The play "The Adventure of the Head of the Mamlouk Jaber" is a critical view
- 2023-02-12
- Domia El-raey
- Written by: Dr. Youssef Shaban Labbad
How gratifying is the number and quality of the audience attending the play "The Adventure of the Head of the Mamlouk Jaber" at the Palestine Red Crescent Theater in Gaza. How happy the heart is that strict adherence to the show’s date and that the show continues with sobriety approaching the maturity of professionalism, although most of the actors - if not all of them - are amateurs, but they have proven that they are truly promising despite the observations on the performance of some of them, and this is normal for the performance of a professional actor and not It is never diminished.
When dealing with the performance from the angle of artistic criticism, the first thing that draws attention to those who know the original text of the play, as written by the late Syrian artist "Saadallah Wannous", is the ingenuity of the preparer and his ability to compress the text to this limited size while preserving its intellectual and artistic contents undiminished, and almost from the beginning of the performance The director makes a mark of his talent and his expressive energy through the mise en ensemble
- Theatrical movement - as one of the most important tools of expression in the theater, when talking about permanent obedience as the only way to safety in light of the disagreement of the rulers. Where he presented the movement of the actors rotating around each other in a circle that is repeated and continues, as if he says that they are in a vicious circle that does not lead to any hope. He was thus describing the state of submission and submission in front of the need, but through the text and performance he defined his position rejecting this situation of humiliation and submission when he focused distinctly on Saying (buy your bread, but this is not the way to safety).
I wanted to focus here on the positives of work, because we are in a country that needs to encourage every initiative on the road to establishing a permanent professional theater, and this work deserves to be rightly described as a sign of hope on this road. However, mentioning some notes can be a guide to those in charge of it towards more intonation and mastery.
Therefore, without sterile elaboration or fatal brevity, we present the following observations:
• Employment of music was not expressive to the extent permitted by the theatrical performance positions, as it was introductory and not expressive in the scene of the minister's appearance.
• The director did not take advantage of the most prominent tools of theatrical expression such as decoration, music and lighting:
1. The decoration could have been multiplied by elevating and raising the embankment, so the ruler’s palace, the minister’s palace, and the palace of the external enemy would not have the same view.
2. The lighting was flat, merely illuminating the place, and had no expressive role in any of the scenes of the theatrical work.
3. As for music, despite the attempt to include it as an expressive tool in some scenes, this was done in a way that does not constitute an addition to the expressive energy of the scene. For example, the voice of the infant accompanied by the sad flute playing weakened each other's influence and emotional charge instead of strengthening it as the director wanted.
https://pulpit.alwatanvoice.com/articles/2023/02/12/550388.html