Crazy Confessions (E3terafat Magnouna)

15 more days ... of work.
I do hate anything that has a remote connection to the concept of Work.




Well I am actually performing these days and for at least 15 more nights a play based on "Chekov's Ward No 6" adapted and directed by Samir El Asfouri.
By the end of these 15 performances we will have had a run of 75 nights.
We started actually rehearsals May last year, had 15 performances before Ramadan. Then restarted the run end of November.


Samir is a lovely gentleman. He has a strong attachment to the Taliaa Theater where this play is performed, as he has been the director there for years. In a way, he considers the place as his own.



He had already worked on an adaptation of this short story by Chekov in 1979 on the same premices. He chose to bring back as much of the original cast as he could.




I personally believe that each of the characters in the play is partly a mirror image of Samir himself. I am particularly thinking of 3am Darwish (left in the picture) who is one of the wards inmates who repetitively hammers that this place is what he loves and that he wants no changes to occur and one cannot help but think of Samir himself in one of his speeches about the importance of keeping this specific theater open and working.
Many though believe that the quarter is not anymore compatible with the existence of a theater. One has to say that in order for a member of the audience to get there, he would have to go through an amazing array of streets vendors, to try to get there by car or by taxi is quite complicated, and if you use your car then you would have to park it quite far.



But each of the other characters is also linked to the meanders of Samir's personality. For those who know him well, Samir strips his soul and underlines his frustrations. Those who are interested would be able to track down the relation between him and each of the characters in the play and would be also able to recognize his vision that is at the same time sarcastic and tender in the way he directed his actors. He is making fun of his characters but he accepts them, love them and would want to save them .


On the other hand, Samir also tries and explores the dangers of globalization and the direct danger it has on established systems of managing.



Nermine Zaazaa portrays the new doctor who is sent to the ward as an assistant but who through her becoming looks charms her colleagues and instigate a mutiny against the old director. Soon she gets in charge and the old doctor and even the colleagues who helped her find themselves in the ward. Some critics claimed that she is symbolizing the New Order.









The play is showing at 9.30 everyday but Tuesdays.