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
