A piece I wrote about the Malas brothers--charming Syrian twin actor/playwrights--has just finally run in The National. I saw the brothers do an impromptu performance of their play "Melodrama" in Cairo in June and then discovered they had originally performed it (40 times!) in their tiny bedroom in Damascus, and become an underground sensation. Here's an excerpt: 

When the Malas twins were 16, they saw a play together and “decided we must become actors”, Mohammed says over coffee the next day (he could just as well be Ahmed; the twins often wear matching outfits and have a habit of finishing each other’s sentences). But their application to the highly competitive Syrian High Institute of Theatrical Arts was rejected three times.

“They told us: ‘You’re not talented, you won’t be actors.’” 

Syria has a long and illustrious theatrical tradition and a burgeoning movie and TV industry that has resulted in some very popular and well-produced TV serials of late. The brothers auditioned for TV and film parts but never got any major roles (“For TV, you need connections,” Ahmed says), and ended up working full-time at the children’s theatre in Damascus. 

The twins channelled their frustrated ambitions into Melodrama, a play that is as self-referential as you can get: actors portraying actors who spend the play talking about acting. There is no plot, just a whirlwind of allusions to high art and pop culture.

The New York Times has an article on a play by a Swiss playwright featuring Egyptian muezzins, spurred by the Ministry of Awqaf's attempt a few years back to synchronize/standardize the call to prayer in Cairo (not sure how much it was ever implemented, actually..) I'm also a little skeptical, as always, of the claim that this play was "too politically touchy" to be performed except once in Cairo, but I don't know the details. The title of the article "A CAll Silenced in Cairo..." invokes the usual trope that interesting art is always problematic/taboo in the Arab world. (Ironically, it's in Switzerland that recently there were calls for banning minarets. And as the article mentions, mosques in Germany have been targeted by far-right protests). 

On a separate note, I'll be traveling for the next 10 days, so no posts till the end of the month.

The LA Times' "Babylon and Beyond" blog writes about the Egyptian play قهوة سادة ("Coffee, no Sugar"--I would have translated it as "Black Coffee"), which was already a smash-hit in Cairo last summer. 

The play begins with scores of weeping men and women, all in black, walking in a funeral procession, laying photographs of Egypt’s prominent deceased economists, actresses and actors,  and political leaders on a sandy grave symbolizing the Egyptian past.

The play mocks a plethora of flaws, including bread queues, the chasm between rich and poor, corruption, unemployment and the failure of state institutions. By mocking businessmen, the play hit a sensitive nerve with large segments in Egyptian society that believe the rich survive on tight networks of corruption that drain national resources to serve the vested interests of the few at the expense of the many. 

“Coffee, No Sugar” offers a ruthless depiction of the sweeping social chasm. On one hand, it depicts a businessman who prayed to God to inspire him with a solution to his dilemma of whether to build a square or rouund swimming pool at his villa. On the other hand, the play shocks spectators with a scene of a bunch of young men who threw themselves into a deadly fight over few loaves of bread.

The show has been greeted with extreme enthusiasm. Seeing the play seems to be almost cathartic, like attending an uproarious funeral for the country. In Al Masri Al Youm, Sulayman Gouda writes that "the show sheds tears over our situation, and invites us to shed tears, and no play in 2008 has attracted people's attention as forcefully as 'Black Coffee'.... When you look around, searching for something to staunch your pain, temporarily, from the sorrows you see, in every corner [...] you won't find anything but this play to cling to! As if it were a life preserver, that maybe expresses what troubles you on the inside, your grief, regret, suffering and pain. (This is my own, approximate translation).  

Yet as my friend Sumita (who sent me the link, thanks!) points out, it is a little facile to throw all the blame on "businessmen" and the pernicious influences of the Gulf --it's a typical left-wing analysis that allows one to feel indignant and superior without taking too many risks (by criticizing the government in detail) or responsibilities. Being nostalgic about Egypt's "better days" also ignores the way the roots of many of today's problems--authoritarianism, corruption, incompetence--were laid long ago. But what the success of the show says to me most clearly is how widely acknowledged it is today in Egypt that the whole country is at a low, low point. 

Anyway, I haven't see the show and I'd love hear from those who have. I hear it's the collaborative work of several young screen-writers, and is basically a collection of skits. This is what I've gleaned, because I wasn't able to see it. As "Babylon and Beyond" notes, "In recent months, finding a ticket was a hopeless endeavor."

Last summer it wasn't easy either. A friend and I were kept standing in line for an hour, watching helplessly as several ladies--some associated with the government theater where the play was being shown--cut in line in front of us. By the time we got to the window, there were no tickets. The young functionary in charge of organizing the line, when asked why he hadn't stopped the cutting, shrugged his shoulders and  then angrily said that it wasn't his responsibility. It was all pretty ironically appropriate for a show about the ills of Egyptian society.