Full house

The Censorship Authority recently asked Ashraf Zaki, head of the Actors Syndicate and the man in charge of the State theatre authority, to intervene immediately to put an end to the “ridiculous practices taking place every evening in the play Rawayeh literally “Scents.”

The play is performed by the State theatre and has as its leading lady the famous Egyptian belly dancer Fifi Abdou. Abdou improvises heavily, adding suggestive phrases to her role, and performs songs and dances which have been deemed indecent.

Critics have also denounced the songs of folk singer Hamdi Batchan, famous for his sub-standard lewd songs, in the play. According to an official in the Censorship Authority, the incident is unprecedented in the Sate Theatre which has always been a bastion of ‘respectable’ performances presenting Arabic and international classics.

Instrumental

However it is Ashraf Zaki who has mostly come under the critics’ hammer. They believe the participation of Abdou and Batchan endows the show with a common, obscene note. Predictably, and despite the criticism, the play has been a huge box office success; it has made an unprecedented profit for the State theatre.

Samir Abul-Ezz, Public Relations Manager in the theatre department of the Ministry of Culture, says the State Theatre tries to cater to different tastes. The theatre, he says, presents a wide-range summer programme from tragedy to fantasia to comedy, featuring international classics such as King Lear, Arabic classics and modern plays such as Ahlan Ya Bakawat (Hello Gentlemen).

On Fifi Abdou’s contribution to the show, Abul-Ezz commented that Abdou was after all an artist and being a belly dancer did not discredit her. He referred to an incident where Nagwa Fouad, the famous 1980s belly dancer, took part in a State Theatre play.

What Abul-Ezz did not refer to, however, was whether commercial plays were financially instrumental in allowing the State Theatre to present the more serious, artistically high-standard, productions.

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