Back to Back – Dalia Shams

The title was chosen so that we know from the beginning that this play “is not Romeo and Juliet” because it is not a quote from a famous Shakespeare work, but a text written specifically for the National Theatre. The staging is based on the idea of ​​Muhammad Al-Soury and director Issam Al-Sayed, with poetic expression by Amin Haddad. After a long wait, this outstanding team succeeded in bringing us a musical performance in the true sense of the word, where music is not an additional or secondary component, but a play that relies on singing in its dramatic structure, which helps the flow and development of events.
Set in the Al Wahda school, the play begins with a violent quarrel between students, and Amin Haddad is confused about how to present it, until he and music composer Ahmed Shatout decide that it should be a “rap battle” conducted by young and determined spirits. The reason for the dispute is the objection of some of the more extreme elements to the existence of a love story between a Christian teacher “Professor Yusuf” (played by Ali Hajar) and his Muslim colleague “Mes Zahra” (played by Rania Farid Shawqi). Then, through the poetic dialogue, it becomes clear that what binds them together is the old friendship relationship between neighbors and neighbors, who grew up together in the Shubra community, which is considered a model of the mixing of social structures between Christians and Muslims. Of course, as the groups say, the stories and rumors about them are all fabricated due to the general state of lurking and “millions of eyes on both sides”.
The school principal (Ezzat Amin) suggested that the students participate in the play “Romeo and Juliet” in order to bring them together for a pleasant work capable of resolving differences and disagreements, betting on the idea of ​​drama therapy and the role of art in the fight against extremism. The occurrence of many dramatic paradoxes is not lacking in lightness and unpretentious comedy, and the message of the play is emphasized several times, especially by the repetition of one of the students (Midoh Adel): “Look at the world with your heart, and then throw away the whole world around you, there is love … there is love.”
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The plot is very simple, as is customary in musicals, and the speech is direct, not allowing for any ambiguity, because we are dealing with a sensitive and difficult topic. It is intended to be clearly conveyed to everyone at a certain moment. The entire Arab region is at risk of being divided along sectarian, ethnic, religious and other grounds.
The idea of ​​dealing with such themes in the form of performance songs has always been popular with the Egyptian public, calling instead for an art history related to the Atabah and Azbakaiya regions, where the National Theater is located. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was linked to the flourishing of lyrical drama, one of the weapons of resistance against the occupiers and the confrontation with the political and social crises of many societies through the plays of the pioneers of this genre, led by Abu Khalil Al-Qabbani, Salama Hegazy and Sayed Darwish. Works in which singing and acting were intertwined with theatrical elements appeared in the theater of that era, as can be seen in the play Not Romeo and Juliet by Issam Said. The dialogues were originally written for singing, and they vary between individuals and groups, whether by composers or sites. This is the responsibility that the poet Amin Haddad took on after a long hesitation, perhaps for fear of entering an experiment, since the theatrical project was first proposed to him in 2014. Eventually director Essam Saeed convinced him, and the latter, in collaboration with choreographer Sherin Hegazi, managed to present a moving musical, which had trained a group of talented amateurs, with light and controlled movements. The compact set design left plenty of room for performance, and the changes in scenery and decoration were fast.
The director has mastered group management. He uses “playbacks” to ensure the quality of the performances without exhausting the performers’ voices. With the help of cinematic techniques, he explains to us the history of the relationship between the heroes or shows us what Egypt was like in the past through old snapshots and scenes that appear on the background screen of the theater. Through the bright and transparent curtain, we understand the meaning of the sentence written by Amin Haddad: “It is as if time has exiled us from Laura.” Inadvertently, we feel nostalgia for this time, and when the images appear, the audience applauds. Words touch their sensitive heartstrings.
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The reaction of the people in the hall was very similar to the feeling during the recent screening of Maggie Morgan’s film “The Letters of Sheikh Daraz” at Zawya Cinema, which many people expressed great enthusiasm for and extended the screening time to meet the demand for viewing. This documentary, which traces the life of the cleric and scholar Muhammad Abdullah Daraz (1894-1958) of Al-Azhar through photographs, his private papers and meetings with his family, also makes us indulge in nostalgia. We miss those days and the spirit of tolerance that the late sheikh represented… Between reason and traffic, he remained independent in the face of all the temptations of power and did not get caught up in the game of politics.
Dissatisfaction with the present and fear of the future leads us to resort to nostalgia. Sadness overwhelms us and we find ourselves clapping or commenting with others in the hall. I notice the gestures on people’s faces in the darkness and the rise and fall of voices. We all feel the same, searching for a time gone by, for the comfort that nostalgia brings in times of crisis, anxiety, isolation and doubt, as recent research describes it, nostalgia is considered a “protective buffer that protects us from existential threats.”
We laughed with Sheikh Daraz’s children and grandchildren, shared memories with them. We burst into tears at the end of the play “Not Romeo and Juliet” when an extremist student set a fire and we feared it would engulf the “Al Wahda” school and wipe out Professor Youssef and Juliet. His voice was heard right in the theater. We were happy when he survived the fire, even though the story was simple, like a children’s fairy tale. But we may dream of surviving like him and not being harmed.