Shakespeare alive and well in Tunisia

Today was the third anniversary of Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation, the official spark that ignited the so-called Arab Spring. Whatever else may be happening in Tunisia (national dialogue, uneasy negotiations between secularists and Islamists
On BBC this morning, Lise Doucette began her polyglot report on Tunisia (download here; listen at 11:00 - then go back and notice the cultural politics of language, how Rachid Ghannouchi and some others speak beautiful standard Arabic, Beji Caid Essebsi predictably speaks French, the Salafists speak accented and French-inflected but extremely expressive English...) from a theatre, Toufik Jebali's Teatro, where the new cycle of his satirical show Klem Ellil Zero Virgule (Night Talk Zero Comma, or 0.00 as we might translate it in English) was playing to what others described as packed houses.
"And you use Shakespeare - why use Shakespeare in this very Tunisian production?" she asks Raouf Ben Amor, obviously intrigued."And is it a comedy?"  "Nooo, a tragedy," he insists jauntily. "A tragedy that we meet with as a comedy."
Jebali has posted 16 mins of clips from the show (with French subtitles) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kELqhhtyoA.  Look for the Hamlet lines starting around 2:57, where Hamlet's "Seems, madam?" speech is addressed (in English) to a niqab-wearing mannequin in a weird critique of Islamists' "customary suits of solemn black" and all the hypocrisy they connote.  Then around 6:50 for the inevitable 2B||!2B:
(It seems Ben Amor is taking the occasion to reminisce about his days as a theatre student in London in the 1970s.)

And of course, the obsession with morgues and gravediggers, the feeling of danse macabre throughout.  As reviewer Asma Drissi puts it:

Dans Klem Ellil zéro virgule, Shakespeare trouve bien sa place, les apparitions de Raouf Ben Amor dans des monologues d'Hamlet ou de Macbeth viennent souligner cette obsession de la mort. Des têtes, des membres, des corps avec des excroissances totalement difformes, des monstres, en somme... il semblerait que Jebali veuille nous dire que nous avons accouché d'un monstre!?

And she goes on to point out that the habit of reading between the lines of a play script, decoding the taboos, so well developed under the authoritarian Arab rulers of the past 40 years, still works to enhance theatregoers' pleasure in Tunisia even today:

Entre rires et émotions qui nous prennent à la gorge, Klem Ellil zéro virgule nous livre tout, sans discours directs et enflammés... lire entre les lignes et s'adonner à un exercice intellectuel pour décrypter les non-dits; c'est à cela que nous invite Jebali, mais on peut aussi se suffire au simple rire libérateur que nous offre cette pièce, le théâtre de Jebali a toujours fonctionné ainsi... A vous de choisir votre propre lecture des choses.

Among other bits of Shakespeariana in Tunisia: another show last summer from serial Shakespeare adaptaer Mohamed Kouka, called Shakespeare Ech Jebou Lena.  Apparently it "offers a humorous take on how Shakespeare's comedies are still relevant in contemporary society." 

And of course there's the semi-expat production of "Macbeth: Leila and Ben" (which has been mentioned here before) - enjoying quite a run after London's 2012 World Shakespeare Festival.  It was warmly received in Tunisia last spring. Although "much awaited" at the Carthage Theatre Days festival last month (which sounded amazing), it was canceled at the last moment for health reasons when director Lotfi Achour had to be hospitalized in Paris; Jebali's play was scheduled instead.  Hopefully Achour has recovered; last week the show toured to Sao Paulo, Brazil!  It's scheduled to open at Paris's Tarmac Theatre in January 2014.

offers a humorous take on how Shakespeare’s comedies are still relevant in contemporary society. - See more at: http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/05/15/what-is-on-in-tunis-may-15-22/#sthash.nr2OmF4K.dpuf

offers a humorous take on how Shakespeare’s comedies are still relevant in contemporary society. - See more at: http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/05/15/what-is-on-in-tunis-may-15-22/#sthash.nr2OmF4K.dpuf

 

Early reviews of the Tunisian Macbeth

The surtitles caused problems, but the show seems to have been effective at least in stimulating people's emotions, if not in teaching them anything very new about Tunisia or Shakespeare. The big achievement - scenographically as well as politically - seems to have been the commentary on the "puppet" nature of Ben Ali's regime: a puppet to Bourghiba, to his wife, to the authoritarian structure of events demanding a dictator to come and fill the space.

Ibrahim Darwish's long column (in Arabic) focuses on the dis/similarities between Shakespeare's Macbeth (motivated by ambition and some idea of masculinity) and the Tunisian Ben Ali; he also highlights the production's critique of the original sins of the Bourghiba regime, conveyed through inter-scene documentary footage (including discussion of Ibn Khaldun), the voice of the narrator, and the puppet show.

A kind but ambivalent blog review by Miriam Gillinson (also here) faults the show for trying to overload on ideas, but somehow settles on the cliche of praising the "simple" and "raw" (not to mention "pulsing" and "throbbing") qualities of African-produced theatre. I think the song she refers to at the end is Abu Qasim al-Shabbi's poem, "If a people one day wanted life" (multiple translations and discussion here), which has played such an important part in the Arab uprisings:

But then the production veers off again, now focusing on the strange power that Bourguiba still holds over his predecessor, Ben Ali. This has promise – after all, the idea of regal ghosts haunting their successors has a rich, Shakespearean twang to it. There’s a wonderfully weird scene, in which a larger than life model of Bourguiba taunts Ben Ali, mocking his achievements. But this idea is sustained only for a few minutes before the show scampers off again, eagerly in pursuit of other ideas.
The most effective scenes are the seemingly slight ones – the simple scenes that, almost incidentally, throb with immediate meaning. There are a number of wrenching songs that say far more about Tunisia and its trapped citizens than the rest of the show put together. The style of singing – the same singing you hear calling people to prayer at mosques – pulses with revealing contradictions. That searing wailing sounds pained but resilient, too.  It’s a little bit ugly but there’s also a raw beauty and power to the music, which screams out on behalf of all those citizens who have neither the strength or means to make themselves heard.

Another reviewer's experience provokes a diatribe against subtitles:

Throughout, the giant screen at the back keeps up a running subtitle commentary in rather disjointed English. It is more confusing than enlightening and muddles the effect of all of the hard work by the actors. The screen is so big that reading full sentences really gives your eyes a work-out and there are parts where they flash by so fast it is a struggle to keep up. Why choose to base a production on such a well-known Shakespeare, if you then feel you have to provide a word-for-word translation to keep people up to speed?

For more on the show, including pictures of the interesting puppet sequence, see director Lotfi Achour's Facebook page, particularly this album.  And there's still time to catch it in Newcastle (and respond to my discussion questions)

If you're in London or Newcastle: Tunisian Macbeth

I was flirting with buying a last-minute plane ticket to go see the Tunisia-themed Macbeth adaptation, but looks like it won't happen. So I'd love to hear from friends and colleagues who are going to get to see it in London this weekend or Newcastle next weekend. Specifically, some things I'd love to know, besides general questions of scenography/performance/multimedia use/etc:

• how does the show reinforce/challenge the expectation of the folks in Stratford&London who commissioned it?  (I take these expectations to be: Shakespeare is Global, all you participating companies are local.)
• how does it corroborate or play with British preconceptions about the "Arab Spring"? Is it generally optimistic/pessimistic? How does it show the causes of the uprising?  the role of the West in it?
• how rich is the engagement with Shakespeare? is it just a pretext (Laila=Lady M, something you see in media accounts all the time) or do the adapters work to find interesting equivalents for the witches, ghosts, orphans, other plot or character details?
• as a show partly funded by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture, i.e. by an Islamist-leaning government its directors don't very much like, how does it address the question of transition - is there a Macduff? - is there peace and closure at the end? or darkness and censorship? or...?
• what kind of language games are played? Is there significance to any code-switching between fuSHa and 3ammiyya, or integration of English or French?
• how is Tunisian culture portrayed or not portrayed?
• how does the show speak differently to different audiences, with their different levels/types of background knowledge and different interests (Shakespeare buffs, political junkies, expats, etc.)?  Is it possible to get a range of reactions from non-Arab Londoners, Arabs in London, Tunisians in London, eventually (if it ever tours there) Tunisians back home?  Who laughs at which jokes?
• how are documentary sources (e.g., news footage?) integrated into the play? What's their function?

I will happily credit and post here as guest articles any responses I receive by email or as comments to the blog.  Thanks much!