The Theatres of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia

Transcription

Notes
1. Routledge World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Drama, Volume 4, ed. Don Rubin
(London: Routledge, 1999).
2. For example, M. M. Badawi: Modern Arabic Drama in Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987), Early Arabic Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988); Philip Sadgrove: The Egyptian Theatre in the Nineteenth Century (Durham:
University of Durham Press, n.d.).
3. Salma Jayyusi and Roger Allen (eds), Arabic Writing Today: The Drama (Cairo:
American Research Center, 1977); Salma Jayyusi and Roger Allen (eds), Modern Arabic
Drama (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995); Salma Jayyusi (ed.), Short
Arabic Plays (London: Interlink, 2003).
4. Taher Bekri, De la literature tunisienne et maghrébin (Paris: Harmattan, 1999). All
translations from French and Arabic sources are by the authors, unless otherwise
noted.
5. Ibid., 5–13.
6. M. M. Badawi, “Arabic Drama Since the Thirties,” in Modern Arabic Literature
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 402.
7. The only book-length study of drama in the Maghreb in English is the highly
informative, but rather narrowly focused Strategies of Resistance in the Dramatic Texts
of North African Women Dramatists by Laura Chakravarty Box (London: Taylor &
Francis, 2004). The only English-language collection of drama from this region yet
to appear is Four Plays from North Africa, ed. Marvin Carlson (New York: Martin E.
Segal, 2008).
8. M. Flangon Rogo Koffi, Le Théâtre Africain Francophone (Paris: Harmattan, 2002).
Part I The Pre-Colonial Maghreb
Chapter 1 The Roman Maghreb
1. Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
1996), 50.
2. Trudy Ring, Adele Hast and Paul Challenger, International Dictionary of Historic
Places. Volume V: Middle East and Africa (London: Routledge, 1996), 466.
3. Apuleius, Florida, XVIII, 3–5.
4. Debra Bruch, “The Prejudice Against Theatre,” The Journal of Religion and Theatre 3:1
(Summer, 2004), 3. By the third century, Christianity gained more territory within the
Roman Empire, thereby posing a greater menace to the state and its stage. The North
African theologian (formerly Amazigh) Tertullian (155–220) in his De Spectaculis,
denounced theatre and drama as untrue, and maintained that Christians must forswear the theatre when baptized. The Council of Trullo in 692 banned all pagan
festivals, including theatrical performances.
5. The inaccurate, but widespread characterization of Islam as an essentially negative
force in relation to theatre will be dealt with in a special section on this subject in
Part II of the present study.
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Introduction
Notes 223
6. Augustine, Confessions, Book III, trans. and ed. R. S. Pine-Coffin (Baltimore, MD:
Penguin, 1961), 55–6.
7. Augustine, The City of God: Against the Pagans, trans. and ed. J. W. C. Wand
(London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 26–7.
1. Jacqueline Kaye and Abdelhamid Zoubir, The Ambiguous Compromise: Language,
Literature and National Identity in Algeria and Morocco (London: Routledge,
1990), 15.
2. Jacques Berque, Arab Rebith: Pain and Ecstasy (London: Al Saqui, 1983), 4.
3. Kamal Salhi, “Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia,” in Martin Banham (ed.), A History
of Theatre in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 39.
4. Kaye and and Zoubir explore the problematic diglossic situation of Morocco along
with the cultural and geographic diglossia. For them, “the Arab conquest of Morocco
had brought writing in its trail but it did not convert Morocco into a written culture. Instead there developed, as in other Arab and Arabized cultures, a splitting or
diglossia. While classical Arabic was to remain the model, and its formulaic grace of
thought and expression survived embedded in everyday speech, Moroccan Arabic
developed alongside but not in competition with Berber because as an unwritten
language it could not impose itself.” See Ambiguous Compromise, 10.
5. Debora A. Kapchan, “Gender on the Market in Moroccan Women’s Verbal Art:
Performative Spheres of Feminine Authority” (unpublished), 4. See also Deborah
A. Kapchan, Gender on the Market:Moroccan Women and the Revoicing of Tradition
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).
6. Salhi, “Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia”, 42.
7. Youssef Rachid Haddad, Art du conteur, Art de l’acteur (Louvain-la-Neuve: Cahiers
theatre Louvain, 1982), 15.
8. Fes 555–6, quoted in Ch. Pellat entry, “hikaya” in the Encyclopedia of Islam, ed.
B. Lewis et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1960–2009) III, 372.
9. Camille Lacoste-dujardin, Le Conte kabyle: étude ethnologique (Paris: François
Maspero, 1970), 23.
10. Pellat entry, “hikaya,” III, 367–77.
11. Dan Ben Amos, “Towards a Definition of Folklore in Context,” in Americo
Paredes and Richard Bauman (eds), Towards New Perspectives in Folklore (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1972), 10–11. John Miles Foley, a scholar of orality,
writes: “What precisely does it mean to say that a work of literature is oral? What
does orality or the lack of it have to do with the making of literature or with its
interpretation? These are, of course, relatively new and unfamiliar questions; not
very many years ago they and questions like them could not have been posed,
not to mention thoughtfully considered or even answered. For it is only recently
that the assumption that literature must in all cases fulfill to the letter its etymology from letter (Latin: Littera) has been shown to be inaccurate, and that the
rapidly developing field of oral literature research and scholarship has begun to
assert itself.” Introduction to Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research (An Introduction
and Annotated Bibliography), (New York: Garland, 1985), 2.
12. Ruth Fennegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 3.
13. Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London:
Methuen, 1982), 4.
14. Sabra Webber, Romancing the Real: Folklore and Ethnographic Representation in North
Africa (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991).
Chapter 2 Orature
Notes
15. Marie Maclean, Narrative As Performance: The Baudelairean Experiment (London:
Routledge, 1988), 1.
16. Friederike Pannewick, “The Hakawati in Contemporary Arabic Theatre, in Angelika
Neuwirth et al. (eds), Myths, Historical Archetypes and Symbolic Figures in Arabic
Literature (Beirut: Hassib Dergham, 1999), 337–48.
17. Ibid., 342.
18. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), 193.
19. Ibid., 193–4.
20. Ibid., 194.
21. Erika Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics,
trans. Iris Jain Saskya (London: Routledge, 2008), 75.
22. Quoted by D. Reig in Ibn al-Jawzi. La pensée vigile (Paris, 1986), 134.
23. See W. Raven’s entry, “sira,” in the Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. P. J. Bearman and
Mark Garborieau (Leiden: Brill, 2002), IX, 660–3.
24. See, for example, M. C. Lyons, “The Arabian Epic: Heroic and Oral Storytelling,”
Comparative Literature 49:4 (1997), 359–70.
25. See the entry by Pellat and others, “kissa” in the Encyclopedia of Islam, V, 185–207.
26. Haddad, Art du conteur, 28–43.
27. M. Sammoun, L’Expérience radicale dans le théâtre arabe, Unpub. Diss., Paris, 1990,
quoted in Pannewick, “The Hakawati,” 339.
28. See Pellat’s entry, Encyclopedia of Islam, III, 367–77. This also contains information
on related forms like the sira and nadira.
29. See the chapter on “hikaya” in Shmuel Moreh, Live Theatre and Dramatic Literature
in the Medieval Arab World (New York: New York University Press, 1992, 85–122).
30. Majid El Houssi, Pour une histoire du théâtre tunisien (Tunis: Maison Arabe du Livre,
1982), 160–4.
31. See Boratav’s entry on “maddah” in the Encyclopedia of Islam, V, 951–3.
32. Lufti Abdul-Rahman Faizo, The Cycles of Arabic Drama: Authenticity versus Western
Imitation and Influence, unpub. diss., University of Colorado, Boulder, 1985, section
on the madih, 26–30.
33. Reinhardt Dozy, Supplement aux Dictionnaires Arabes (Leiden: Brill, 1927), 150.
34. Fazio, Cycles, 26.
35. See Brockelmann and Pellat’s entry on “makama” in the Encyclopedia of Islam, VI,
107–15.
36. Moreh, Live Theatre, 105.
37. See Pellat’s entry on “nadira” in the Encyclopedia of Islam, VII, 856–8.
38. Much study has been done on the popular Djera character in his various
forms. The most complete study is by the prolific writer on Algerian literature,
Jean Dejeux, Djoh’a: héros de la tradition orale arabo-berbere: hier et aujourd’hui
(Sherbrooke, Quebec: Naaman, 1976). Metin And, in his Drama at the Crossroads:
Turkish Performing Arts Link Past and Present, East and West (Beylerbeyi, Istanbul:
Isis Press, 1991), explores the background of this character, along with the similar
Molla Nasreddin of Iran, arguing that they are derived from Nasreddin Hoja, a
well-known popular character in Anatolian folk-tales. He also speculates on the
relation of this performance tradition to international performance work from
India (via the Romany, or gypsy, culture) and Indonesia.
39. An example of the continuing insistence on correctness in the name of Islam is
the appeal to boycott Bilmawn’s (Bujlud) masquerade that is conceived of by conservative Sunni scholarship as a pagan relic. Abdellah Hammoudi, a Moroccan
224
Notes 225
Chapter 3 The Halqa
1. Joachim Fiebach, “Theatricality: from Oral Traditions to Televised Realities,”
Substance 31:2–3 (1998–9), 17.
2. Philip D. Schuyler, “Entertainment in the Marketplace,” in Donna Lee Bowen
and Evelyn A. Early (eds), Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1993), 2.
3. Kapchan, “Gender,” 3.
4. Ben Amos, “Toward a Definition,” 11.
5. Schuyler, “Entertainment,” 277.
6. Quoted in www.lavieeco.com/.../6636jammaa-el-fna.
7. Mohammed Kaghat, Al-mumatil wa-alatuhu (The Actor and His Machine) (Rabat:
Ministry of Culture Publications, 2002), 30.
8. Ibnu Arabi, “Al-mabadiu wal-ghayat,”in Khalid Belkacem, Al-kitabatu wa-ttasawufu
inda ibnu arabiy (Casablanca: Tubkal, 2000), 49.
9. Elias Canetti, The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit, translated from the German
by J. A. Underwood (New York: The Seabury Press, 1978), 77.
10. Ibid., 77.
11. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (London: Fontana Collins, 1973), 87.
12. Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance, 36.
13. Peter Brook, in Michael Wilson, Storytelling and Theatre: Contemporary Storytellers
and their Art (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 5.
14. Hassan Bahraoui, Al-masrah al-magrebiy baht fi al-usul a-s-sosyu taqafia (Moroccan
Theatre: A Study of the Socio-Cultural Roots) (Casablanca: Arabic Cultural Center,
1994), 28. Needless to say, al-halqa performers are not aware of Western acting
and stagecraft theories. These are spontaneous artists who make spectacles without recourse to any Western theory of theatre-making. One can even say that
these people have never ever seen a performance in a theatre building. So, the
analogy with Brecht and Stanislavsky is meant only to illuminate their highly
artistic strategies of acting.
15. Schuyler, “Entertainment,” 277–8.
16. Lahsen Benaziza, Romancing Scheherazade: John Barth and the One Thousand and
One Nights (Agadir, Maroc: Publication de la Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences
Humaines, 2001), 1–2.
17. John Barth, The Friday Book: Essays and Other Nonfiction (New York: Putnam,
1984), 268.
Chapter 4 Shadow Plays and Costumed Performers
1. Derek Hopwood and Mustafa Badawi, Three Shadow Plays by Mohammed Ibn
Daniyal (Cambridge: Gibb Memorial, 1992 ), 24.
2. Ibid., 3–12.
Cultural Anthropologist, foregrounds the Fqih’s position with regard to the
ongoing masquerade during an interview in his village mosque, where the Fqih
commented that “It’s a practice of corrupt people (fasiqin). They take advantage
of this occasion to settle their scores. Someone who has an old score to settle with
someone else uses this situation to beat him up. And there is more to it than that,
I swear before God; here like everywhere else, the masquerade is the opportunity
to make a contact with a woman one has desired for a long time.” In Abdellah
Hammoudi, The Victim and Its Masks: An Essay on Sacrifice and Masquerade in the
Maghreb, trans. Paula Wissing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 88.
Notes
3. Hermann Von Puckler-Muskau, Chronique, Lettres, Journal de voyage, Volume 2
(Paris: Fournier, 1836–7), 99–100.
4. El Houssi, Pour une histoire, 50, n. 28.
5. Arlette Roth, Le théâtre algérien de langue dialectale 1926–1954 (Paris: Maspero,
1967), 15.
6. Richard Southern, The Seven Ages of the Theatre (New York: Hill & Wang, 1961),
29–30.
7. Bujlud in Arabic means “the man with the skins.” The Berber titles for this
figure are Bilmawn in the Shilha dialect and Bu-Islikhen in the Tamazight. One
also finds the Arabic Bubtayen or even Sba’ Bubtayn, “the lion with the skins.”
Finally, one also sometimes hears the term Herrma. Edmond Doutté, who transcribed this as Herena, suggests that the word may come from the Arabic root
HRM, meaning “to grow old,” hence Herrma, “the decrepit one.” But one might
also think of Hermes… In brief, the word Bujlud and its Berber equivalents mean
almost the same thing and invoke the same metaphor of masking the human
under an animal’s skin.
8. Hammoudi, The Victim and its Masks, 11.
9. Ibid., 1.
10. Eugenio Barba, Beyond the Floating Islands (New York: PAJ Publications, 1986), 45.
11. Ibid., 23.
12. René A. Bravmann, Islam and Tribal Art in West Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1974), 31.
13. Julian Baldick, Black God: The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim
Religions (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), 80.
14. Ibid., 143.
15. Julius Caesar, Act I, scene 2.
16. Brion Gysin, in Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka (New York: Point
Music, 1995), 1.
17. William Burroughs, “Face to Face with the Goat God,” OUI 2:8 (Chicago, August
1973), 1.
18. Stephen Davis, Jajouka Rolling Stone: A Fable of Gods and Heroes (New York:
Random House, 1993), 55–6.
19. Melvyn Bragg, in Paul Bowles by His Friends, ed. Gary Pulsifier (London: Peter
Owen, 1993), 1, 60.
Chapter 5 Carnival and Ritual Performance
1. August Mouliéras, Le Maroc inconnu, Volume II (Paris: Challamel, 1899), 106–11.
2. H. Marchand, Masques carnavalesque et carnival en Kabylie (Algiers: Societe
Historique Algerienne), 2–3.
3. Edmund Doutté, Magie et Religion dans L’Afrique du Nord (Paris: J. Maisonneuve,
1994), 535.
4. Nabila Amir, “Fête de la Sbeiba: Un ritual et une histoire,” L’Info.au quotidian
(29 December 2009).
5. James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion, Volume 4 (London:
Macmillan, 1911), 152–3.
6. Mohammed Mennouni, in Abdessamad Kenfaoui, Sultan Tulba (Casablanca: Tarik
Publications, 2004), 8.
7. Hamid Triki, “La Fête de Soltan Tolba ou l’éphemère souverainté,” in Abdessamad
Kenfaoui (in collaboration with Tayeb Saddiki), Sultan Tulba (Casablanca: Tarik
Publications, 2004), 11.
226
8. Pierre Loti, Au Maroc (Casablanca: Eddif, 2005), 164, 233–4.
9. Terry Eagleton, Walter Benjamin, or, Towards a Revolutionary Criticism (London:
Verso, 1981), 148.
10. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. Helen Isworsky (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1965), 317.
11. Marvin Carlson, “Theatre and Dialogism”, in Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R.
Roach (eds), Critical Theory and Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1992).
12. Bakhtin, Rabelais, 122.
13. Hassan Mniai, Abhat fi Al-Masrah Al-Maghrebi (Studies in Moroccan Theatre) (Meknes:
Sawt Meknes, 1974), 7.
14. Doutté, Magie et Réligion en Afrique du Nord, 507.
15. Karl-G. Prasse, The Tuaregs: The Blue People (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum
Press, 1995), 41.
Part II Colonial Theatre in the Maghreb
Chapter 6 Nineteenth-Century European Theatres
1. The present Alaoui royal family took power over the ruins of the previous ruling
house of Saadiyin, though both are descendents from the Prophet’s line. Building
upon the achievements of his successors, especially in unifying the country
against the Siba (outlaw), Sultan Moulay Ismail acceded to the throne in 1672 and
extended his rule as far as Senegal via a well-organized army. After consolidating
his power, he invested a great deal in diplomatic relationships with France during
the reign of Louis XIV, and to a lesser degree England during the time of James II.
2. The leading Moroccan playwright, Tayeb Saddiki, has written an engaging comedy,
Nous nous sommes faites pour nous entendre, concerning the adventures of the first
Moroccan ambassador in Louis XIV’s Paris.
3. “Lettre d’un comédien à un de ses amis, touchant sa captivité et celle de 26 de
ses camarades, chez les corsairs de Tunis et ce qu’ils obliges de faire pour adoucir
leurs peines,” Paris: Pierre Clement, 1741, quoted in Moncef Charfeddine, Deux
siécles de théâtre en Tunisie (Tunis: Editions Ibn Charaf, 2002)., 9–11.
4. Ibid., 13–15. Hatem Noureddine, “Sompteux Théâtre Municipal,” Le Temps (24
May 2008), 19.
5. Pierre Grandchamp, Autour du Consulat de France à Tunis (Tunis: Aloccio, 1943), 39.
6. Capitaine ***, Une Promenade à Tunis en 1842 (Paris: Vassal, n.d.), 45–7.
7. Capitaine ***, Promenade, quoted in Charfeddine, Deux siécles, 20.
8. Ibid., 21.
9. Benjamin Stora, Algeria 1830–2000: A Short History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2001), 3.
10. Fernand Arnaudies, Histoire de l’Opéra d’Alger (Algiers, 1941), 116.
11. Henry Dunant, Notice sur la régence de Tunis (Geneva: Jules-Guillame Fick, 1858), 59.
12. Ibid., Notice sur la régence de.
13. Alexandre Dumas, Le Véloce ou Tanger, Alger et Tunis (Montreal: Le Joyeux Roger,
2006), 190–1.
14. Hamadi ben Halima, Un Demi Siècle de Théâtre Arab en Tunisie (Tunis: Université
de Tunis, 1974), 21.
15. Stora, Algeria 1830–2000, 5.
16. Ibid., 18.
17. Charteddine, Deux siécles, 51–4.
Notes 227
228
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
Notes
Details of Paradiso from Tunisian historian Raoul Darmon, quoted in ibid., 60–2.
Quoted in ibid., 65.
Quoted in ibid., 69.
Quoted in ibid., 81–3.
Ibid., 171.
Quoted in ibid., 201–3.
Anon, “Pour sauver Carthage,” Revue de Paris (September 1911), 36.
1. Shmuel Moreh and Philip Sadgrove, Jewish Contributions to Nineteenth-Century
Arabic Theatre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
2. Ibid., 16.
3. Ibid., 10–11.
4. Ibid., 11.
5. Ibid., 22.
6. Ibid., 50.
7. Ben Halema, Un Demi Siècle de Théâtre, 31–2.
8. Potter, “Le comédie arabe,” Revue de Paris 5 (1864), 155–62, quoted in Roth,
Le théâtre algérien, 18.
9. Edmond Doutté, Magie et Religion, 500, 504.
10. Quoted in Ben Halima, Un Demi Siècle de Théâtre, 36.
11. Najib Al-Haddad, Riwayat Salah El-Din Al-Ayoubi (The Story of Salah El-Din
Al-Ayoubi), 3rd edn (Beirut: Maktabat Sader, 1929), 4.
12. Ben Halima, Un Demi Siècle de Théâtre, 40.
13. Ibid., 35–40.
14. All this was reported in the Arabic newspaper As-Zohra , 23 February 1909, quoted
in Ben Halima, Un Demi Siècle de Théâtre, 43–4.
15. Quoted in Charfeddine, Deux siécles de théâtre, 253–4.
16. Quoted in ibid., 254.
17. Ahmed Cheniki, Le Théâtre en Algérie: Histoire et enjeux (Aix-en-Province: Edisud,
2002), 17.
18. Mahboub Stambouli, “Regards sur le théâtre Algérian,” Amal (Promesses) (March
1976).
19. C. R. Pennel, Morocco Since 1830: A History (London: C. Hurst, 2000), 152.
Chapter 8 The Developing Maghreb Stage
1. Jacques Ladreit de Lacharrière, La Création marocaine (Paris: Lavanzelle, 1930), 143.
2. Hulbert Lyautey, quoted from Letters du Tonkin et de Madagascar, 1894-1899
(Paris: 1920, p. 71), in Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social
Environment (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1989), 285.
3. Charles Kuzman (ed.), Modernist Islam 1840–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 6.
4. Abdellah Chakroun, A la Recontre du Théâtre au Maroc (Casablanca: Najah El
Jadida, 1998), 44–5.
5. Abdelwahed Ouzri, Le théâtre Au Maroc: Structures et Tendances (Casablanca: Les
Editions Toubkal, 1997), 22–3.
6. Abdellah Chakroun, “Tatawwor al-Masrah al-Maghraby Qabl el-Esteqlal wa
Ba’adaho,” Jaridat el-Elm (1956), 36–7.
7. Roth, Le théâtre algérienne, 21.
8. Mahiéddine Bachtarzi, Mémoires 1919-1939 (SNED, Algiers, 1968), 49.
Chapter 7 The First Arab Performances
Notes 229
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Roth, Le théâtre algérienne, 22.
Bachtarzi, Mémoires 1919–1939, 31.
Roth, Le théâtre algérien, 59.
Bachtarzi, Mémoires 1919–1939, 44.
Jeanne Faivre d’Arcier, Habiba Messika: La brûlure du péché (Paris: Belfond,
1998), 68.
1
2.
3.
4.
5.
26 April 1937, quoted in Cheniki, Théâtre en Algérie, 27–8.
Roth, Le théâtre algérien, 75.
Quoted in Ben Halima, Un Demi Siècle de Théâtre, 109.
As-Sawab, 15 February 1934, quoted in ibid., 95–6.
In 1923 Tangier became an international zone that was politically neutral and
economically open. The new statute formalized international control over the 140
square miles that represented the city and its surroundings between 1923 and 1956
(with a five-year disruption as Spain controlled the city after the collapse of France
in World War II in June 1940). For almost 23 years, Tangier was run by an international council formed by delegates from the major countries that had acceded
to the Algeciras Act in 1907, and became a notorious dream city and a congregation site for a number of important Arab and Western exiles, artists, writers, and
politicians who fell captive to its magical spell including Henri Matisse, Eugene
Delacroix, Walter Harris, Jean Genet, and Paul Bowles along with his wife Jane
Bowles. During the late fifties and sixties, the Beat Generation made a well-worn
path to the underground life that marked the international city. Writers and artists such as Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg,
Truman Capote, Gregory Corso, Ira Cohen, Irving Rosenthal, Gore Vidal, and Alfred
Chester all passed through in transit and marked the city’s collective memory.
6. Azouz Hakim, quoted by Abderrahman Al-Wafi (ed.), Intissar Al-Hak (Tetouàn:
Asmir Publications, 2006), 5. Shakib Arslan (1869–1946) is a Lebanese poet,
journalist, and political activist who was exiled by French mandate authorities
in Geneva, Switzerland, a growing place for militant Arabs and Muslims during
World War II. His influence became significant with the Journal he founded,
La Nation Arabe (1930–8), as it conducted a serious critique of European imperialism
with a particular focus on the French colonial rule of the Maghreb. Arslan was
instrumental in connecting independence movements in the Maghreb and the
Mashreq. Thanks to his visit to Tetouàn and Tangier and his mentoring of an
emerging resistance movement, the Moroccan fight against the Berber Decree was
made international.
Chapter 10 Islam and the Colonial Stage
1 Al-Haddad, Riwayat Salahed-dine Al-Ayoubi, 3.
2. Jacob Landau, Studies in the Arab Theater and Cinema (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1958).
3. John Gassner and Edward Quinn, The Reader’s Encyclopedia of World Drama
(New York: Crowell, 1969).
4. Mohammed Aziza, L’Image et l’Islam (Paris: A. Michel, 1978).
5. Peter J. Chelkowsky, Ta’ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran (New York: New York
University Press, 1979).
6. Mohammed Al-Khozai, The Development of Early Arabic Drama, 1847–1900 (New
York: Longman, 1984).
Chapter 9 The Theatre of Resistance
Notes
7. Badawi, Early Arabic Drama.
8. Oscar G. Brockett and Franklin J. Hildy, History of the Theatre, 9th edn (Boston,
MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2003), 69.
9. John Bell, “Islamic Performance and the Problem of Drama,” The Drama Review
49:4 (T 188) (Winter 2005), 7.
10. Al-khozai, The Development of Early Arabic Drama, 4.
11. Mohammed Aziza, Al-islam wal- masrah (Islam and Theatre) (Riyad: Oyoun
Al-maqalat, 1987), 21–45, 211.
12. Ahmed Ben Saddik, in Hassan Bahraoui, “Al-Islam wal-masrah” (Islam and Theatre),
revue culturele Alamat 4 (1995), 7.
13. Abdelkebir Khatibi and Mohammed Sijelmassi, The Splendor of Islamic Calligraphy,
trans. James Hughes (London: Thames & Hudson,1976).
14. Ibid., 192.
15. Ibid., 192.
16. El Balagh el Djezairi, 24 February 1932, quoted in Cheniki, Le Théâtre en Algérie, 26.
17. For a detailed study of the salafi movement and of its complex relationship with
the FLN in the establishment of modern Algeria, see James McDougall, History
and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria (Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press,
2006).
18. J. Damis, “The Origin and Significance of the Free Schools Movement in Morocco,
1919–1931,” in Revue de L’Occident Musulman et de la Méditerranée 19:1 (1975), 81.
19. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 86.
20. Ibid., 112.
21. Ouzri, Le Théâtre au Maroc, 210.
22. Ibid., 104.
23. Just as the French attempted to diminish nationalist sentiments in Morocco by
attempting to develop Berber culture as a system competing with that of the
Arab/Islamic population, they championed “Andalusian” culture as a “European”
alternative to native “African” expression throughout the Maghreb.
24. Ouzri, Le Théâtre au Maroc, 56.
Chapter 11 From World War II to Independence
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Hassan Mniai, Abhat fi Al-Masrah Al-Maghrebi, 64.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday, 1948), 137.
McDougall, History and the Culture of Nationalism, 68.
Alger republicain, 21 October, quoted in Bachtarzi, Mémoires 1939–1951, 74.
Mniai, Abhat fi al-masrah al-maghribi, 65.
Chakroun, A La Rencontre du théâtre, 145.
André Voisin, quoted by Omar Fertat, “Le Théâtre Marocain: de la tradition a
l’écriture,” in Martine Mathieu-Job (ed.), L’entredire Francophone (Bordeaux: CELFA
Publications, 2004), 191. For more on André Voisin’s mission in Morocco, see also
Omar Fertat, “Théâtre, monde Associatif et Francophonie au Maroc”, in Sylvie
Guillaume (ed.), Les Associations dans la Francophonie (Pessac: Publication de la
Maison des Sciences de L’homme d’Aquitaine Pessac, 2006), 141.
André Voisin, “Le Crochet à Nuages: Expériences de Théâtre Populaire Au Maroc,”
in Denis Bablet and Jean Jacquot (eds), Le Lieu Théâtral dans La Société Moderne, 2nd
edn (Paris: Editions Du Centre National de la recherché Scientifique, 1968), 49.
Ibid., 50.
Ibid., 51.
Andre Voisin (interviewed by Cherif Khaznadar), Jeune Afrique 513:3 (November
1970), 62.
230
Notes 231
Part III Post-Colonial Theatre in the Maghreb
Chapter 12 The Early Theatres of Independence, 1956–1970
1. Jean Vilar, “Theatre: A Public Service (1960),” 44.
2. On 25 January 1955, the company was officially created by a decision of the
President of the Municipality of Tunis under the name of “La Troupe Municipale
d’Art Dramatique Arabe.” Its management was assigned to Mohammed Aziz
Al-Agrebi who was assisted by the Egyptian artist Zaki Taymat as artistic director.
At the beginning of the theatre season 1960–1, Hassen Zemerli became director,
and then Ali Ben Ayad from 1963 up to 1972. After Ben Ayad’s sudden death in
Paris, a younger generation took over: Mohsen Ben Abdallah (1972–5), Muncef
Souissi (1976–8), Béchir Drissi (1980–3), Mohammed Kouka (1983–99), Béchir
Drissi again (2000–2), and since the year 2002 the actress Mouna Noureddine has
become the new director of the most privileged theatre edifice in Tunisia, as well
as its theatre company. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice was the first production
of the company at the Municipal Theatre of Tunis 3 and 4 February 1954, followed
by a musical entitled Layla min Alfi lila wa lila (A Night from the Thousand and One
Nights) with the contribution of Egyptian artists such as the musician Abdelaziz
Mohammed and actress Awatif Ramadan on the 18 and 19 May 1954.
3. The Secrétariat of State for Culture and Information published Bourguiba’s speech
in Arabic and French, under the title “pour sortir le théâtre Tunisien de bordière”
in November 1962. Mohammed Mediouni, a leading Tunisian theatre scholar,
asserts that President Bourguiba’s speech was “unique in modern Arabo-African
cultures. None of the heads of the emerging states of the time dedicated a
whole address to theatre, its conditions and problems in full details the way the
Tunisian president did.” Mohammed Mediouni, Theatre in Tunisia (Sharjah: Arab
Theatre Institute Publications, 2009), 57.
4. Ali Ben Ayad, in Mahmoud Al-Majri (ed.), Min Shawaghili at-taassisi lil masrahi attunusiy (Questions of the Formation of Tunisian Theatre) (Tunis: Jaridat Al-Huriya
Publications, Book Series No.11, 2009), 65.
5. The first manifesto of Ceremonial Theatre in Morocco appeared in March 1979.
In three decades, it was followed by seven other manifestos by the same group under
the leadership of the Moroccan playwright Abdelkrim Berrchid. The first manifesto
created a heated debate in the amateur theatre scene giving rise to alternative manifestos from other groups who disagreed with Berrchid. However, this war of manifestos was mostly theoretical and hardly visible on the ground at the practical level.
6. Muncef Souissi, son of the actor Ezzedine Souissi, has profoundly influenced the
Tunisian theatre scene for almost 40 years. He graduated in 1965 and went to
France to further his artistic development, becoming a disciple of Vilar. In 1968, he
returned to Tunisia and founded the El Kef regional theatre company. At an early
stage, his various collaborations with playwright and critic Azzedine Madani gave
12. J. Vilar, “Theatre: A Public Service [1960],” in Jeremy Aheame (ed.), French Cultural
Policy Debates: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2002), 44.
13. An-Nahda, 12 June 1949, quoted in Ben Hamila, Un Demi Siècle de Théâtre, 129.
14. Quoted in Abdallah El Rukaibni, “Algeria,” in The World Encyclopedia of
Contemporary Drama, ed. Don Rubin, Volume 4, The Arab World (Routledge:
London, 1999), 52.
15. Quoted by Allalou in “L’Aurore du théâtre algérienne,” Cahiers du CDSH, Oran
(1982), 12.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Notes
meaning to “the call to return to tradition.” Through his interweaving of Vilar’s
spectacular performance techniques and Madani’s exploded narrative dramas
Souissi inaugurated a new era of theatre-making in Tunisia.
Hafedh Djedidi writes: “La troupe devient ainsi un creuset d’artistes et une
nouvelle école théâtrale qui va se distinguer par un traitement intelligent du
patrimoine arabo-musulman en vue de disséquer le quotidien social et politique
de l’époque,” Le Théâtre Tunisien dans tous ses Etats (Hammam-Sousse: Editions Dar
El-Mizen, 2003), 21.
Will D. Swearingen, Moroccan Mirages: Agrarian Dreams and Deceptions, 1912–1986
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1988), 186.
Mohammed Kaghat, Binyat At-Taelif Al-masrahi mina Al-Bidaya ila Attamaninat
(Casablanca: Dar Thaqafa, 1986), 53.
The Mamoura theatre company served as a real platform for emerging professionals. Between 1966 and 1968, the company presented 50 performances of
Shraa atana rbaà in various Moroccan cities with 30,412 audience members
in total. The play was written by Mohammed Ahmed Al-Basri and directed by
Abdessamad Dinya. The Mamoura also presented 20 productions of Hamlet for
audiences totalling 3757, and 25 performances of Waliyo al-lah for audiences of
10,192. During the same period the company presented ten televised dramas,
among them Driss Tadili’s Al-Hadh. Among the members officially affiliated with
the Mamoura: Malika Amaari, Fatima Rajwani, Zhour Mamri, Fatima Rawi, Driss
Tadili, Mohammed Afifi, Ahmed Alawi, Larbi Yakoubi, Ahmed Tayeb Laalaj, Aziz
Mawhoub… .
Pierre Lucas, “Réalisation et Perspectives du C.A.D.,” in Arts et Culture, revue de la
division de la Jeunesse et des sports (Rabat, 1960), 10.
Ouzri, Le Théâtre au Maroc, 171.
Tayeb Saddiki, in Ahmed Farhat, Aswat Taqafia mina al-Magreb al-Arabiy (Beirut:
A-ddar Al-Alamia, 1984), 55.
Hassan Mniai, Al-masrah al-magrebiy mina t-tasisi ila sima-at al-furja (Moroccan
Theatre from Construction to the Making of Spectacle) (Fez: University Sidi
Mohammed Ben Abellah Publications, 1994), 10.
Tayeb Saddiki, Diwan Sidi Abderrahman Al-Majdub (Rabat: Stouki, 1979), 64.
Act 1, scene 1.
Act 1, scene 6.
Quoted in El Rukaibi, “Algeria,” 53.
Kamel Bendimered, “Ould Abderrahmane Kaki, Le Pionnier du théâtre ihtifal,”
Djazir 3 (Algiers, 2003), 30.
During his exile in Paris, Boudia continued both his dedication to theatre and his
political activism. He served for several years as director of the Théâtre de l’Ouest
Parisien and personally financed a Maghreb theatre in the capital. He also openly
championed the Palestinian cause, for which he was targeted by the Israeli secret
service and he was assassinated by a bomb planted in his car in 1973.
Cheniki, Le Théâtre en Algérie, 158.
Wadi Bouzar, La Culture en question (Algiers: Silex-SNED, 1982), quoted in
ibid., 45.
Chapter 13 Developing National Traditions, 1970–1990
1. Cheniki, Le Théâtre en Algérie.
2. Kateb Yacine, “Les Intellectuels, la révolution et le pouvoir,” Jeune Afrique 324
(26 March 1967), 22.
232
3. The manifesto of the company is reproduced at www.kadour-naimi.com/
f-theatre-mer-algerie.htm.
4. Kateb Yacine, interview with Jacques Alessandra, “Le Théâtre révolutionnaire
algérien,” Travail théâtral (December 1979), 95.
5. See interview with Kadour in l’Oranie, reproduced at www.kadour-naimi.com/
f-theatre-mer-algerie-kadour-naimi-yacine.htm.
6. Kamil Salhi, The Politics and Aesthetics of Kateb Yacine (Lewiston, NY: Edwin
Mellen, 1999), 15.
7. Kateb Yacine, quoted in Nadia Tazi, “Kateb Yacine,” L’Autre Journal (July–August
1985), 17.
8. Kateb Yacine, Le Poète comme un boxeur (Paris: Seuil, 1994), 33.
9. Salhi, Politics, 121.
10. Hichem ben Yaïche, interview with Yacine in December, 1989. Quoted in ibid.,
219.
11. Ibid.
12. Arlette Casas, “Entretien avec Kateb Yacine,” Mots 57 (1998), 105.
13. Ahmed Cheniki on censure, a television interview of TVDZ (16 April 2007). See
www.dztv.net/index.php?2007/04/26/900-le-point-de-vue-de-ahmed-chenikisur-la-censure.
14. Interview with Ahmed Cheniki, quoted in “Les Lieux de la Mise en Scene,”
Analyze du Texte (Annaga, 2005).
15. Ibid.
16. Posted by Abdelmadjid Kaouah,12 November 2009, on wwwjohablogspotcomkaouah.blogspot.com/2009/11/la-halqa-inedite-dabdelkader-alloula-html.
17. Christiane Achour, Vies et portraits (Paris: Encyclopaedia Universalis, 1995),
480.
18. H. M. Kahina, tribute to Alloula published in La Nouvelle Republique (8 March
2004).
19. Abdelkader Alloula, “Du Théâtre-Halqa à la Commedia dell’Arte” interview with
Mohammed Kali, in En Mémoire du Futur: Pour Abdelkader Alloula (Paris:Sindbad,
Actes Sud, 1997), 175-76.
20. Mniai, Al-masrah al-magrebiy, 51.
21. Abdelkrim Berrchid, Hududu Al-Kaini walmumkini fi Al-Masrah Al-Ihtifali (The
Limits of the Given and the Possible in Festive Theatre) (Casablanca: Dar
Athakafa, 1985), 127–47.
22. Mustapha Ramadani, Qadaya Al-Masrah Al-Ihtifali (Issues of Ceremonial Theatre)
(Damascus: Union of Arab Writers, 1993), 32.
23. Berrchid, Hududu Al-Kaini, 15.
24. Abdelkrim Berrchid, OTayl wal-Khayl wal-ba-rud (Othello, Horses, and Gunpowder)
(Casablanca: At-taqafa Al-Jadida, 1975).
25. “Bouhou: Who am I? I am the one who put on the garments of a fool. I am the
one who took people’s complains to your majesty, then I came disguised as a
clown loaded by the sufferings of the poor ones, the hunger of the hungry ones.
I came to you with things that happen in your absent presence” (OTayl, 31).
26. Abdelkrim Berrchid, Imruu al-qays fi-bariz (Imruu Al-Qais in Paris) (Rabat:
Editions Stouki, 1982). All quotations and references are from our English
translation.
27. Ibid., 15.
28. Ibid., 15–16.
29. Berrchid, Hududu Al-Kainii, 13.
Notes 233
Notes
30. Mohammed Meskin, in Hassan Mniai, A Study of Mohammed Meskin’s Theatrical
Project (Rabat: Manshurat Itihad Kutab Al-Maghreb, 1991), 6.
31. Fadel Jaïbi is an author and director of theatre and cinema. Between 1967 and
1972, he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Charles Dullin School. Between
1974 and 1978, he taught at the Centre d’Art Dramatique of Tunis. He is the
co-founder of the southern Theatre Gafsa in 1972, and The New Theatre in
1975. Fadel Jaïbi is indisputably a major contemporary Arab theatre figure; his
theatre that he calls “elite for all” is appreciated in Tunis, as it is in Rabat, Beirut,
Damascus, or Cairo. Europe in recent years has become interested in Jaïbi’s theatrical research and uncompromising representation of Tunisian politics, as well as
his “method” of theatrical training, internships for directing the actors, multiple
communications and interventions. His performances, such as Comedia, Familia,
Desert coffee lovers, Junun, have great success in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy,
Spain, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, and even Argentina, Korea, and Japan. Jaïbi
was the first Arab artist to be invited officially to perform at the 2002 Avignon
Festival in the 56 years of its existence.
32. TNT was created by Law No. 113, 30 December 1983 (relating to paragraphs 73–74
of the Finance Act of the same year).
33. “C’est un enfant né adulte en raison du retard enregistré pour doter le pays
d’une vitrine théâtrale officielle qui engagerait totalement l’état tunisien dans
une prise en charge de la création théâtrale à un haut niveau.” Djedidi, Le
Théâtre Tunisien, 23.
34. Mohammed Driss, quoted in ibid., 24.
35. Tawfiq Jebali, Interview in http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion /2011/01/
2011116142317498666.html (accessed 17 January 2011).
36. Bertolt Brecht, “Interview with an Exile” was first published in Copenhagen on
20 March 1934, then quoted by Helge Hulberg in Die ästhetischen Anschauungen
Bertolt Brechts (Copenhagen, 1962), and re-edited and translated into English by
John Willett in Brecht on Theatre (London: Methuen, 1957).
Chapter 14 Entering a New Century, 1990–2010
1. Quoted in Bouaiane ben Achour, Le Théâtre en Mouvement: Octobre 88 à ce jour
(Oran: Éditions Dar El Gharb, 2002), 107.
2. See www.abdelkaderalloula.org.
3. Quoted in Sara Deschryver, “Parcours Ziani Chérif El Ayad,” in www.lafriche.
org/friche/zdyn1/rubrique.php3?id⫹314 (October 2006).
4. Quoted in Fayçal Métaoui, “Mohammed Benguettaf à la librairie Socrate:
‘J’appartiens à une génération qui commence à disparaître,’” El Watan 24 (October
2009), 1.
5. Quoted in Catherine Bédarida, “2003, année de l’Algérie et des polémiques,”
Le Monde (1 April 2002), 16.
6. Quoted in Marina Da Silva, “L’Algérie en France, une Année polémique,” Le Monde
diplomatique (15 December 2003), 4.
7. “Avant-propos” to La Récréation des clowns, quoted in Cheniki, Théâtre en Algérie,
114.
8. Mahmoud Chaal, “Un patrimoine en danger d’extinction,” Algérie Newsweek
(8–14 October 2009), 2.
9. La tribune, quoted in Ben Achour, Le Théâtre, 148.
10. Mohammed Said Fellag, “Le Théâtre algérien est dans la rue,” interview with
Chantal Boiron, UBU 27/28 (2003), 55–9.
234
11. H.Z., “Arezki Tahar où le combat d’un homme de théâtre Kabyle,” L’Humanité
(11 April 2002), 16.
12. Quoted by Idr Ammour, in “La Générale de la pièce théâtrale Fatma à Tamanrasset,”
posted 2/3/2008 on www.tamanrasset.cnet/article.item.1167.htm.
13. Tayeb Saddiki, Al-fil was-sarawil (Kenitra: Éditions Boukili, 1997).
14. Ibid., 9.
15. The maqama or assembly is an Arab artistic form. It is a long narrative poem.
The tradition of maqama started in the eleventh century when Badie a-Azzaman
al-hamadani composed his first maqama. Though it has dramatic characteristics,
the maqama cannot be regarded as a complete play destined for the stage. Jacob
Landau highlights the theatricality of the maqama: “Another popular literary
form which often contains the elements of mimicry is the Arabic maqama, in
which the theme was frequently presented in the guise of conversation, parts of
which imitated various characters” ( Jacob M. Landau, Studies in the Arab Theatre
and Cinema (Philadelphia: 1957). The rawi (narrator) presents his narrative in the
form of storytelling, yet adapts different roles to flesh out his characters. However,
the poetic aspect of the maqama is much more dominant than its theatricality,
as Landau rightly observes: “[Its] linguistic sophistication is valued more than
successful imitation” (ibid., 3).
16. Tayeb Saddiki, Maqamat Badiaa Ezzamane El-Hamadani (An Entertaining bsat)
(Kenitra: Èditions Boukili, 1998), 1.
17. Ahmed Tayeb Laalaj, Juha wa Chajarat A-ttufah (Juha and the Apple Tree) (Tangier:
Chirae, 1998).
18. Abdelhaq Zerouali, Kidtu Arah (I Was About to See) is a script written in 2002 and
presented during the theatre season of 2003 by Zerouali’s Theatre Company.
19. The High Institute of Dramatic Art is the unique Institute of higher Education
specialized in forming actors, scenographers and cultural directors and curators in Morocco. It is part of the Ministry of Culture rather than Education.
Conceived in 1969, but realized only in 1987 with Mohammed Ben Issa as
Minister of Culture, the Institute’s vision has ever since been shaped by the
Ministry’s different temperaments.
20. El-Meskini Sghir, Bu-jma’ l-faruj (Bu-Jma’ the Rooster) (Casablanca: The Center for
Third Theatre Publications, 2000).
21. Lalla J’mila is a play by Zober Benbouchta, first performed by the Ibn Khaldoun
Theatre Company in 2004. The acuteness of the play was well explored by the
experimental director Jamal Eddine El-Abrak along with his devoted team and
particularly the two outstanding actresses Hasna Tantaoui and Kenza Fridou.
22. Faqih in Arabic means a knowledgeable man who learns the Qu‘ran by heart, and
knows the Sunna of the Prophet Mohammed, and all that concerns everyday-life
practice of the Muslims (Shari’a). In brief, it is a title that is achieved mostly by
men, for only they have easy access to public education. Very few women in AraboIslamic history have achieved the title of fkiha, which literally means an educated
woman who is able to advance her own interpretation of reality in a male-dominated world. Lalla Yennou’s self-education and desire to educate other women are
all subversive attempts to dismantle paternalistic systems of governance.
23. Benbouchta, Lalla J’mila, 25.
24. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (California:
University of California Press ,1984), 23.
25. Benbouchta, Lalla J’mila, 25.
26. Ibid.
Notes 235
Notes
27. Zohra Makach, Fragments, 4 (Unpublished script).
28. Ibid., 23.
29. According to Freda Chapple and Chiel Kattenbelt, intermediality “is about
changes in theatre practice and thus about changing perceptions of performance,
which become visible through the process of staging. We locate intermediality at
a meeting point in-between the performers, the observers, and the confluence of
media involved in a performance at a particular moment of time. The intermedial
inhabits a space in-between the different realities that the performance creates
and thus it becomes, at the minimum, a tripartite phenomenon.” Freda Chapple
and Chiel Kattenbelt (eds), Intermediality in Theatre and Performance (Amsterdam,
Editions Rodopi B. V., 2006), 12.
30. Tayeb Saddiki, Le Diner de Gala (Casablanca: Éditions eddif, 1990).
31. Ibid., 34.
32. Ibid., 101.
33. Mohammed Kaghat, Al-murtajala al-jadida & murtajalt Fes (The New Improvised
Play and The Impromptu of Fez) (Casablanca: Sabou Publications, 1991).
34. Ibid., 7.
35. Kaghat, murtajalat Fes, 83–4.
36. Mohammed Kaghat, Chmisa Lalla (unpublished script).
37. According to research conducted by Amina Touzani, ISADAK was conceived in
1969 and realized in 1987. Up till 1998, 73 percent of the alumni were recruited
by the Ministry of Culture, 10 percent pursued postgraduate studies, 6 to 8 percent
were recruited by local municipalities, 4 to 5 percent worked in TV, and 1 percent
worked in the private sector. These figures reveal that the field of professional
theatre is still very fragile in Morocco.
38. According to the Ministry of Culture up till 2003, there were 20 theatre buildings in
Morocco offering 11020 seats; 12 of these were found in the political capital, Rabat,
and in the economic one, Casablanca, with 9270 seats and almost 80 percent of the
total seats in all Morocco. For more details on the current situation, see also Amina
Touzani, La culture et la politique culturelle au Maroc (Casablanca: Édition la croisée
des chemins, 2003), 173.
39. Just before he died, King Hassan II inaugurated Morocco’s path to recover its
memory. A truth commission was formed in order to enquire into state violence
in the “years of lead” (les années du plomb) that was mainly characterized by
autocratic dictatorship with limited freedoms and excessive use of force. This
process continued with his son, King Mohammed VI; however the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission chose a non-punitive approach that highlighted
repressed narratives rather than the explanation of what happened and its
legal implications. Some of the narratives were even broadcast on Moroccan TV
without pointing out the agents of repression. In the past 15 years a significant
literary output that is called Adab A-Sujuun (the literature of prisons) has flourished in Morocco. Ex-political prisoners contributed a great deal to the present
recovery of memory. Theatre, too, has contributed. Al-Karnaval is among the
dramas that relate the experience of imprisonment in Morocco. It was written
by Mohammed Amin Ben Youb, a Professor of Theatre at ISADAK whose brother
was a political prisoner for eight years. The play was put onstage by the Kasbah
company in 2009.
40. During his two terms in office, Cultural Minister Al-Achàri changed the subsidy
structure by rendering it more transparent and democratic, with a legal text and
a national commission. His main partner in this project was the National Union
236
41.
42.
43.
44.
of Theatre Professionals that was founded in 1993 immediately after the first
National Forum for Professional Theatre, held on 14 May 1992. A date that is still
celebrated in Morocco as the National Day of Theatre, partly because King Hassan
II addressed the participants of the forum with a letter.
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (b.1936) was President of Tunisia between 7 November
1987 and 14 January 2011 after a peaceful medico-legal coup d’état against
President Bourguiba who was declared medically unfit for the job. Ben Ali took
up the presendency of the republic acting under Article 57 of the Tunisian
Constitution. In 2009, President Ben Ali was re-elected for the fifth time. In 23
years, Ben Ali and his entourage built one of the most policed and autocratic
regimes in the region, leading the country to economic distress and political
repression. On Friday, 14 January 2011, Ben Ali fled the country leaving escalating
riots behind him.
President Ben Ali, an extract from his address to cultural operators on the occasion of the International Theatre Day on 27 March 1993, in Al-Hurriya (28 March
1993). It is important to note that the state in Tunisia utilized different artistic
means in the service of the official ideology. This is evident in the percentage
of the national budget devoted to the cultural sector, which was originally
around 0.25 percent after independence. It was multiplied by 10 in 2009; the
estimation today stands at 1.1 percent of the annual budget of the state. The
missions assigned to the Ministry of Culture in the artistic field are: To promote,
coordinate and harmonize cultural activities and to ensure the development and
execution of programs aiming at the development and the democratic diffusion
of culture. Another priority is the support of national cultural action abroad
and the strengthening of international cooperation. In short, it is especially a
question of safeguarding the historical and artistic heritage, democratization
of culture and its regionalization, particularly through a network of regional,
national, and international festivals. The state subsidy to theatrical diffusion
also allows the purchase of up to ten performances from the same company
per annum by the Ministry, for a going amount of 20,000 and 40,000 dinars.
The Ministry determines where these performances be played. The subsidies are
granted to the company once the performance is approved by the commission
of the Ministry.
Tawfiq Jebali, http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1E20DC69-EB88-4B45-A72C987DC9532B50.htm (accessed on 17 January 2011).
The battle of the Jaïbis was fought at various locations. Some political parties
such as the Progressive Democratic Party put a petition in their website that
reads as follows: “Support Jalila Baccar and Fadel Jaïbi: Tunisian drama writers
and theatre directors.”
We have just learned that, the Consultative Commission called “Orientation
théâtrale” in Tunisia has recommended the censorship of the Play “Khamsoun”
(Captive Bodies). This recommendation is fully effective since it has been ratified by the Ministry of Culture. Needless to remember that the authors of this
play, Jalila Baccar and Fadel Jaïbi, have been at the heart of the theatre rebirth in
Tunisia as well as in the rest of the Arab world. For the last 35 years, through each
of their stage creations, they have never stopped stiring up the world of the theatre and injecting new impulses into it. They have fed and enrichened it by scenographical innovations unveiling the failures, the gaps, and the make-believes
of the society they live in. Moreover, their numerous performances have been
acclaimed worldwide. Those of you who have had the chance to applaud them on
Notes 237
Notes
the occasion of their latest (now banned ) play at the Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe
in Paris in June have been impressed by its high literary and artistic quality as well
as by the soundness of its political dimension. Indeed, this play reflects, through
the pure magic of theatre, the violence of radicalism and the creeping ideology
lying underneath it, legitimizing crime. How can a regime supposedly based on
modernity deprive citizens it is ruling from a performance aiming at raising their
awareness of the root causes of a crisis which jeopardizes progress, encourages
regression, and endangers the future? We strongly condemn this act of censorship
which deprives the artists of their source of livelihood and above all, of their very
reason to live. To link with the petition: www.familiaprod.com. In http://www.
pdpinfo.org/spip.php?article4229 (accessed 14 November 2010).
Conclusion
1. Ian Chambers, Migrancy, Culture, Identity (London and New York: Routledge, 1994),
74. In Derridean terms, the “authentic” is very much like a “cinder” or a “trace,”
for it destroys its purity at the very moment of presenting itself, or rather as it is
thrown into being. The matrix form of plenitude, fullness, and origin is a myth.
Derrida puts it thus: “The concept of origin … is nothing but the myth of effacement of the trace – that is to say, of an original différance that is neither absence
nor presence, neither negative nor positive” (J. Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans.
Gayatri Chakravorty, Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press,
167). Obviously, origin as presence is, according to Derrida, “the myth of addition.” There is no origin but “différance”; there is no presence but representation.
The origin is constructed only through a non-origin; its existence as différance
precedes its delusive essence, for it originates in a lack of plenitude. “The trace,”
as a matter of fact, “is not only the disappearance of origin …, it means that the
origin did not even disappear, that it was never constituted except reciprocally by
a non-origin, the trace, which thus becomes the origin of the origin” ( J. Derrida,
Positions, trans. Alan Bass, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 61).
2. Rustom Bharucha, Theatre and the World: Essays on Performance and Politics of
Culture (New Delhi: Manohar, 1992), 2.
3. Bhabha, quoted in Gary A. Olson and Lynn Worsham, “Staging the Politics of
Difference: Homi Bhabha’s Critical Literacy,” in Gary A. Olson and Lynn Worsham
(eds), Race, Rhetoric, and the Postcolonial (New York: State University of New York
Press, 1999), 39.
4. Homi Bhabha, “The Third Space, Interview with Homi Bhabha,” in Jonathan
Rutherford (ed.), Identity, Community, Culture, Difference (London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1990), 211.
5. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994).
6. Bhabha, ibid., 38–9.
7. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 88–9.
8. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), 223.
9. Salman Rushdie describes the effects of such alienation as follows: “our physical
alienation from India almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of
reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will, in short, create fictions,
not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, Indias of the
238
mind,” Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991 (New York: Penguin,
1992), 10.
10. Khatibi is critical of the two most frequent itineraries chosen by North Africans to
construct a post-colonial society: the Pan-Arabic version of Marxism that is based
on Hegelian dialectics and Western metaphysics; and an ever-impossible “retour
aux sources,” which has most often taken the form of a radical Islam. His insistence on the history of the interrelations of Mediterranean civilizations provides
the example of the very impossibility of the kind of cultural purity sought after by
both traditionalists and Europeanized elites. He proposes that instead of trying to
erase one element of the current ethno-cultural landscape, Maghreb intellectuals
should evaluate that very landscape according to what he calls a double critique.
“The Occident is part of me,” Khatibi reminds us, “a part that I can only deny
insofar as I resist all the occidents and all the orients that oppress and disillusion
me” (Khatibi, Maghreb Pluriel, 106).
Notes 239

The Theatres of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia

Transcription

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