Visual, rhythmic and dynamic scenes in “Al Majarih” Sunday, 08 August 2010 00:37

DOHA: “Every text is a mosaic of quotations, absorbing, changes other texts” - - Julia Christivia.

We can say that the “young” director Nasser Abdel Reda is still young when he made many adventurous shows, both at the level of vision and the level of live performance on the stage.

He aims to venture and this was expected from an ambitious and hard-working director who presented impressive plays, such as “The Ravings of Time” and “Gold of Music” during the past years.

The last play Al Majarih” or The Injured, presented by the Qatar Theatre Team recently at Qatar National Theatre to celebrate the selection of Doha to be the capital of Arab culture for 2010 and in preparation for the Gulf Theatre Festival hosted by Doha during October, establishes a real path for this adventure.

The director returns to the local roots and springs of the authentic heritage to build upon them in the course of his experience that intersects with the global trends of Modern Theatre in the east and the west.

The importance of this return lies in penetrating a tough area except for its people. Therefore, director Abdel Reda penetrates the heritage of arts from a contemporary perspective that must generate a different consequence starting from reading the text through the directorial vision of the play.

This means a new creative birth that could be reached only through this creative collision between tradition and modernity with a view to overlapping and the search for oneself through other mirrors.

“Al Majarih” by UAE writer Ismail Abdullah lives into the local Gulf environment and many of his vocabulary may be difficult to understand for the general public, but in return the text of the play has rich meanings, connotations, and symbols derived from the popular roots and legacy.

This means that it comes into contact with the collective conscience, paving the way for an open window to the public.

Against this background, the director proceeded to explore the mysteries of the text and his statements included in the folds of the dramatic structure of the text based on the struggle for freedom.

The story of “Al Majarih” is about a slave who falls in love with the daughter of one of the free masters, but her father refuses this love, despite the nobility of that slave. This reminds us of the story of Antar and Abla.

The hero of the story saved his sweetheart when she was kidnapped and her father came crying to ask for help but this did not help him later.

“Al Majarih” was written by Ismail Abdullah, directed by Nasser Abdel Reda, and acted by artists, Ghazi Hussein, Abdullah Swedy, Nihad Abdallah, Salah Darwish, Ghada Zadjali, Mohamed Sayegh, Rashid Saad, Fatma Shaddad and others.

Hamad Abdul Reda, the chairman of the Qatar Theatre Team is the general supervisor of the show.