Seven Egyptian plays to participate in CIFCET

CAIRO - 12 September 2017: Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theatre (CIFCET) is gearing up for its 24th edition, running from September 19 to 29, featuring an array of interactive seminars, workshops, and plays, the board announced on Sunday.

Seven Egyptian theatrical performances will participate, including “The Day They Killed Singing”, “The Bridge”, “The 40 Rules of Love”, “The Experiment”, “Shaman”, “The Ambassador”, and “Women with No Tomorrow”.

“The Day they Killed Singing” presents the struggle between two brothers in their quest for the cause of existence and mystery of the universe. It examines the conflict between the spirit of tolerance and love on the one hand, with fanaticism and hatred on the other hand.

The show is composed by Mahmoud Gamal and directed by Tamer Karam, starring Alaa Quqa, Yasser Sadek, Hamada Shousha, Tarek Sabri, Mohamed Nasser, and Hind Abdel Halim. ”The Day They Killed Singing” opened on March 30 and was awarded the first-place prize at the 10th edition of the National Festival of Egyptian Theatre.

Based on the novel by Elif Shafak, the musical “The 40 Rules of Love” is directed by Adel Hassan. Earlier this year, the play opened at Masrah El-Salam (Peace Theatre) and made almost LE 1 million ($56,484) within two months.

The play’s plotline revolves around a 40-year old woman, Ella, who is in an unhappy marriage. As a reader for a literary agency, she becomes heavily engulfed by a book she is working on.

“The Bridge” is about the Arta Bridge myth, where the people of Arta dreamed of building a bridge connecting the river banks. They put their trust in the Grand Master of masons. The bridge was destroyed at night, only to be rebuilt and destroyed once again. The community moreover began to believe that a curse was chasing the bridge.

The play is written by George Theotika, with music compositions by Mohamed El-Sawy, starring Amina Omar, Ahmed Yousry, and Hatem Elwi.

The idea of “Shamman’s” play revolves around the existence of many mental and spiritual diseases within one’s subconscious. Those diseases are clues that involve the Sufi spiritual experience, which represents innocence and love in its descriptive meaning.

The play stars May Roushdy, Mostafa El-Zayat, Mohamed Abdel Fattah, and Ahmed Raafaat and is directed by Saeed Soliman.

The experimental play idea revolves around the famed German character Kaspar Hauser, who lived in a miniscule vault isolated from others until he grew up without properly learning the simplest human actions such as speech, walking, recognition, hearing, and play.

The play is written by Peter Handaka and directed by Ahmed Ezzat.

“The Ambassador” discusses the idea of war, and aims to show that the force is not in war but in the word. The plot centres on human peace we lose today in Arab countries because of wars and struggles. The play is directed by Ahmed el-Salamony.

“Women with No Tomorrow” tackles the tragedy of three Syrian refugees in Germany, who live together and share intricate details of their life. The play depicts the strained relations between them and how the circumstances leading to their departure from Syria affected their feelings of security.

The play is written by Gawad el-Asady and directed by Nour Ghanem.

CIFCET manager Nasser Abdel Moneim revealed on Sunday in the press conference to announce the festival details that over 200 theatre troupes have applied to participate in this edition.

Organized by the Ministry of Culture, the festival will also feature a performance of Anton Chekhov’s ”Three Sisters”. Additionally, the schedule includes other Arab theatrical performances, including Jordan’s “Shadow of a Female”, “Iraqi On Private”, “Iraqi Cart”, Morocco’s “Balasmya”, Moroccan play “Fall”, Tunisia’s “Fall Night”, and Tunisian play “Women in Resistance and Love”.

In parallel with the performances, seminars are due to begin on September 20 highlighting several themes including ”Aesthetics of Performance and the Cultures of Observation”, “Theatre between Heritage and City”, “Forms of Contemporary Theatre and Issues Concerned”, and “Dissimilating Cultural Assumptions and Mainstream Discourses”, according to the CIFCET official press release.

CIFCET encourages the participation of youth theatrical troupes, who would develop by participating in the festival through observation and research introduced in the free-entry workshops.

The festival will host five honorary guests, including Theatre Professor at the University of Berlin Erika Fischer, art and literary critic Hassan El Mone’ei, American Dramaturg and Professor at City University of New York Marvin Carlson, theatre director Myung Jin Choi, and the late playwright Mahfouz Abdel Rahman.