The Mirage Epic

Description

Saadallah Wannous’s play “The Mirage Epic” may be among the harshest works written by the author of “The King is the King,” “The Elephant, O King of Time,” and “Historical Miniatures,” as if it strips the Arab reality of all illusions and dreams. It is as clear as the eyes of “Al-Zarqa” (a character in the play alluding to Zarqa al-Yamama, the pre-Islamic woman who, according to legend, could see for days’ journeys). Wannous perceives what we live and suffer in the shadow of transformations that, with their consumerist, open, and brutal “liberal” values, destroy everything and encroach upon everything.

“The Mirage Epic” is an “epic of ruin,” written by Wannous with tragic clarity and sharp awareness, in a mature and vivid dramatic language, devoid of any embellishment or rhetoric beyond its theatrical requirements.