HowlRound Theatre Commons: We are driving out of the parking lot of El Gomhoureya Theatre in downtown Cairo. It’s 9:55 p.m. on the 18th of September, day nine of the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary & Experimental Theatre (CIFCET). My dad had decided to join me at the last performance of the evening, a Moroccan adaptation of Jean Genet’s 1947 one-act play, The Maids, by Iraqi director Jawad Al-Asaadi. In this production of the Genet classic, the tension is high as the two maids (Jalila Al-Talmasi and Rajaa Khirmaz) take turns pretending to be their mistress. Their relationship oscillates frantically from beat to beat: one minute, one of them sadistically attempts to choke the other to death; the next, they straddle each other, discussing the mistress’s last sexual encounter. It’s undeniably homoerotic.
3 comments:
I find this such an interesting article to explore, now especially, as it seems that I am in a profession that is welcoming of all people and perspectives, in a country where the government is becoming more hateful and isolationist by the day. Theatre is one of the best ways I have experienced to break down barriers and engage in open discussion with all audiences and theatre practitioners. I understand, if not exactly, the struggle that this writer finds himself in: a community where the cultural appeal of progressive cosmopolitanism is attractive, if somewhat scary when concretely realized. Additionally, the act that the festival provides a more accepting atmosphere for outside work than local work sends a very strange message to the local theatre practitioners who would like to see and work on such open work all year round. Additionally, I too "struggle with how to talk about censorship. How do I contextualize the limitations on free speech here without confirming stereotypes about freedom of speech and human rights in the Middle East?" It is wonderful that Cairo is beginning these discussions, even if they are had individually or only in the context of festival conferences, but even slow progress will need to include a day where this type of material can be produced openly, by locals, without the threat of censorship getting in the way of producing meaningful and necessary art.
This was a fascinating read. Censorship is always an interesting topic in theater because there are so many grey areas. Even in western societies, how much sensitive content is too much? At what point do we say “that’s not appropriate” and where do we let it be? However at least here the impending sense of jail time is not strong enough to stifle creative expression, unlike in Cairo. One of the major questions asked was how other communities across the world could facilitate the exchange of art, writing, and performance in the international theatre ecosystem and I think that’s an amazing question to ask. If instead of shaking our fingers at the communities that censor the people trying to produce “radical” art there, and not taking that finger wagging further, would it be more helpful to shake our finger, and then bring those artists somewhere safe enough to produce the art to get a larger audience and more attention to the challenges that they and their communities face back at home. Festivals with that kind of a goal would be an amazing thing to be a part of.
This is easily my favorite article that I’ve read through these news comments. There are so many layers to the issues described here, and I know nothing about the experiences of the artists working in these circumstances. The author of the article grapples with fascinating conflicts, and describes shows at the festival that do as well. Having worked on and seen many indie shows in downtown Manhattan, I have seen what totally uncensored theater can look like. They aren’t always perfect and never have enough of a budget, but they always seek the challenging, political, and psychological. Reading this article, I realize that being able to see these works and help realize them into existence have been a massive privilege, and one that I know to wield with even more veneration than I previously understood. I hope that theater continues to be increasingly seen as an agent for change and inclusive perspectives around the world so that we may all learn from the art that new voices have to offer.
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