Author: Dina A. Amin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
As one of Egyptian theater’s leading contempo-rary playwrights, Alfred Farag has had a profound influence on shaping Arabic drama and Egyptian cultural politics during the past five decades. His plays interrogate the human condition, exposing the struggles of nonheroic individuals faced with political, social, and economic abuse. Farag’s dramatic themes, his tireless campaign to democratize the theater, and his encouragement of cultural awareness in the remote and rural regions of Egypt as well as the cities led to his battles with censorship, imprisonment, and exile. This remarkable writer’s indomitable spirit is clearly displayed by spending significant time while imprisoned writing plays for performances by his fellow prisoners. In the first book-length examination of his work in English, Dina Amin chronicles Farag’s career and offers a critical perspective on his creative output and the condition of Egyptian theater in the 1970s through the 1990s. Farag is best known for the folkloric and neorealist plays he produced during the sixties, but critics have consistently overlooked the immense body of work produced in the thirty years that followed. Filling that gap, Amin offers an account of the sophisticated development of his later work, revealing his bold experimentation and successful embrace of modernist, absurdist, and postmodern styles. With fresh insight, Amin contextualizes these works within Farag’s own creative history and the larger history of Arabic theater. This critical text includes four complete short plays and a monologue translated for the first time into En-glish and will bring a much-deserved wider audience to the work of this extraordinary dramatist.
Author: Margaret Litvin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137803
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
For the past five decades, Arab intellectuals have seen themselves in Shakespeare's Hamlet: their times "out of joint," their political hopes frustrated by a corrupt older generation. Hamlet's Arab Journey traces the uses of Hamlet in Arabic theatre and political rhetoric, and asks how Shakespeare's play developed into a musical with a happy ending in 1901 and grew to become the most obsessively quoted literary work in Arab politics today. Explaining the Arab Hamlet tradition, Margaret Litvin also illuminates the "to be or not to be" politics that have turned Shakespeare's tragedy into the essential Arab political text, cited by Arab liberals, nationalists, and Islamists alike. On the Arab stage, Hamlet has been an operetta hero, a firebrand revolutionary, and a muzzled dissident. Analyzing productions from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait, Litvin follows the distinct phases of Hamlet's naturalization as an Arab. Her fine-grained theatre history uses personal interviews as well as scripts and videos, reviews, and detailed comparisons with French and Russian Hamlets. The result shows Arab theatre in a new light. Litvin identifies the French source of the earliest Arabic Hamlet, shows the outsize influence of Soviet and East European Shakespeare, and explores the deep cultural link between Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and the ghost of Hamlet's father. Documenting how global sources and models helped nurture a distinct Arab Hamlet tradition, Hamlet's Arab Journey represents a new approach to the study of international Shakespeare appropriation.
Author: Sirkku Aaltonen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317368266
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
This study of Egyptian theatre and its narrative construction explores the ways representations of Egypt are created of and within theatrical means, from the 19th century to the present day. Essays address the narratives that structure theatrical, textual, and performative representations and the ways the rewriting process has varied in different contexts and at different times. Drawing on concepts from Theatre and Performance Studies, Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Diaspora Studies, scholars and practitioners from Egypt and the West enter into dialogue with one another, expanding understanding of the different fields. The articles focus on the ways theatre texts and performances change (are rewritten) when crossing borders between different worlds. The concept of rewriting is seen to include translation, transformation, and reconstruction, and the different borders may be cultural and national, between languages and dramaturgies, or borders that are present in people’s everyday lives. Essays consider how rewritings and performances cross borders from one culture, nation, country, and language to another. They also study the process of rewriting, the resulting representations of foreign plays on stage, and representations of the Egyptian revolution on stage and in Tahrir Square. This assessment of the relationship between theatre practices, exchanges, and rewritings in Egyptian theatre brings vital coverage to an undervisited area and will be of interest to developments in theatre translation and beyond.
Author: Carmen M. K. Gitre
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477319204
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during the “protectorate” period of British occupation in Egypt—theaters and other performance sites were vital for imagining, mirroring, debating, and shaping competing conceptions of modern Egyptian identity. Central figures in this diverse spectrum were the effendis, an emerging class of urban, male, anticolonial professionals whose role would ultimately become dominant. Acting Egyptian argues that performance themes, spaces, actors, and audiences allowed pluralism to take center stage while simultaneously consolidating effendi voices. From the world premiere of Verdi’s Aida at Cairo’s Khedivial Opera House in 1871 to the theatrical rhetoric surrounding the revolution of 1919, which gave women an opportunity to link their visibility to the well-being of the nation, Acting Egyptian examines the ways in which elites and effendis, men and women, used newly built performance spaces to debate morality, politics, and the implications of modernity. Drawing on scripts, playbills, ads, and numerous other sources, the book brings to life provocative debates that fostered a new image of national culture and performances that echoed the events of urban life in the struggle for independence.
Author: Roaa Ali
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040103898
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
This book is a ground-breaking collection on contemporary Arab theatre. Through three sections discussing occupation and resistance, diaspora, migration, and refugees, and nationalism and belonging, this study provides nuanced responses to the contested points of intersection between Arab culture and the West, as well as many of the major concerns within contemporary Arab theatre. The collection draws together scholars from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the United States who write about Arab theatre and the representation of Arabs on European and American stages. It introduces concerns in contemporary Arab theatre, the regions in which Arab theatre is performed, and the issues with representations of Arabs onstage. This volume will be of great significance for those interested in expanding the range of global, postcolonial, African, Asian, or diasporic theatre that they study, teach, or stage.
Author: Tiran Manucharyan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003855113
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
This book examines the transformations Egyptian theatre has undergone since 1967. Through detailed analyses of the plays, the book investigates the ways Egyptian theatre represents, formulates, and imagines political and cultural leadership and, by implication, enacts its own leadership. Alongside the work of established playwrights, such as Yusuf Idris, Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny, Fathia El-ʿAssal and Lenin El-Ramly, it also discusses the input in theatre of a younger generation, reflecting the new transformations in Egyptian theatre following the 2011 revolution. Relating the theoretical underpinnings of its analyses to theoretical discussions by Egyptian playwrights, the book contributes to current English-language scholarship in theatre studies, by providing a discourse largely absent from it. Considering the growing sense in English-language academia on the need for research and education beyond the Western canon this book offers an important addition to the study resources. This book will interest both scholars and students who study the Arab world, and researchers and students with an interest in cultural studies, more specifically twentieth- and twenty-first-century theatre, and literature studies. The book’s specific focus on political theatre and its gender perspective make it also of interest to the fields of political and gender studies.
Author: Beth Baron
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190072741
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 601
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Book Description
The essays in this Oxford Handbook rethink the modern history of one of the most important and influential countries in the Middle East--Egypt. For a country and region so often understood in terms of religion and violence, this work explores environmental, medical, legal, cultural, and political histories. It gives readers an excellent view of the current debates in Egyptian history.
Author: Marvin Carlson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350316253
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 82
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Book Description
This insightful and engaging new title in the Theatre & series explores the various connections between theatre and Islam. Drawing on both historical and recent examples to trace their relationship and offer a new perspective on a topical subject, this persuasive text argues against a long-standing assumption that Islam has worked in opposition to theatrical presentation. From the 13th century puppet plays of Ibn Daniyal to Islamic themes in 21st century productions, Theatre and Islam is chronologically wide-ranging and ambitious in its scope. Ambitious yet concise, this is the perfect introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students of religious studies, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies and drama.
Author: Allana Lindgren
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317696158
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 977
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Book Description
The Modernist World is an accessible yet cutting edge volume which redraws the boundaries and connections among interdisciplinary and transnational modernisms. The 61 new essays address literature, visual arts, theatre, dance, architecture, music, film, and intellectual currents. The book also examines modernist histories and practices around the globe, including East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and Oceania, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Arab World, as well as the United States and Canada. A detailed introduction provides an overview of the scholarly terrain, and highlights different themes and concerns that emerge in the volume. The Modernist World is essential reading for those new to the subject as well as more advanced scholars in the area – offering clear introductions alongside new and refreshing insights.
Author: Salma Khadra (ed.) Jayyusi
Publisher: Interlink Books
ISBN: 1623710642
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 778
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Book Description
It is only in fairly recent times that Arab writers have turned their hands to the theater. This collection of nineteen short plays is evidence of the remarkable strides made as numerous playwrights have come to grips with the problems and potential involved with this genre. The essence of the collection is its sheer variety. The subject matter ranges from the horrors of a political prison camp to the comic tribulations of furtive lovers trapped in a minefield, from historical fable to the world of official bureaucracy, while dramatic treatments range from the conventional to the highly experimental, some using surreal techniques—now disturbing, now hilariously amusing. Many of the plays use humor or pungent satire to address distinctively Arab issues and problems, whether these have their source outside or inside the Arab world itself. The collection gives a valuable insight into a fast-changing and increasingly distinctive area of modern Arabic literature. Featured authors and plays: Yusuf al-'Ani -- Where the Power Lies Fateh Azzam and others -- Ansar Samia Qazmouz Bakri -- The Alley Mahmoud Diyab -- Men Have Heads Ahmad Ibrahim al-Fagih -- The Singing of the Stars Alfred Farag -- The Person Tawfiq al-Hakim -- Boss Kanduz’s Apartment Building Tawfiq al-Hakim -- War and Peace Jamal Abu Hamdan -- Actress J’s Burial Night Walid Ikhlasi -- Pleasure Club 21 Riad Ismat -- Was Dinner Good, Dear Sister? Raymond Jbarra -- The Traveler Sultan Ben Muhammad al-Qasimi -- The Return of Hulegu 'Ali Salim -- The Coffee Bar Mamduh Udwan -- The Mask Mamduh Udwan -- Reflections of a Garbage Collector Sa'd al-Din Wahba -- The Height of Wisdom Sa'dallah Wannus -- The Glass Café Sa'dallah Wannus -- The King's Elephant
