdoors or indoors, the spectator is always entertained with this group’s unique and original ability to evoke laughter; be it out of confusion, the group’s abnormality, or simple appreciation of British humor.
Some of the Natural Theater Company’s most talented members – including Rose Popay, Hâf Morgan, Ric Jerrom, and Mark Bishop who have worked together numerous times before – have participated in the Book Fair performance. Their clear rapport with one another was demonstrated in the naturalness of their performance.
After speaking with some of the unsuspecting spectators at the fair, the primary question that many asked was: Why?
Ric Jerrom, three time winner of Audio Review’s Golden Headphones Award – who participated in over 30 radio plays for BBC Radios 3 & 4 – told Daily News Egypt that the element of surprise is what the performances are based on.
The question of why is extremely important since, “they won’t understand directly, and they shouldn’t understand. The question produces a narrative based on the individuals imagination, and “this is what we’d like to be doing, unlocking the imagination in ordinary space, he added.
The group uses universal humor that does not necessitate a set group of reactions, and that’s why the group does not need to tailor their pieces for the various audiences they interact with. However, depending on the audience, the Natural Theater Company decides which pieces to leave out and which to keep.
For example, while the group was in Japan, they performed their “ghost piece. According to Jerrom, this did not go over well with the Japanese audience who hold strong beliefs about ghosts. The crowd was frightened, the polar opposite of what the theater group was trying to achieve. Likewise, in Cairo, Jerrom says “we decided to leave out the nudist piece, because it would offend many people. I also do a lot of reading about the place before I go.
In general, the group enjoyed performing more in Cairo than in London. “The people are so welcoming and friendly here; it’s easy to draw in the crowd. They are sophisticated, especially at the level of their humor. They’re not scared to come close.
In London, on the other hand, people tend to be more remote, according to Jerrom.
In addition to entertaining the public, there is another purpose to what the Natural Theater Company is trying to accomplish; a low-key politics engrained within all performances: the politics of freedom.
While watching these mad Brits, the audience begins to grasp the freedom to use public space any which way they choose. The group tests the idea of subtle anarchy, with the intention of causing an internal awakening. “I hope it gives the sense that all things are possible, says Jerrom.
People should understand that these spaces belong to them and the performance is an example of a form of power everyone possesses, a power that should be utilized.
Overall the Natural Theater Group’s feel-good spectacle is one of the Book Fair’s must-see attractions. Their unique use of props, space and viewers is unlike any other theater group that has performed before in these shores.
