For eight successive years, the French Cultural Center in Egypt supported the creativity of young Egyptian theater makers by hosting a festival for Creative Youth, and sponsoring the winner’s participation in Avignon Theater Festival in France each summer.
This year’s festival, which took place in the headquarters of the Centre Francais de Culture et de Cooperation in Mounira, downtown Cairo between Feb. 7 and 14, presented the work of seven theater troupes. The plays ranged from adaptations of Arabic and French classical texts to new material by young writers.
Perhaps in response to its encouragement of young troupes to experiment and present original work on stage, the festival attracted and equally younger crowd, stressing its growing status as a platform for new voices.
Before announcing the winners of this year’s festival, the jury, consisting of Fahmy El-Khouly, Mo’men Khalifa and Alaa Ouaa, shared some candid observations about the festival. They appreciated the new addition of the daily post-show discussions, and suggested that these artistic dialogues be documented and archived for the benefit of the future generation of theater makers.
The jury also recommended paying more attention to the Arabic language in performance, and training the actors on proper delivery of Fusha (classical Arabic), in addition to raising the awareness of the youth in order for them to be able to represent the real problems of their society.
They requested adding two more categories of awards – Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress – to acknowledge the work and creativity of more young performers.
Big winners
In the eighth version of this mini-festival, Theater Without Boarders, the group that won last year’s award, presented an adaptation of Euripides’s Greek play “Iphigenia in Aulis. Tamer Karam, the actor/director got a special commendation from the jury for his work in this play.
Bedaya Troupe’s “I Came to Narrate, based on Samuel Beckett’s “First Love, was awarded Best Scenorgarphy, for director/designer Mahmoud Sami, while actor Sabry Zaki received a special commendation from the Jury.
These two performances were nominated for Best Performance award, but it went to “Night Traveler by Theatre Crazy Troupe.
It was this troupe, from Meet Ghamr in Daqahleya, that got the lion’s share. In addition to the Best Performance award, they also won Best Director (Sameh El-Shami) and Best Actor (Ahmad El-Bessa).
Sameh El-Shami presented a new reading of the classical text of Egyptian poet Salah Abdel-Sabour. The short black comedy “Night Traveler examines power relationships in society through an interaction between a passenger on a train and a ticket collector.
The Ticket Collector represents all those in power from Alexander the Great to contemporary authorities. The Passenger, on the other hand, is the perpetual victim of the absolute power of the rulers. Though he resigns himself to accept his role as a powerless subject, and plays along with all the games of the Ticket Collector, he is not able to resist the heavy hand of authority, and ends up losing his life, for a crime he did not commit.
El-Shami divided the role of the narrator among two performers, which gave the heavy poetic text more liveliness and vitality. He moved the narrators constantly around the stage, changing their moods and manner of delivery. Though this added a dynamic energy to the performance, it sometimes detracted from the core of the text.
Adding short sequences of drumming, mock belly dancing, and even mock stripping succeeded in getting a few laughs from the audience, but it did not serve the play. One of the most important lines of the play – “Someone killed God and stole his identity card – was completely lost in delivery because of the comic singing routine style it was presented in.
Unfortunately, forcing the comedy on the solemn text sometimes came at the price of compromising the integrity of the play.
While feisty Ahmad El-Bessa won Best Actor award for his role as the Narrator, which he presented with a lot of energy and vivaciousness, utilizing physical comedy and playfully engaging the audience in short mime parodies of stripping and burlesque, the actor with more weight and acting ability was Wael Shaheen.
Shaheen, the antagonist of “Night Traveler, portrayed the role of Ticket Collector forcefully with sinister charm and a compelling acting range which made it easy to “love to hate him. He was the actor who merited the Best Actor award, but did not get it.
The simple set, by Saher El-Shahaby, consisted from a step ladder, a chair and two two-sided panels. These modest pieces of set were used in such variations that created a lot of energy and dynamism on stage. The two panels were moved around and used to suggest the presence of tents, graves, boxes, a well, and even a puppet theater. The pyramid-shaped ladder, which occupied center stage, was used to control the Passenger, whether in his seat on the train, trapped under the towering ladder, or as a torture device where his arms hang on the higher steps while his legs are stretched on the lower steps. This ladder gave the dominating Ticket Collector the chance to use the stage vertically, showing his domination visually through climbing the steps.
Sameh El-Shami and his Theatre Crazy Troupe are a welcome addition to the young Egyptian theater scene.
