Intersection

The interactive play Intersection sheds light on coexistence and social integration and promotes understanding between Syrian refugees and local communities. The performance revolves around a filmmaker who interviews Syrian and Jordanian actors to create a film about life in Jordan. The audience learns about the difficulties and challenges faced by Syrian refugees, specific areas of conflict, and how they are resolved to achieve social cohesion. The first scene depicts the conflict that the emigrants face in deciding whether to return to their country or stay in the host country. The second scene revolves around the idea of dividing the Arab countries and the distribution of quotas. The third scene presents the challenges emigrants face in terms of residence, work, and education as well as the problems faced by the host country’s communities. In the fourth scene, a man and his wife disagree over hosting one of the Syrian refugees at their home. The final scene focuses on the problems of the border. Ultimately, none of the actors are happy with the director and they decide to quit, but as they begin to leave they are reminded of the symbolic tree onstage, representing life, hope, heritage, and roots.

Memoirs of A Woman

Memoirs of a Woman narrates the story of a woman’s journey from the dream of a happy home to the nightmare of domestic violence. The play utilizes interactive theater methodology, and tackles the issue of mental and physical abuse inflicted upon women and its effect on the family unit. Through audience participation, Memoirs of a Woman explores the ways and means to prevent domestic violence.

The Incident

The play revolves around a trivial incident that happens to the main character Salma, this incident will change her destiny and her priorities in life and eventually her attitude towards her political stand and involvement. Salma a 35 year old famous Arab actress who is preparing herself to travel to Europe to be honored for her work and achievements hits her eye and left face area with her car door by mistake as she was going to the embassy to start the long visa process. She is informed by her assistant about a schedule change to travel earlier. During the car incident, all her documents including passport, birth certificate, and her Jordanian ID card get lost. To retrieve copies of the documents, Salma has to visit a set of government entities where she experiences a set of incidents that are transformative to her individualism versus the collective activism. She finds herself in a demonstration, then in a reform dialogue mini-conference, then in the artists union, etc, until she reaches the Ministry of Interior where she says out loud her final political statement about revolutions and the power of the people in the Arab region.

Balance

In an ironic style, the playwright makes a carnival of diverse characters who all suffer from the lack of happiness. Every characters appears with its own specific monologue/experience, yet the same character re-emerges again later adding new layers to its tragedy and responding to the issues of the other characters. Almost in a bleak way, every character tries to live with its own lifelessness. In a society where everything seems to be fake, the human existence is void of humanness and of any hope in the future. Hope becomes a sarcastic bleak song delivered during the play. The magical mixture for happiness seems to be the mixture of those characters, who can only be happy by forcing it or faking it. It is a play that highlights the tragic situation of most of young Egyptians who cannot find a future to aspire to, nor hope. The depression of a potential driving force in Egypt, puts an end to the state-diffused illusion that everything here is perfect!

Meta-Fedra/Lady of Secrets

Inspired from Racine’s “Phèdre”, Mohamed Abo Elseoud created a poetic play about the patriarchal oppression and the repression of female sexuality. A taboo in the Egyptian cultural and theater, Abo Elseoud succeeded in all honesty to confront a history of muting sexualities, and of censorship. The love that emerges between Fedra and the son of her husband is not sin, but rather a form of compassion and solidarity vis-à-vis the dictator who claims ownership of their lives and bodies. An unprecedented experience in the Egyptian theater where there is no shaming of what is usually labeled as “treason”. The play is written in monologues of poetry in modern literary Arabic. With the introduction of the character of the female narrator/storyteller, the playwright announces from the beginning that he adopts the feminist perspective in the story that he tells. A unique narrative of how the liberation of sexuality -within a religious and oppressive society- is a prerequisite for political and intellectual liberation. At the end, the director Hany Elmetennawy offers to the spectators the chance to judge the two lovers, by forgiving them or by killing them. A brilliant way to involve the audience and to get some signals about the possibility of social change.