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The Dynamics of Space and Resistance in Muhammad ‘Azīz's Tahrir Square: The Revolution of the People and the Genius of the Place

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2014

SALWA RASHAD AMIN
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Abstract

Tahrir Square: The Revolution of the People and the Genius of the Place (February 2011) by Muhammad ‘Azīz (1955–) documents how Egyptian youth played a leading role in coordinating and organizing the 25 January 2011 revolution through social media networking and how the battle fought at Tahrir Square exemplifies genuine human networking. ‘Azīz's play constructs its social and historical grounding as a fabulous mix between the real, the fictional and the virtual. It reimagines the possibilities of political theatre in the context of postmodern virtuality. This study explores how realism can incorporate other worlds as a way of rethinking theatre and politics in a richly multicultural, post-revolutionary Egypt. It illuminates Egyptians’ complexities, where individualities are reinforced against an oppressive regime. This analysis focuses on the dynamics of space and resistance, as multiple selves move from individualistic, alienated spaces towards connection through the space of resistance and shared political activity.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 20 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2014 

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References

NOTES

1 Sakhsūkh, Ahmed, Al-Masrah-al-Misrī fi Muftarak –al-Turuk (Egyptian Theatre at the Crossroads) (Cairo: al-Hai’ah al-Misrīyyah al-’Ammah li-al-kītab, 2007), p. 19Google Scholar.

2 Muhammad, Fatma Yūsuf, Al-Masrah wa-al- Sultah fī Mīsr (Theatre and Authority in Egypt) (Cairo: al-Hai’ah al-Misrīyyah al-‘Ammah li-al-kītab, 1994), pp. 173–4Google Scholar.

3 ‘Ali-al-Raī, , Al-Masrah- fī -al Watan-al Arabī (Theatre in the Arab World) (Kuwait: al-M aglis-al-‘Alaa-l-al-thaqafa wa al-finūn wa al-Adab, 1999), p. 111Google Scholar.

4 Sarhan, Samir, Al-Masrah al-Mu‘asir (The Contemporary Theatre) (Cairo: al-Hai'ah al-Misrīyyah al-‘Ammah li-al-kitab, 1986), p. 43Google Scholar.

5 Fatma Yūsuf Muhammad, Al-Masrah wa-al- Sultah fī Mīsr.

6 Amīn, Dīna A., Alfred Faraj and Egyptian Theatre: The Poetics of Disguise with Four Short Plays and a Monologue (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008), p. xxvGoogle Scholar.

7 The deterioration of Egyptian theatre in the 1970s and 1980s is mainly ascribed to ‘the growing market for Egyptian television soap operas and frothy film throughout the Arabic-speaking world [that] gave these forms an economic and artistic prominence at the expense of serious theatre’. Banham, Martin, The Cambridge Guide to Theatre, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 741Google Scholar.

8 Hana’a ‘Abdel Fattah, ‘Egyptian Theatre in Need of its Own Revolution’, Ahram Online, http://English.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/35/7390/Arts–Culture/Stage–Street/Egyptian-, p. 2, accessed 11 November 2012 (online access to article discontinued).

9 Ibid., p. 1.

10 ‘Azīz, Muhammad, Preface, in Muhammad ‘Azīz, Midan al-Tahrīr: Thawraht Sha‘ab wa ‘Abkarīyyaht Makan (Tahrir Square: The Revolution of the People and the Genius of the Place) (Cairo: Markaz al-Hadara al-‘Arabīa), p. 8Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., p. 14.

12 Balme, Christopher B., The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Auslander, Philip, ‘Live and Technologically Mediated Performance’, in Davis, Tracy C., ed., Performance Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 107–19, here p. 112Google Scholar.

14 Ibid.

15 Recent interactive innovations in Arab television (such as political talk shows) are seen as having ‘often been characterized more by emotion and a lack of rationality than by rationality. Where interactive television disputes dominate the schedules they indicate tendencies towards extreme politicisation, polarisation, personalisation and emotionalisation’. Hahn, Oliver, ‘Cultures of TV News Journalism and Prospects for a Transcultural Public Sphere’, in Sakr, Naomi, ed., Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 13–27, here p. 25Google Scholar.

16 Nehad Selaiha, ‘Egypt's Changing Image’, available at http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1056/cu3.htm, p. 1, accessed 13 July 2013.

17 Muhammad ‘Azīz, Midan al-tahrīr, p. 59.

18 Nubians have inhabitated southern Egypt and northern Sudan since ancient Egyptian times. They are divided into different groups and tribes who speak different dialects.

19 Muhammad ‘Azīz, Midan al-tahrīr, p. 76.

20 Ibid., p. 89.

21 Ibid., p.93.

22 Ibid., p.98.

23 Nehad Selaiha, ‘A Year of Revolutionary Theatre’, Ahram Online, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1078/culture.htm, p. 1, accessed 11 November 2012 (online access discontinued).

24 Ibid., p. 2.