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Perhaps not many people know that the National Theatre in Egypt is located in the heart of Attaba Square, the most famous and crowded street vendor market in Cairo. It is adjacent to the Vanguard Theatre, which began in the 1960s under the name “Pocket Theatre”, in the same square crowded with vendors and those coming to Cairo from the far reaches of the countryside or leaving it to an unknown destination they do not know.
The Pocket Theatre was the nucleus of experimentation for a different era of theatrical art, headed by the artist Saad Ardash and after him Karam Mattawa. The avant-garde presented an Egyptian vision of world theatre, as it kept pace with the theatrical movement in Europe, moving away from presenting shows by Arab writers. Then, for the first time after the 1967 setback, an Arab play was presented by an Algerian writer about resisting the coloniser.
Opera singing in Al-Attaba Market
Experimentation is still the basis of what is presented in most of the works presented on the stage of the Vanguard Theatre, and the play “Opera Al-Ataba” by its director Hani Afifi comes at the forefront of the works that are inspired by the spirit of experimentation upon which Ardash established the rules of pocket theatre. It is a model of imitation of the art of theatre that began in the street in ancient Europe and from there it spread to the world, in his play that presented for the first time the art of opera singing to an audience of street vendors and ordinary Egyptians who frequented the Al-Ataba market.
Afifi chose to start his show with a male and female singer performing an operatic performance in the heart of the popular market, where the voices gradually move from a state of continuous noise to a prevailing calm, leaving only the voice of art.
After its first scene, the events of the play move to the stage, and with it the state of chaos and commotion moves from the vendors to inside the theater, to show the state of contradiction between the intellectual isolated among books and arts alone, and the street vendors who invaded his isolation to understand what is going on in that place, and then the events of the play begin.
When did traditional arts become “elitist”?
“Theatre is the father of all arts and it must remain so. Unfortunately, there is a state of disconnect between the street and theatre, which is treated as an elitist art, even though it has never been so,” Hani Afifi, director of the “Opera Al-Attaba” show, told Al Jazeera Net. His latest play on the stage of the Al-Tali’aa Theatre – the 13th play in his artistic career – is one of the most important works he has presented in his history, because it connects the reality of the intellectual who is far from his society through the main idea of the show that appears in the first scene we present in the street, where passersby or vendors do not know that there is a theatre in that part of the market in the first place.
The show, as its director Hani Afifi described it to Al Jazeera Net, is not a traditional play in the usual sense of having chapters, a beginning and an end. Rather, it is a collection of different sketches that all converge around the idea of the isolation of elite arts and their decline from society, and the superiority of weak content presented on social media sites in the face of the decline of authentic artistic values that the public used to look forward to in the past on stage, in cinemas or in various cultural forums. The theatrical show “Opera Al-Ataba” includes singing, movement and dance performances, in addition to classical theatrical acting.
Realism is the basis of experimentation and the universal text is not a necessity
Regarding the actors’ and audience’s reception of the idea, Afifi says, “The show was basically an initiative by director Adel Hassan, director of the Vanguard Theatre, who wanted the theatre to present a show inspired by the spirit of the Vanguard Theatre’s beginnings at the Egyptian Experimental Theatre Festival, expecting that I would present a global or traditional text, but I surprised him with the idea of the show, in which I was inspired by the spirit of the place, the experience of its residents, and their relationship with the theatre. He liked it and we began implementing it.”
Afifi did not expect the success that the play achieved, especially among ordinary people who were not interested in theatre in the first place, and other than the elites who filled the state theatres, but it was a fragile fullness that did not provide evidence of the theatre’s deep roots in society.
Afifi points to the state of astonishment drawn on the faces of ordinary citizens passing by the theatre when they see the operatic scene in the street, and sometimes mockery, and joy and ecstasy most of the time, as there are still some who remember the great days of Egyptian theatre and Egyptian opera, when these arts were presented to the general public to elevate their taste, feelings and lives in general.
Theatre decline
Afifi does not believe that the cost of a theatre ticket is the reason for this, as many people pay hundreds of pounds for a meal in a restaurant, a cinema ticket or an amusement park ticket, but “the main reason for the decline of theatre is the lack of attention of new actors to the value of the art of theatre and their inability to see that it is the lasting art and the impact that lasts after their demise, and the best evidence of this is the plays that are still shown on occasions despite the passage of decades since their production.”
The performance of “Opera El-Atba” will continue to be presented at the Vanguard Theatre after the end of the Egyptian Experimental Theatre Festival, at dates that will be decided later, according to the director, who confirms that “the performance was written and designed primarily for the Vanguard Theatre, and so far there is no possibility of presenting it on other theatres.”
