Masks and Destinies

The fifteenth Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theater (CIFET) took over virtually every theater in Cairo from September 1 to 11, 2003. CIFET attracts seventy-three participants from forty-three countries, including sixteen Arab countries. Though largely unknown in the United States, the festival draws a more diverse group of participants than many of the better-recognized European festivals. For example, this year's schedule included work not only from most of the Arab nations (including multiple entries from Qatar, Tunisia, and Libya, to name a few), but also from nations as divergent as South Korea, Rwanda, Cameroon, and Uzbekistan. That such a festival should exist in Egypt might seem unexpected. The country's popular performance traditions, historically the domain of the lower classes, never had the aristocratic stamp of approval or attained the status of "high art." Colonialism pushed these forms even further into the margins, and today's conditions make the theater's relevance even less likely. Egyptian theater artists generally toil in cultural isolation; political instability has discouraged many cultural emissaries from visiting the region, while the prohibitive cost of travel tethers Egyptian artists to their homeland. CIFET opens a window onto world theater, and Egypt's actors, directors, and playwrights seem to enjoy breathing in the air. But what could Western visitors see of theater from the Middle East?

In the Al-Hanagar theater, Masks, Fabrics . . . and Destinies, created by Hany El Metennawy and featuring a large cast of youthful performers, took as a point of departure the Oedipus myth but drew upon a variety of texts, from T. S. Eliot to Khalil Gibran and other Arab poets. True to its title, the play (performed in Arabic) made wide use of long swaths of fabric and enormous masks sculpted from sheets of foam. The eager chorus stomped through aggressively choreographed enactments of advancing totalitarian armies, stretching fabrics into changing shapes and flitting about as innocent birds, unaware that the machinery of war would soon destroy them.

The production carried a weighty message about the dangers of surrendering individuality to the anonymous forces of nationalism, a caution with implications for both the United States and Arab militants. That message was received with a standing ovation, though strong approval may also have been influenced by patriotic support for the country's official entry in the festival. But despite the performers' enthusiasm, Masks rang hollow, caught between the desire to make a strong political statement— but not too strong, censors insist—while above all else remaining generically "experimental," with masks, pieces of fabric over writhing bodies, choral chants, heavy-handed reverb, and large Plexiglas boxes.

Figure 1.

Inad Theatre's My Dreams Have No Limits, directed by Raeda Ghazaleh.

Of course, in a festival that is both "international" and "experimental" in name, factors of time, culture, and history must be taken into account. Speaking at the opening ceremonies, Martha Coigney, the American head of the festival's selection committee, addressed this problem. She pointed out that experiments in theater are by nature local, not international. But one country's tradition sometimes becomes another's experiment, such as American theater's "discovery" of Japanese traditional forms.

Is this, then, the explanation for the derivative quality of Masks and several of the other offerings? At a CIFET symposium, Tunisian critic Ezzeddin El Medani called for cultural interchange within limits, warning that the performance styles of other countries are not prêt-à-porter.

Nehad Selaiha, the most prominent Egyptian theater critic writing in English and a member of this year's festival jury, wrote in 1990 about "passionate voices clamouring for an authentic Arab theatre with a national, rather than European character, and indigenous, rather than Greek, roots." If Masks did not manage to heed those voices, other productions had more success.

The other official Egyptian entry, and the opening performance of the festival, was A Sculptor's Dream, presented by the Cairo Opera Dance Theatre and directed by Walid Aouni. Though it used the vocabulary of European dance-theater, its subject matter was solidly Egyptian. The piece celebrated the work of sculptor Mahmoud Moukhtar...