Variety Theatre 1923-1955

Description

This collection comprises twenty plays, which do not fall under the category of “community theatre” nor are they classified as “intellectual theatre.” These are diverse plays, some of which were previously published in 1938 under the title “Plays of Tawfiq al-Hakim,” while others were published later, many of them separately. It was deemed appropriate to gather these scattered plays and publish them in a single collection under the title “Variety Theatre,” to distinguish them from “intellectual theatre” and “community theatre.” Indeed, these plays are diverse in style and purpose; they include serious and humorous works, plays written in classical Arabic and colloquial Arabic, and plays addressing psychological, social, rural, and political themes, among others. It is a journey through different places over more than thirty years… and the reader or critic will undoubtedly marvel at this journey, in every direction over those thirty years… as if it were the journey of a traveler searching for something… Is it the journey of a person searching for themselves? Is it the journey of an artist searching for their art?… It may be all of this, or it may be something else entirely…