Theatre, Drama & Cinema
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
Poetics, Politics and Protest in Arab Theatre
The Bitter Cup and the Holy Rain
Mas’ud Hamdan is a writer and lecturer at the University of Haifa (Theatre and Arabic Literature departments). He is the recipient of The Landau Fund Prize & The Yitzhak Rabin Prize. He has published numerous articles on Arabic and Hebrew Literature and Theatre, a novelette, a collection of short stories, three poetry anthologies, three plays and a film.
Syrians have always revelled in political theatre,
which has flourished in Damascus since 1967. But to date there has
been very little research on the protest plays written by the Syrians
Durayd Lahham (b. 1934) and Muhammad al-Maghout (b. 1934). This
book highlights the so far unappreciated merit of these plays, which
for so long have been unexplored by the world theatre community,
and which are representative of the new wave of Arab theatrical
realization.
The author surveys the semi-theatrical phenomena – their popular orientation
and their Eastern carnivalesque folk sources – in the Arab
world from the Hellenic period to the beginning of the twenty-first
century. A primary focus is to explain the reasons behind the tendency
towards comedy rather than tragedy, an issue long neglected by scholars.
The plays are discussed in terms of former plebeian Arabic theatrical
manifestations, and as an aesthetic medium for alternative mass
communication. “Ghawwar”, the famous character type
created by Lahham symbolizes a poetical link between the “bitter
cup” of a miserable present and the “holy rain”
of a better future.
| Hardback ISBN: | 978-1-84519-106-1 |
| Hardback Price: | £49.50 / $67.50 |
| Release Date: | December 2005 |
| Paperback ISBN: | 978-1-84519-224-2 |
| Paperback Price: | £25.00 / $34.95 |
| Release Date: | September 2103 |
| Page Extent / Format: | 272 pp. / 229 x 152 mm |
| Illustrated: | No |
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Theatrical Genres and the Carnivalesque:
Art of the Theatre
Socio-Cultural Sources and Functions
Ritual, Festival, Carnival, Play, Satire and Theatre: Common
Elements among Universal Phenomena
The First Genres: Tragedy and Comedy
Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian Art: The Bakhtinian Source?
Bakhtin's Historical Poetics and Theory of Genres
The Grotesque and "Grotesque Realism"
Carnivalesque Satire
2 Theatre in the Arab World: The Historical
Background
Semi-Theatrical and Semi-Carnivalesque Phenomena: From the
Hellenistic Period until the Beginning of the 20th Century
Shadow Theatre, the Karagoz (Kara Gyooz), and the Texts of
Ibn Daniyal (1248–1311?)
Marun al-Naqqash (1817–1855): Father of the Modern Arabic
Theatre
The Musical Theatre of Ahmad Abu Khalil al-Qabbani (1835–1902):
The Father of Syrian Theatre
Al-Shawk: Arabic Political Theatre in Syria after 1967
3 The Early Comedies of Durayd Lahham and Nihad Qal'i: Birth
Pangs of Late Satire
Maqalib Ghawwar and Sah al-Num
4 When a Gay Rogue Grows to be a Tragic
Fool: The Carnivalesque Satires
The Medium of the People: The Collective Spirit as Heroine
The Eccentric "Soldiers" of the Satiric Attack: The Naïve
Fool, the Lunatic, the Drunk, and the Dead Man
Familiarity as a Satirical Tool: Misalliance of Types and
Unity of Opposites
Mundus Inversus (World Upside-down): Mock Crowning and De-crowning
The Carnivalesque Chronotope in the Plays of Lahham and al-Maghout
Appendix I: The Films of Lahham and al-Maghout: Al-Hudud and Al-Taqrir
Appendix II: Dialogic Strategies in
"Al-Tasyees": The Theatre of Sa'dallah Wannus
(1941–1997)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Drawing on the historical poetics
of Nietzsche and particularly his Apollonian/Dionysian formulations
and Bakhtin’s dialogic carnivalesque element, the book makes
an important contribution to the field of Performance Studies not
only in the Arab World but elsewhere. If the religion of Islam is
claimed to be diametrically opposed to conflict, representation,
and mimesis, does it mean that the Arabo-Islamic civilization was
devoid of performance phenomena, particularly festive theatricality?
Indeed, Hamdan provides ample evidence that despite the circulation
of ideas that oppose theatrical representation in an Islamic context,
many theatrical aspects remained eclipsed in the spheres of Arabo-Islamic
popular forms of entertainment and festivities. However, dramatic
literature was left as one of the least developed forms of literary
expressions in the Arabo-Islamic heritage.
Digest of Middle
East Studies
This is an excellent contribution
to the study of the dynamics of the Arab cultural system in modern
times, especially
against the
background of the current limited research in the field. Arab and
Western scholars have generally ignored the non-canonized texts and
activities in Arab society although it has been proven that the study
of such texts and activities and their relationships and interactions
with the canonical cultural circles are essential if we want to arrive
at an adequate understanding of the historical development of Arab
culture and to truly perceive the general literary taste of the present
period and the horizons of native readers.
... By adopting a socio-historical approach this study is the
first major attempt to highlight the unappreciated merit of
the non-canonized protest plays jointly written by the Syrian
artists Durayd Lahham and Muhammad al-Maghout. As illustrated
by the complicated and multi-layered personality of Ghawwar
– the famous and popular character created by Lahham
– Hamdan's study combines art with politics, the heritage
of the past with the innovations of the present, East with
West and lower class-consciousness with Pan-Arab nationalism.
Professor Reuven Snir, Dept. of Arabic Language &
Literature, University of Haifa
An important addition to the current debate on
Arabo-Islamic theatre.
Digest of Middle East Studies
Books can be ordered by phone or online
Ordering in the UK, Europe, Asia, Australasia, South America and Rest of the World
Gazelle Book Services
Direct sales tel.: +44 (0)1524 528500; email: sales@gazellebookservices.co.uk
Web ordering: www.gazellebookservices.co.uk
Ordering in the United States and Canada
Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
Direct sales tel.: (800) 888-4741
Web ordering: www.ipgbook.com
Bookseller Ordering
Information is provided under the Resources tab.
eBook Ordering
e-Book type availability can be sourced via www.ipgbook.com by book title. Kindle availability is via Amazon .com and .co.uk sites.