In Rewriting Narratives in Egyptian Theatre: Translation, Performance, Politics, editors Sirkku Aaltonen and Areeg Ibrahim bring together a diversified range of writings in a multifaceted collection that crosses and blurs a number of borders within a complex study of Egyptian theatre. These perceived borders include those between ‘East’ and ‘West’; between languages, media, modes of representation, text and performance; and between theoretical frameworks. The result is a complex and rich contribution that reinforces the interrelationship between discourses from the fields of translation studies, theatre studies, cultural studies, literature and theatre historiography. Within such a framework, the collection acknowledges and clearly demonstrates the complexity and problematics of the act of translation with its underpinning processes. The notion of ‘border crossing’ runs through the different essays, showing how theatre texts and performances can be rewritten when crossing borders, reflecting on the levels of exchange that occur in the process. The collection's conceptual framework focuses on the act of rewriting, the resulting representations, the narratives underlying those representations, and performance, while they run through the broader framework of Egyptian theatre (pp. 2–3).
Unravelling the question of ‘translation’ reveals the complexity and wealth of Egyptian theatre (from the nineteenth century to the present day), demonstrating how it is partly shaped and reshaped by the sociopolitical cultural realities surrounding it, as well as shaped by processes of ‘transfer’ between contexts, languages and frameworks. This is consistently addressed from the perspectives and in the authorial voices of Egyptian and non-Egyptian theatre scholars, translators, critics and makers, ending each part of the collection with a testimony grounded on personal experience. The result is a captivating and rigorous study that makes an important contribution to a better understanding of the intricate fabrics of Egyptian theatre, disentangling it from hegemonic orientalist narratives and articulating how it crosses and dissolves boundaries with different worlds.
The collection consists of four parts that consider the ways in which the process of rewriting may occur spatially and temporally in different contexts, framing each part as a mode of in-betweenness or reciprocality. The term ‘rewriting’ derives from the work of translation theorist André Lefevere (p. 3), and is used to cover a variety of theatrical processes, such as translation from one cultural area, one language, or one context to another (p. 219). In Part One, ‘Intercultural Rewriting’, the contributors explore the implications of the movement of drama and theatrical events across cultural and historical contexts, particularly in the relationship between Egypt and its colonial past. The authors discuss the socio-ideological narratives that contribute to particular modes of representation and reception. The first three chapters, by Sirkku Aaltonen, Areeg Ibrahim and Marvin Carlson, systematically analyse and problematize the act of selection and interpretation when constructing narratives of past events, and in prioritizing the translation of works by certain Egyptian dramatists above others. The chapters thoroughly interrogate the politics of choice and the ideological systems underpinning acts of selection. Dalia Basiouny's compelling testimonial traces the transformations that her solo performance Solitaire underwent in response to relocating it across different locales and sociopolitical cultural realities, each with its own demands, as well as challenges. The constant process of rewriting and adapting the performance underlines its nature as a living entity and the extent to which form, meaning and reception shift in that process. Basiouny's reflections movingly reveal the resilience of the artist in the face of adverse circumstances while maintaining unwavering commitment to the integrity of the work, in an experience where the personal, the political and the public are deeply intertwined.
Part Two, ‘Interlingual Rewriting’, focuses on the complex process of rewriting scripted drama from one language to another, which involves multiple dynamics of translation and adaptation while negotiating different realities, cultural identities, dramatic traditions and modes of reception. All three chapters in this part deal with translating Shakespeare's works into Arabic, arguing that the process of rewriting and the choices made by different translators allow the dramatic texts to be interpreted and reconstructed across cultural and socio-ideological milieus. Part Three, ‘Intercontextual Rewriting’, looks at the interactions between different contexts, notably the exchanges between theatre and society or the two-way negotiations between the stage and the changing sociopolitical narratives of Egyptian realities. Addressed within this section is the strong influence of Egypt's revolution of 25 January 2011, as a significant moment of historical change that greatly impacted the agency and the choices of theatre practitioners as well as the meanings of known texts. Late prominent theatre scholar and critic Nehad Selaiha evidences this influence in her contribution, which reintroduces some of her earlier critical reviews written in the months following the revolution in 2011. The chapter provides immediate observations and a record of some of the varied theatrical engagements with such an important and turbulent historical moment and its interpretation/representation onstage. Selaiha draws on her personal experience of the revolution and her candid responses to the ways it was mediated theatrically, shifting in outlook between outright disappointment and hopeful appreciation. The chapter co-authored by Heba El-Abbadi and Sally Hammouda considers the first eighteen days of the 25 January revolution as a powerful transformative ‘performance’ framed within Augusto Boal's ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’. By applying Boal's theatre in their reading of the eighteen days, the authors methodically demonstrate how passive spectators of actions became active ‘spect-actors’ against the oppressor throughout the unfolding events, assertively rewriting the autocratic narrative into a dialectical one.
Finally, in Part Four, ‘Intermedial Rewriting’, the collection ends by considering the journey of a ‘text’ between different genres and media, which leads to mixing their different sign systems. The three chapters examine the implications of recontextualizing a text through adaptation and rewriting, as eloquently demonstrated in Salwa Rashad Amin's chapter on the adaptation of short stories to performance. Amin explores how Egyptian literary work and tradition can be brought closer to English-speaking audiences when adapted by a playwright from a transcultural background in ways that open opportunities for new kinds of dialogue between the source text and the target cultural environment, generating ‘counterhegemonic’ (p. 238) cultural exchanges in the process. Amin offers a robust analysis of short stories by Egyptian novelist Salwa Bakr and their performance adaptations by Egyptian American playwright Yussef El Guindi. She identifies, with sophistication and insight, the different performative strategies and theatrical devices deployed by El Guindi in his adaptations that play a part in producing a series of transformative dialogic processes across sociocultural representation systems, in addition to underscoring the complex nature of identity.
Aaltonen and Ibrahim's collection deftly engages with the broader question of ‘translation’ as an act of opening, reconstructing and exchange through a range of perspectives and methodologies connected to Egyptian theatre, providing valuable insights for scholars and practitioners from various fields. It can be disorienting for the reader at times to shift between the diverse range of registers. But at the same time, the multiplicity of voices and critical registers serves the richness of a dynamic and engaging volume, and contributes to establishing an open space, in line with the editors’ intention as well as the nature of our diverse world.
