It’s kind of unnerving to wake up one day and discover you’ve been writing for a magazine for most of your adult life. When I first started freelancing for Egypt Today, back in 1987, it was Cairo Today, a center-stapled magazine with a touristy feel and the Eye of Horus on its cover. I was a fresh-faced, bulimic 16-year-old in high school with a calorie-counting fixation and dreams of being a world-famous singer. BASIC was the state-of-the-art computer language, the “killer application” was Lotus 123, and the internet was a mere gleam in some geek’s beady eyes.

Now, Cairo Today is Egypt Today, a glossy, hard-hitting magazine instead of the quaint touristy publication it used to be, and I’m a 32-year-old searching for my next ex-husband, and, my mother tells me, I’ve got my whole life ahead of me.

My editor, Rania, tells me I’m not much different, just more cynical “because there’s so much more to be cynical about.” How does the old song go? “Oh, my friend, we’re older, but no wiser / For in our hearts the dreams are still the same.”

I guess she’s right.

A little over two decades ago, the Egyptian theater scene was divided into public sector, government-funded plays, and the (in)famous private-sector machine, churning out farces for summer Arab audiences. Any alternative theater was precariously perched under the umbrella of the Mass Culture Organization and University theater.

How to chronicle all the changes is a bit of a challenge, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Courtesy Cultural Development Fund Egyptian play Extra Time, the Experimental Theater Festival 2002

Single mostimportant event

Hands down, the single most important event in the past 25 years was the birth of the International Experimental Theater Festival. I’m convinced of that despite the gripes of some about poor organization and arguments that the festival’s huge budget would be better spent on funding Egyptian artists.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again: There is no substitute for theater artists being exposed to live performances (as opposed to videos) from different countries. And with the Egyptian pound being what it is (worthless) and the visa situation being what it is (a recent applicant who wanted to visit Holland “to see the flowers” was told by a consular officer “Don’t give me s**t!”), the Festival is the only way for a vast majority of Egyptians, both theater artists and the general public, to ‘spring-clean their eyes’ and refresh their imagination.

I still remember the highlights of that first one in 1988, my last year in high school: Bulgaria’s dance performance of Don Juan; Poland’s actor-less, abstract, heartbreaking Moisture; Romania’s clowning masterpiece Medievale. All these pieces inspired theater-makers, informed the work of scenography-oriented directors like Mohamed Abul Soud, Maher Sabry, Khaled El-Sawy, Nora Amin and Effat Yehia, and gave many others from the independent movement, including Khaled Galal and Tarek Said, the courage to present their work outside their universities.

Courtesy Cultural Development Fund Hungarian play Double Bed, the Experimental Theater Festival 2002

Most important theater development overall

Definitely, I would say, the emergence of a dynamic independent theater movement. While I’ve written endlessly about the obstacles to independent theater, notably the legal restrictions that force a company to have some sort of official ‘Ministry-of-Culture-affiliated’ sponsor, it’s now time to talk achievements.

Hassan El-Geretly’s Al-Warsha company, the oldest of these independent companies, was the first to garner a share of funding and publicity. Now the scene is expanding to allow the recognition and continuity of other troupes, many of them more than ten years old now ­ Light, Caravan, Theater Atelier, Shrapnel, Musica, and others too numerous to count.

Lest we forget, the first Free Theater Festival was held in 1990, rallied by theater critics Menha El-Batraoui and Nehad Selaiha (my Mom!) under the banner “The Show Must Go On.” It gave the independent artists who played on the fringe shows the chance to perform even though the Experimental was cancelled that year because of the first Gulf War. For many independent companies, this was the only opportunity to showcase their work. Although the festival itself fizzled out two years later, and despite rivalry and some plain bloody-mindedness a consciousness of being in the same boat was born at that time.

Courtesy Cultural Development Fund Egypt’s Eid Milad Boris (Boris’s Birthday), the Experimental Theater Festival 2002

In 1999, an attempt dubbed “Now Or Never” was made to revive the festival, but the minister of culture cleverly foiled it with public promises of funding, office space, and a host of other pledges that never materialized.

Yet the independent movement is flourishing despite the odds. Mohamed Shafiq’s Where Things Happen won the Experimental’s Best Show award a couple of years ago. And the Free Theater Festival has been revived; now in its third year, it’s organized by the indefatigable Hany El-Metennawy, whose show, Masks, Fabrics and Destinies, also won a prize in last year’s Experimental.

And most impressively, director Ahmad El-Attar, along with several of his colleagues, has secured funding, mostly from the Netherlands Embassy, for the Independent Troupe Training and Studies Center, a rehearsal-cum-information-center-cum-office space, where troupes can rent rehearsal rooms for a nominal fee, on a three-year trial basis. I must admit to some wholly uncharacteristic optimism.

Most important new SPACES

Here again, I’ve discovered there’s a lot of grounds for optimism. You used to be able to count the venues available to independent artists on the fingers of a single hand. Some of these have closed, such as the Youth Theater on Ramsis Street, now a concert hall; and El-Samer Theater in Agouza, which fell victim to legal battles after the government, having pulled down the theater for renovations, discovered it only had a claim to the land if it had an ‘edifice’ built on it. A pile of rubble apparently didn’t count as an edifice, and they lost the land.

But new spaces more than made up for the lack of these stuffy government organizations. Among them:

Hanager Arts Center This is the first major space, by my reckoning. Founded in 1989, under the enlightened Hoda Wasfi, it proved to be a boon for countless independent artists. In spite of scheduling problems, it remains a favorite hub for independent theater today.

Townhouse Gallery Surmounting countless legal obstacles and a sea of red tape, owner William Wells has rented a complex of abandoned buildings in the Downtown area, including a garage, and provides a welcome, bustling performance venue for an impressive number of indie shows under the pretext of ‘publicity events’ to sell paintings.

The Garage Located in the renovated garage of the Jesuit Center on Port Said Street in Alexandria and maintained with a grant from the young Arab Theater Fund, this space, despite issues over who gets to perform there, is a breath of fresh air on Alexandria’s cultural scene.

Mohsen Allam/Egypt Today The Artisitc Creativity Center is the newest state-of-the-art addition to the Opera House complex.

The Alexandria Library It does seem funny to include a library as a performance space, but the Bibliotheca, which hosts theater, music and dance festivals, and sponsors new performances, is actually changing Alexandria’s image from a cultural backwater to a happening scene. I may have my own axe to grind with conductor Sherif Mohie El-Din, director of the Library’s cultural activities, and Mahmoud Abu Doma, who runs the theater program, regarding logistical and admin issues, but I’m the first to applaud their impressive and highly encouraging achievement in changing the face of a city.

The Minya Garage Similar to the Alexandria Garage, same funding, but located in Minya in Upper Egypt.

El-Sawy Culture Wheel Abdel Moneim El-Sawy, a businessman, rented the abandoned space under Zamalek’s 26th July Bridge from the government and proceeded to turn it into the most-attended cultural center around, dedicated to the memory of his father. As I write, it’s holding another indie festival, putting on four performances a day for eight days. The center splits the ticket proceeds with the troupes, making it one of the few places to generate revenue.

The American University in Cairo With enlightened director Frank Bradley at the helm, AUC’s two new theaters on Falaki Street have become regular venues for independent performances, replacing the Wallace Theater, which for many years acted as the link between the university and Cairo’s cultural scene.

Cairo Opera House Although this doesn’t count as an independent venue, it is, nevertheless, an important new space. Inaugurated in October 1988, the Japan-funded Opera House opened with much fanfare (including, of course, a Kabuki theater show). It has changed the face of Egypt’s cultural life, staging international operas (sometimes even in Arabic translation, like Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro), concerts and ballets (the Bolshoi played to many full houses over the years); and inviting foreign philharmonic orchestras. I’ll also throw in the gorgeous Sayed Darwish theater in Alexandria (restored at a cost of LE 25 million), officially the Alexandria Opera House since January.

Egypt Today Archives Modern dance guru Walid Aouni

Most AnnoyingTheater Habit

It’s a tie! The joint award goes to:

Applaud Me The habit of heralding an actor’s first appearance on stage with shouting and hullabaloo. This is a cue for the audience to welcome him with rapturous applause, whereupon he stops in mid-stride and takes his bows before uttering a single word. Marginally acceptable only for the most famous of stars, this habit has reached epidemic proportions. It holds up the action, inflates already overblown egos and is altogether a thorough nuisance.

Effet El-Rokab Literally translated as “knees effect,” the phrase is theater-speak to describe the act of repeating the last word of an impassioned monologue three times, then falling to your knees, another signal for the audience to burst into thunderous applause. Example: “Without you I’m lost, lost, LOST!” Fall to knees. Clap-Clap-Clap. (In whichever sense of the word you choose to interpret it.)

Ashraf Talaat/Egypt Today Enrique Iglesias

Most importanttheater managers

Three names loom larger than all the rest: Hoda Wasfi, director of Hanager, and Walid Aouni, director of the Modern Dance Troupe and head of the Modern Dance School at the Artistic Creativity Center (the state-of-the-art facility which opened its doors at the Opera House Grounds in 2002). Both created thriving cultural phenomena out of nothing. Abdel-Moneim Kamel, director-choreographer of the Cairo Opera Ballet, also deserves an honorable mention for turning the ailing company around and infusing it with new blood and discipline. Only two weeks ago he replaced ex-military man Samir Farag (who is now the governor of Luxor) as director of the Cairo Opera House.

tupidest idiotsin the Field

There are many, many of these. By a narrow margin, the grand prize winners are the doorkeepers of Cairo’s Puppet Theater.

During the 2003 Experimental Theater Festival, I, along with two of my female students, was stopped at the entrance and was told: “No girls allowed.” My indignant “I beg your pardon?” was met with the elaboration that the play contained scenes not suitable for girls to see.

Not all girls, though, were denied entrance; the edict was limited to banat (virgins) only, as the usher helpfully explained. He was confused when I inquired how he proposed to ascertain that rather private fact.

And the plot thickens. Aghast, I demanded to know who came up with the decree and the answer was, “Your mother.” I declared (mouth wide open) that I was sure my mother a theater critic had said no such thing, whereupon he hastily conferred with a colleague and asked me to take it up with the ticket saleslady.

“Oh, no,” she said, all smiles. “The Spanish director only said “No entry for muhaggabet [veiled women].”

I was certain that no Spanish director would ever say such a thing, if only for fear of causing an international incident. It eventually transpired that the play inside was from Poland, and that the Spanish company had left the night before anyway. I’m sure you agree that these people’s singular prowess should not have gone unrewarded.

Big-budget fiascos and a glimmer of hope

The rebirth of Verdi’s opera Aida is at the top of the list here. I remember tottering on six-inch stilettos at age 15 into the first Aida to be staged at the Pyramids and resolving never to wear heels again as I walked forever to the car when the promised shuttle never materialized.

That aside, this Aida and the next (also privately-sponsored in Luxor) where Placido Domingo sang and Prince Charles attended, were nirvanas of organization compared to later fiascos. The Opera-House-orchestrated 1994 and 1997 shows lost about LE 9 million each. The latter was an outright scandal, with lighting and props missing.

Still, those pale in comparison to fiascos such as Verdi’s Othello. The scene of the crime was Fort Qait Bey during the Alexandrias of the World Festival in September 1996. Directed by Gian-Carlo del Monaco, the show was stopped on the second day after Act 1.A rumor that the sponsor actually took off with the money remains unproven, but the fact remains that in mid-performance, the international stars thanked the audience for their understanding, explained that there was no set, no props, no pay, and that all they asked was to be left to go home in peace.

An equally major international scandal took place in August 1998, with the Patricia Kaas/Coolio concert, when Egyptian Immigration officials detained Kaas for two hours. It would have been alright if they hadn’t seized her equipment and asked her to mime to a recording. She finally canceled in exasperation.

Still, the recent Enrique Iglesias, Shaggy and Blue concerts at Media Production City have gotten rave reviews, and, come to think of it, so did the 2002 Aida. Can it be that our jinx is finally about to end?

Reality bites

In Ismailia, on October 7, 1996, President Hosni Mubarak was attending the annual Sixth of October War festivities. The customary security precautions were in place, cordons and guards everywhere.

One of the highlights of this open-air event is an impressive spectacle with hundreds of soldiers borrowed from the army standing in endless rows on the desert dunes and hills, carrying blazing torches. To cut a long story short, some genius decided to replace the oil in the torches with gasoline, and at 9:40 pm, the hot, dry wind blew some of the flaming liquid onto the men.

Their costumes caught fire and their screams sounded over the assistant director’s walkie-talkies. The assistants grabbed fire extinguishers and began to rush to the rescue, only to be stopped by the President’s security guards. Stone-faced, the guards even refused to put out the fire themselves because they weren’t allowed to leave their posts.

The next day, the papers ran images of the President visiting the casualties in hospital. No mention was made of the five men who were burned alive that night.  et