 It's so great to see so many people here who knew that Arab drama and translation would be so popular. My name is Rebecca Mugur and I'm the director of the plays you're about to see this evening. And I'm very proud to welcome you. So the two plays you're about to see were written by three young Egyptian playwrights within the last five years. And it's been a time of great social unrest and political instability. For the reading you're about to see, we've had four days of rehearsal to explore these wonderful texts with the playwrights in the room. And it's been a delight to hear the insights that they have into their own work and to find a way to bring these texts to an American stage. As a co-translator I grapple with not only the language of how to make these texts work in a theatrical language in the mouths of American actors, but also which actors do we cast in these roles? How do we make this come alive again on a U.S. stage? The plays run about an hour together and after the performance there'll be a ten minute intermission and that intermission will be followed by a discussion with our playwrights, Hani Abdel Nasser and Yasmin Imam. And we're also joined tonight by Professor Carol Martin from NYU who's a professor of drama. And the discussion will be moderated by Hani Omar Khalil who has arrived from New York and is a writer and a contributor to the online arts and culture journal based in New York, Culture Bot for those of you who are familiar with it. So please stick around after the intermission. This workshop is supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation administered through Theatre Communications Group. It's a program called the In the Lab Global Connections. I'd like to thank the Huntington Theatre Company for hosting the workshop. It's been wonderful to work with them. This event tonight really reflects their dedication to developing new work, new plays and new theatrical works. I'd like to thank Kate Snodgrass, the artistic director of the Boston Playwrights Theatre for bringing this workshop to Boston. And to the Huntington's playwright and residence Belinda Lopez for taking this project under her wing at the Huntington. I'd particularly like to thank the Playwrights for flying in from Cairo to Boston in the dead of winter. The two plays from tonight, they say Dancing to the Sin in the Mirror. You can read them in my forthcoming anthology called Tahrir Tales and Plays from the Egyptian Performing. Tahrir Tales and Plays from the Egyptian Revolution and that's published by Siegel Books and distributed in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press. And the editor of the series that the anthology is part of is Carol Martin, who will be joining us on the panel. Before I begin, I'd like to remind you please turn off your cell phones. And also, in case of an emergency, there are several exits, one behind you and two on the side. So please be aware of those. And without further ado, they say Dancing is a Sin in the Mirror. Thank you. They say Dancing is a Sin by Mohammed Abdel Mouiz with honey, Abdel Nasir. Translated by Mohammed Al-Bakri and Rebecca Magor, a dancer's dressing room in a nightclub. A chef's lounge and a table stand in the center of the room. Off to one side, there's a dressing table with mirrors framed by light bulbs, perfumes, creams, makeup remover and a tray of cosmetic accessories clutter the surface of the table. On the other side of the room, there is a caravan screen next to a stand of wooden clothes hangers. The last segment of an elegant and serene musical number is heard before the dancer enters. I changed a bit this week. She asked me five or six times every day if she could leave early this evening, and I told her it's fine. Go. Then she comes back to ask me again today, terrified that I'll be angry for her leaving early. What does she think is going to happen if she leaves early? Does she think the sky is going to fall? I wish she could see things my way. A little bit fismus, shy and bashful acts doesn't do her a bit of good. Why are her eyes always cast down? And why does she speak in that tiny, quiet voice? God damn poverty. The prophet himself asked God's protection from it. Poverty humiliates the strongest of men, so it's not going to cast down from other's eyes. Go, and may God be with you. First time she came to me for a job, I was sold on her right away. Her husband was beaten to death during an investigation into a burglary on their block. They rounded up a bunch of men from the street, and he happened to be one of them. She was then forced to leave her apartment in Munirat-e-Sahida, so she took the kids to live in a tiny, two-room back alley place, all the way out in Nahia. Somehow, the kids managed to finish vocational school. One even got a BA, but they're all unemployed, saved a couple of odd jobs here and there. Of course, there are people who are much worse off, but we all have to deal with the thorn in our side. What convinced me to hire her was the way she told her story, with such patience and strength. None of this woes me. I can't stand people who rub life's hardships in your face and bring everybody around them down. Umaza doesn't go around smiling, but she doesn't go around frowning either. Probably describe her as resigned, like a person waiting in a cardiologist's office. She knows her condition's going to kill her eventually, but she goes to the doctor's office and she waits for hours. Who knows? Maybe the doctor will give her a new medication and she'll get better, or she could give up and die without getting better. What choice does she have? Can anybody really cure a heart condition? Besides, Umaza's headscarf is always perfectly pressed. I was happy for her the day her daughter got married, but barely a week passed by before her husband revealed his true colors. Turns out, he's a real son of a bitch. He made his living off a pickle factory on the ground floor of an apartment building in the most congested area of Mbaba. He distributed pickles to all the shops in the area, to bulak and bastil. Of course, you would never eat these pickles. You wouldn't even touch them with a stick. They gave me a jar once as a gift. The vegetables were stale, maybe even moldy. Too little vinegar and too much salt. He was cutting all kinds of corn. But I'm not one to blame him. The guy's a cheat, but people like that have to find some way of making a living, and it's better than pickpocketing. Like everybody else, of course, he had to bribe the authorities to keep his factory open, but he couldn't keep up with the payments, and they shut him down. And he took his anger out on Mother's daughter. I mean, he went out of his mind. Honestly, it's like the whole universe has it out for that woman and her daughter. I was determined to find her son-in-law a job with one of these wealthy-era foreigners who patronized my shows. The spineless bastard is on his way to the Gulf tomorrow. I hope he does us proud and doesn't screw it up. And, Umaza, this saint of a woman asked to leave early today so she could see him before he leaves and pack him some snacks so he doesn't get stranded with nothing to eat before his first paycheck. Should I answer this guy or blow him up? I have no desire to talk to him. Hello. Hello, Mr. Salami. No, it's Salama, but I would have thought you'd like the sound of it coming from me. Salami. Salami's nothing fancy, but it's not bad. I'd never do anything to hurt you. That Saturday was our first date. Right. I reacted that way because I wanted you to know exactly who you're dealing with, you big flirt. Forgive you for what? What am I, your mother? Oh, really? I have a big, soft part. Oh, you're a naughty boy. If you truly want me to forgive you, get me one of those BMW X-6s. I love the curvy fenders and the sleek sides. I'm not desperate. Do you see me walking around barefoot? I happen to enjoy it. Well, don't do me any favors. You're the one asking for forgiveness. I've got enough money to develop all the slums of Egypt, but I wouldn't want to upset you by demolishing your daddy's house and depriving you of your childhood memories. Goodbye. To how with you would you find? You're a waste of my time. This guy, he became a businessman a couple of years back, and now he thinks he's a big shot. A few million and he thinks he's Superman. He's an ass. If it weren't for the revolution, they'd have bred him out of town. Unbelievable. How does someone get into business with no backing? Or even connections to someone with backing? That's their little plan. Fatten him up, make him nice, make a nice plump, dumpling out of him, and eat him up. Go ahead, me all about it. I've been around, and I've seen a lot. From inside the game, not from the sideline. The ones I've known, people of wealth and power. If I made every last one of them into a bead on a necklace, I swear that necklace would reach from my neck to my ankles twice around. These eyes have seen it all. Fati Ghazal. His father left him and his brothers, that aluminum factory that makes pots and pans and stuff for the kitchen. So this man and his brothers built up what their father left them. They worked hard, ran an honest business, treated their work as well, and never stinted on anything the factory needed. They expanded and developed a good reputation in the market and became a brand new company. They exported their products to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Algeria and even Spain. Of course, people wanted desperately to partner with them and how this treachery gets started. So, there was this one high ranking official. No need to mention his exact rank, a member of the Supreme Council and he'd attend all these high society parties. I, my son, was invited too because they liked the little dancing after the food and drink. They'd invite me because I didn't make a big deal about the money and I wouldn't demand anything from them. It's not that they were cheap or couldn't afford it, but they couldn't really ask for donations on one hand and pay for a dancer on the other. What if one of the guests just happens to be a dancer? Trust me. When I dance, I mess around. Even in a formal gown. No need for a dance costume. And that's why they invited me to these parties. Problem was, over the course of the evening my presence alone would fill these men's heads with all kinds of dirty thoughts. Even though I tried a hundred times to get them to understand that I'm not some easy plaything, but on those evenings it was the possibility, the mere possibility that ruined all the fun and messed with their heads. I didn't make any money out of it, although I would have enjoyed smacking those guys upside the head. There's such a bunch of vulgar brutes. I don't regret any of those evenings. They're always worthwhile. If I had an issue with some authority or a problem filing some form, the big weeks there would take care of it. Anyway, it was one of those evenings and the Major General from the Supreme counts me. Oops. I gave away his right. Of course, on those evenings you could have the pick of your poison, every kind, every label. The cigarettes laced with marijuana and there were medley fatters and French cheeses and skewers of cabal, his excellency ate and drank until he was ready to burst. And he sat right next to me. He could barely hold his head up and he would keep leaning on my shoulder. It must have been the wine in my soft bare shoulders that got him talking. He was prowling around Fati Gazelle and eyeing his fortune. I had to listen to him go on and on about how Fati Gazelle and his brothers must have made 400 million off their inheritance and me with my inheritance. I'll tell you, they are my inheritance. I thought it was just the alcohol docking. But not even a month later Fati Gazelle became the front page item in all the papers. It seems that the bastard framed him for tax evasion and currency speculation and coerced the biggest shareholders of Fati's company to sell out and prodded his suppliers into suing him for every late penny. Back then, there wasn't anyone who wasn't asking Fati for money. He was a sinking ship and this currency speculation issue and the loss of the shareholders' rights gave his excellency leave to devalue Fati Gazelle's holdings, put them under state control and inherit them legally. So he took what he could for himself and his entourage and messed around with the holdings until the company was in ruins and forced to shut down with no potential for production or export and what was once worth 400 million was now worth a third of that and whatever was left was looted and the workers and employees were hung out to dry and they locked Fati up and he had to give away any claims he had on anything. No one can stand up to these people or get back at them. They have all the power. They have the law on their side. They know how to clean up the paperwork and keep their names spotless while making them victims a son of a bitch. They're demons. These people need a doomsday to bring them down, not just a revolution. These are the guys, these are the sons taking the gap when he was older and wiser and they keep telling me dancing is a sin. Merm, do I do? No one's forced to come to the night. They watch me with pleasure. I don't bother anyone. I don't deprive anyone of a living or stand in the way of anyone's interests. And if I do something for myself or ask a favor, I make sure it's not at anyone else's expense. I try not to hurt anyone's feelings or refuse any requests for help, but I'm not a sucker. If someone tries to pull a fast one on me, I wrap them around my little finger and fling them out of town. And if someone's vicious with me, I step on them. Viciousness for vicious people, that's what I say. A few years back, I crossed paths with the kind of man who comes off as a real prince charming. Tall, broad shoulder, a touch of Turkish blood in his veins Sandy hair, a quiet smile, pleasant voice, clothes always perfectly tailored. He had a good position in one of those public sector companies that was privatized and sold to foreigners. He and the chairman of the board of directors and the general manager were the only Egyptians that kept managerial positions under the new owners, the foreigners. The chairman of the board of directors and the general manager were spared because their connections brought business to the company. And our friend, who was kept on as the financial and administrative manager because he was quiet and discreet, was also put in charge of human resources. He was responsible for coercing people into taking an early retirement and eliminating company workers or staff members. And he was promoted. And he accepted bonuses for it. We got to know each other pretty well. We started going out together and he'd drop by and see me at the club. Frankly, I was attracted to him. I liked his composure and his calmness and the way he carried himself. And a few times that thing happened between us that can happen between a man and a woman when they're here. But when I was with him, I didn't feel that he was enjoying himself or that he felt any ravenous desire inside or that he was even longing for tenderness. I felt like he was snatching something from the people around him and spitting on them. First time, I didn't trust my hunch. Second time, I felt sorry for myself. Third time, I told myself I'd be a slut if I ever did it again. Eventually, I realized that calmness in his face was arrogance. He'd be sitting with me at the table speaking with the utmost politeness about whatever while his eyes were sizing me up and saying, you're nothing but a cheap dancer. Turns out he's like the gravestones of sinners, a beautiful garden on top with fire and grinstone below. I held up for a few weeks. I didn't call him or return his calls. And then, I dialed his cell and hung up. He called back right away. I told him, I wanted 10,000 pounds and to meet me before sunset on the street between the cemetery and the shrine of Saida Napisa. I parked my car and when he arrived he parked in front of me. He got out and came up to my window and wanted to hand me the money. He thought I wanted payment from him. I said to him, you couldn't wait for me to get out of the car and say hello. I got out, said hello and took the money from his hand and right in front of his eyes I handed it out to a couple of beggars who I asked to wait for me in the out of the main street. Money can teach a man a lesson, right? He stared at me, rushed to his car and drove off. He was afraid I'd expose him or make a scandal. Since then we've gone our separate ways. And then, two years later I was dancing at a concert in the resort by the Red Sea and I don't remember why but I finished early that night and by midnight I found myself in my room alone, back then there was this drummer who would be working with me here and there and I couldn't get him off my mind. He was energetic, clever, savvy, never petty. He was well built and daring and had a really big heart. He was always so put together and smelled great whether we were in rehearsal or not. I felt maybe he had a thing for me too. I thought it was better for me and better for him too that we didn't get together. Because no matter how far he goes in his career you know, what's he going to become? King of the drummers? Early the next morning I grabbed my sunglasses and went to lie out on the beach and who do I see? Mr. Chief Administrative and Financial Officer. And he's carrying a plate of beans, a plate of falafel and a basket of bread. He digs the breach umbrella into the sand and then stands up to serve two ladies stretched out under umbrellas next to me. Turns out they're the wives of the chairman of the board and the general manager. He puts the food down in front of them and one of them says to him what's this? How could you bring us all this spicy food and no pickles to go with it? Sure enough, he's got a bag of pickles in his pocket. And where your complex comes from you're a house boy. You're a poodle, a limp dick. I'm miserable, the poor people. Oh, merciful God, it's your will not mine. And they say dancing is a sin. People's eyes won't change cause everything a glittery veneer. I also want those movies and TV series because I've earned them. Friends, I'm just as good as those famous dancers. Samia Gamal and Naima Akefe. And better than Tahaya Karioka. She's a very precise dancer but somewhat mechanical. She doesn't have the soul of Naima or Samia. But Tahaya was a brilliant actress. She was at the top of her game and there's never been anyone like her. There are a few actresses who know how to dance but the others are just shaking their booties or their bones. It's getting late and they aren't here yet. They haven't even called. What are they blowing me off? Hello? Yes, Marcel, where are you? Still home. I'm in my dressing room at the club. No, I don't need to go home. I brought my things with me and I'll leave from here. Isn't that what we agreed on? Go. Remind your slug of a husband. He needs a kick in the pants to keep him moving. Seriously, are you about to leave? Should I change? Okay, okay. When you turn onto my street, give me a holler and I'll meet you in front of the club. Bye, sweetie. Bye. Marcel? Marcel. We got to know each other at Mohammed Amish's hair salon. Of course, not just anyone gets an appointment with Amish. She recognized me and knew I was a dancer. Turns out, she and her husband were invited to the club and she saw my act. So we started talking and she was very sweet to me. And not too many people are like that with me. But I didn't respond to her right away. I kept my distance. But we exchanged numbers and after that she'd schedule her appointment at Amish's at the same time as my appointment. So it was clear she wanted to strike up a friendship. But you know, we're not the same religion and that's a big deal. This religion thing can be a sensitive issue, you know? But after thinking it over, I said to myself, this woman has got out of her way to be nice to me. And in the end, whatever she does for her religion doesn't do me any harm and whatever I do for my religion doesn't do her any harm. So it's ridiculous for us not to be friends. She doesn't have to take a pilgrimage to Mecca with me and I don't need to eat the bread of the Holy Communion with her. What's to stop us from enjoying time and spending time together at a seaside resort? Anyway, we became friends. It started with our date at Amish's Salad. And after that we'd meet at her place and she'd come see me at the club and we'd travel together. And now, here I am, waiting for her and her lazy husband so we can drive out to their ranch on the desert street between Cairo and Alexandria. Seventy breathtaking acres like something that used to belong to the old aristocracy. They keep horses and ostriches and all kinds of splendorous things. Marcel and her husband know how to live. Frankly, they taught me how to enjoy the good things in life. She's a clever woman and she played a major role in building this fortune. She speaks English and French like she speaks Arabic with me. Her German is not good but she still manages it. The first time I went to her house I met some foreign ladies and she asked me to teach them how to dance. Basically, I just taught these ladies how to shake their behinds and have a good time. Toward the end, one of these foreign ladies took a gold bracelet with diamonds off of her wrist and handed it to me. First, I refused with all my heart but Marcel waited me to take it. She said it's no big deal because I taught them something new. But frankly, Marcel is good at giving and taking. It turns out that these foreign women are not her friends. They're her partners at some NGO's. Something for the rights of working women or children or battered youth or I don't know what it was this week. These organizations get their money from abroad. And truth, Marcel does serve the poor neighborhoods. Shofa and Masara, the Christian neighborhoods of course, but also the Muslim neighborhoods of Yimbaba and Imam al-Shaqai. She gives a little here and a little there. You know, she gives away a pound of meat and gets back a mortgage payment on their villa or on the chalet on the northern coast or tuition to the German university for her kids. One time she told me, it's mentioned in your Quran. Charity is meant for the poor, the miserable and those who work to collect it. I said, yeah Marcel, those who work to collect it, not those who are guzzling it down. But Marcel is a good friend. She's never suggested not through comment or even a look or tone of voice that dancing is a sin. She doesn't mind being seen with me. She spends time with me and goes out to eat with me. After all, it's the company that makes the feast. I can count the time I've seen her on one hand in 30 years. After my mother and father passed away, my brother followed suit and died in a train accident. He was engaged and in the middle of redecorating his apartment, my sister and I were left alone. We had only one another and whatever our father left us, I was the older one, the fairer one and things looked brighter for me than my sister, Mervette. But the groom came a calling for her because I'd been seen hanging out with this drunk who saved. At night, he'd smoke pot and drink and make up all kinds of stories about us which were backed up by his fists and infamous humor and his temper. Nobody dared to teach him. So that ruined my reputation. The man who proposed to my sister was a lawyer, a slick talker. He's the one who turned her against me even though we loved each other like we were soul mates. He's the villain. He turned her against me, not in any explicit way. Everything was underhanded and subtle just like a lawyer. First, she was pregnant and couldn't go anywhere. And then after Noha and Sam were born, it became, oh, the kids are too little. One day they're sick. Another day it's too cold outside. We can't go up with them. And then after that, they're in school or sorry, they have lessons or extra curriculars. And even holidays, he found some reason for keeping my sister away from me or preventing her from visiting them. Even after the kids grew up and Noha got married and had a house and kids of her own, my sister was still in the habit of coming up with excuses. And the new excuse was, I'm taking care of Noha's son. Bye, sister. Go. Have a ball with Noha's son. Instead of her joy enjoying her grandson together, she's made me jealous of a kid you could hold in one hand. And it's all this man's sneaky plan to turn her against me. To keep two sisters apart because, God forbid, one sister chose to be a dancer. He is not ashamed to accept cases from all kinds of cheats and thieves. And you name it, he convinces himself that a lawyer's responsibility is to deal with circumstances and procedures and that the judge ultimately decides. He can cocks, exit strategies for crooks and prevents my sister from seeing me because dancing is a sin. People can't see their own transgressions. But, God, it's the ultimate judge. My sister's husband raised his kids to put their own interests first. When my niece, Noha, finished her bachelor's degree in science, her father looked around until he found her a job at an American pharmaceutical company. Connections are a sweet thing when there's a flow of favors back and forth. What? At this company, the Americans taught Noha an even greater love of self-interest than she had soaked up from her father. All she sees are dollars and cents and numbers back and forth in front of her eyes. And she's become intimate with bank accounts and deposit slips and Visa cards. She works in drug distribution. One day, she called me out of the blue and came by the house for a visit. She's charming and you'd think I had raised her. But I haven't seen her more than two or three times in her life. I didn't feel she had a problem with her aunt being a dancer. It's different for her mother. She has a different mindset. But the girl comes in and she brings this expensive stuff from French makeup, lots of different things. So we sit in and dive in together and remove it. And the girl's good at this stuff. She taught me well. My look improves thanks to her. Before then, even the expensive stuff looked a little over on me. Another time, she calls me up and says, how about 25,000 an hour for dancing at the Porto Solcner Resort? I say to her, well, your sake sun shines, sure. Turns out, your company was having a big conference and invited doctors and pharmacists and journalists. Turns out they were marketing a new drug. God protect us from evil. For people who suffer from that horrific illness, from cancer. How much do you think for a packet of six pills? 12,000 pounds. That's 2,000 a pill. People are all networking in this grand hotel sleeping on silk sheets and sitting on imported furniture and on and on. Eating from open buffet three times a day and lounging in the pool and passing the evenings with some light entertainment. Because their hearts are grieving for those afflicted by this illness. This illness had perplexed and tricked the mightiest and most able among us. My act was on the evening of the first day. Noah took me to her friend, the one putting the bill, and I grabbed my 25,000 cash. And even though I was invited to stay for three days without working again, I couldn't bring myself to stay the nut reflected what they owed me. And I brought that 25,000 to people who'd been hit hardest by the disease. There was one woman an acquaintance of my mother who was barely getting by and the second woman was the dresser of one of my dancer friends. For the last six years she's been battling the nasty disease and losing. And the third, a young man a stand-up comedian who had worked in the same club with me. The disease took his youth his voice and his jokes may God cure them everyone. The moms and scholars say that God is good and accepts only that which comes from good. When I give a something like that away I personally feel not just satisfied not just happy but as though I've done a good deed. But you know the money comes from dancing and dancing is a sin. Fine. I won't contradict them. They're the scholars. So that means I won't get a reward for giving back to my fellow human beings. No reward for faithfulness and sympathy for the sick. God and I will have our own reckoning. I was flying back from Dubai and I happened to sit next to this real proper Egyptian lady. She and her husband and kids had been living in the Emirates for 15 years and she was dropping by to see her mother and going back to her husband. Of course you know women. They'll talk till they drop. So she started talking with me and you know I love to chat and to brush anyone off. Everything she said was prayer this and praise that and the prophet this and what's allowed and what's a sin. Turns out she's really religious and she reads all kinds of books about religion in the Quran. Not a month goes by without her reading it covered to cover three times. And she only watches religious programs like recites and the message and she knows the schedule for all of the sermons on the Dream Network and on AXIS TV and NBC. I got it. I get it. She's well off and everyone pampers her and she's free to lead a religious life. But I bet if she and her husband had stayed in Egypt and were working for an hourly wage like the rest of her family she'd spent her time working like a pack mule. Going from her work to her housework to the kids homework and her husband's name would start with an insult and end with a curse. That no good son of a bitch that and damn his lazy ass. And she'd only have time to watch cooking shows on television in hopes of discovering the secret of transforming eggplant to caviar. Because when a person lives in luxury and doesn't have to worry about making a living any kind of life for life any kind of life for her desires. Among other things this lady on the plane talked to me about the terms for repentance. First you admit guilt. Next you stop committing a sin. Third you swear to God never to do it again. And fourth if this sin affected other people or impinged on their rights you ask forgiveness from the people you wrong to restore their rights. Her phone rings Marcel's calling me. She must be turning down my street. Well if dancing is a sin my repentance would be easy. I only need to meet the first three conditions and that's between me and God and he's generous and loving. But what about the rest of these guys whose crimes come at the expense of other people. They're going home cutting off people's livelihood crushing them and drowning them and burning them. Well they know how to rebuild the homes they've destroyed or bring back those who've died or saved those who've turned to drugs. My God help them. Hasan Hasan where are you? Where have you been hiding? A bean sandwich. No, no, no. From the food truck across from the club. No my friend I would but I'm getting picked up soon. Yes. Yes you're on your way. Good. Good. I would have asked you to bring one for me but I'm fine. Okay listen I'm leaving the room now if you want to come and create it. But Hasan promise me you'll give this room some real attention okay? Yes. I've left the basket of fruit for you. No it's nothing, it's nothing. It will go bad I told you I'm going on vacation right now. Into the kids. Okay, enjoy. And by the way the work clothes I left hanging everywhere don't take them down. Yeah, they stink. Let them air out. Alright. Her cell phone rings. Coming Marcella, coming. Congratulations isn't enough. Congratulations and God bless you. Congratulations. You chose the perfect one. Congratulations. You picked the perfect one. If you just went out like this I've talked about how you've forgotten everything we talked about. Lowers her head, speaks with a low voice and covers every part of her body. You need to understand dear sister the veil is the only thing that can keep you safe and guard your virtue. Go into the butcher store with a piece of meat. Which piece of meat would you pick? Would you pick the piece of meat hanging outside with flies buzzing around it or would you pick the piece of meat that is clean and covered in the refrigerator? Piece of meat. Piece of meat. Piece of chocolate. Piece of chocolate. Chocolate. If I were to offer a man two pieces of chocolate one with a wrapper one without a wrapper, which would he pick? Exactly. You wouldn't even look at the one without a wrapper. Chocolate. A good girl attracts the attention of a man and inspires him to propose. Quiet girl. I want to be happy for you. I want to be happy for you. I want to be happy. My love tell me what I can do. Do you like this color on me? Burg and deep. Tell me how you like it. Like it. Like it. But my brother and his family are crazy. This and Sarah that. I don't want you to have anything to do with her and I don't want you to mention her name. I know she's my niece but my brother and his family are crazy and I don't want you to have anything to do with them. Don't compare yourself. Sarah this and Sarah that. I don't want you to mention her name. I don't want you to have anything to do with her. They've got a lot of money so they can behave any way they want. As for us, we know our place and you need to dress modestly so you don't get harassed in the streets. We don't have a private car to lock you up away in and your father doesn't want any trouble. God bless you. God bless you. When I get married I want to find a girl just like you. That's what she's told. I'm going to use every trick in the book to try my best to get you hooked. Straighten it. Get some colored contact lenses. If you've got a feeling that he likes curvy girls put on a little weight. I mean actually you could use to put on a little weight if you're a little skinny. So much weight! Stop eating so many sweets! Girls are in. So stop eating so many sweets. That men are attracted to women with slightly louder voices. Reductive L. That girls who are loud. What will people say about me? A good girl does as she's told. With this shampoo. A good girl does as she's told. When a man to get married and comes to propose she thanks God someone noticed her and she agrees to marry him and never rejects him for silly reasons. A good girl does as she's told. Rejects people. Accepts people. Rejects people. Accepts people. Rejects people. We don't want anything to do with them. We don't want anything to do with them. We don't want anything to do with them. A good girl does as she's told. A good girl does as she's told. God bless you. Think about me. By the way Sarah it's time. You're grown up. You need to take responsibility. With whitening toothpaste your smile will be conservative girls anymore. A girl does as she's told. A good girl does as she's told. A good girl does as she's told. Congratulations. Congratulations. It's for good luck. Congratulations. Sarah he chose Sarah. Thank you everyone for braving the nor'easter tonight to attend this meeting. We were all very very excited about the turnout. And I have to say those of you who have attended this is still 90% more people than I am. I'm just kidding. We're here so no pressure or anything. And we're also very excited about tonight's panel which I hope all of you will find engaging and eliminating the and eliminating the and eliminating the and eliminating the who will find engaging and illuminating. My name is Hanny Khalil and I'm a contributing writer to culture bot which describes itself as an online publication devoted to critical thought about experimental performance. So here we are. My area of focus in my culture bot pieces has tended towards theatrical pieces that have emerged from Egypt in the wake of the 2011 revolution there. This episode has allowed me to see both of these works several times now both as readings and as full stages. I'm absolutely delighted to have both the playwrights here tonight and to be able to join us for the Q&A. I'll begin by introducing them along with the rest of our panelists. I would ask you all to please politely hold your applause until I tell you not to. So, let's begin with Dr. Carol Martin. She is a professor of drama at Tisch School of the Arts in New York University. She's the guest editor of a recent special issue of TDR devoted to urban environments as a performance performance city. And for our purposes, more importantly, she is the general editor in performance, the book series devoted to global anthologies and plays and performance texts published by Segal Books and distributed in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press. Her forthcoming anthology, Top of Your Tales, plays from the Egyptian Revolution contains both works that have been staged tonight. Yasmin and then the playwright in the mirror. Yasmin began writing short stories in college and turned to writing and directing for theater in 2010. Her first play, Joy Seeker, was selected for several independent festivals in Cairo in 2011. In 2012, her play Angry Grain was shortlisted in the Arab Theater Institute competition. In 2014, her play, The Mirror, was part of the 2D Continued Festival and the National Theater Festival in Egypt. Her play, One Shoe for Everyone, was published in 2014 and featured on Egyptian Radio. Joining us as well is Sarah Malewet, who will be providing translational assistance for us tonight. Hanny of the Nulsar is a playwright where they say Danza is a sin and Antonin's Uda Kupnis is an award-winning director, composer and playwright. He's the founding director of the Halasah Theater troupe and has directed, adapted and composed music for several productions for the Egyptian-independent theater, including they say Danza is a sin. He is also well known to Egyptian audiences through his popular cooking show, The Super Half Train House. Rebecca McGorner is our director of these performances. She's a translator, performer, theater and theater... Can we applaud the actor? Okay, sorry. She is a former Huntington Playwriting Fellow. Her plays and translations have had readings and productions at the American Repertory Theater, the New York Theater Workshop, the old Vic in London and right here at the Huntington Theater Company. She is the co-editor and co-translator of the forthcoming anthology Top Pure Tales, Plays from the Egyptian Revolution, and is currently an affiliated scholar at the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University. Next up is Melanie Stewart, the choreographer and movement director for tonight's pieces. Since 1984, she has been the artistic director of Melanie Stewart Dance Theater, producing over 50 original works of dance and movement for the theater for the concert stage and dance, film, video and in education, both nationally and abroad. Throughout her career, she has actively linked her professional work as a performer, choreographer, director and producer to her academic career as a professor and is now associate dean of performing arts at Rowan University. And since they were kind enough to join us, we'll also call on our two performers, Miranda Craigwell, who was a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and appears in Actors and Smart People here at Huntington. Her other regional credits include Lady Capulet, Romeo and Juliet and Sylvia and two gentlemen of Paroda, Shylock and Merchant of Venice, Susan DeRace and Haya Sharma Ion. It's a laugh during how we got on. And last but certainly not least is Ayla Peck, who returns to the Huntington after participating in the 2015 Summer Play Festival reading of Melinda Lopez's Yerma. Her Chicago credits include the last stop at the Gift Theater in 1984 at Steppenwolf, the Royal Society of Antarctica, the Gift, Brahman Eye, a one-hissra stand-up show about face and so forth rising, and The Lark, a premiere theater ensemble. Please join us in applause. Our format tonight is going to begin with a few opening remarks from Dr. Martin. I will then pose a few questions I have for each of our panelists, and then since I know several of you are already chopping into bit, I will open up before questions from the audience. So, would you like to begin? I would, I would. Thank you very much for the lovely introduction for everyone. Congratulations to everyone. It's really a wonderful event. So, I've been asked to give some global international context to situate these two plays that we've just seen tonight, and also Rebecca McGor and Mohamed Al-Bakri's Empology, Terrier Tales. So, let me just begin with just a kind of overview, very brief from actually Rebecca's introduction to Terrier Tales, and I'll apologize for my pronunciation in advance. That's as good as it gets. So, this is Rebecca. During the 18 days of mass protests that led to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, millions of Egyptians demonstrated in squares, parks, courtyards, campuses, and streets throughout Egypt. And what would become known is the Revolution of January 25. It came as no surprise at this extraordinary moment of mass uprising inspired theater artists to protest, perform, and set up camp for weeks at a time. For Egyptian theater artists, the events of January 2011 and the occupation of Terrier unleashed a surge of creative energy. Their participation in the protests opened the floodgates for bold experimentation with a broad variety of theatrical forms. So, that's the emergence of a broad variety of theatrical forms in relationship to a specific historical event and a very particular kind of urgency which overall can be characterized as social justice. In all its different forms. And let me very briefly compare that to some of the opening statements of a book in my series from Turkey. Let me just find that because I'm doing that in a different order than I had intended. Yes. So, Solem and Other Turkish Plays, edited by Sarah Aronson and actually published in 2011. So, Aronson writes, to understand the factors that inspired these plays of the plays of per anthology, all of them in the same series, what they meant to people of Turkey, what they say to their spectators and their imagined audiences and to situate them in the political, economic, cultural, sociological context of the present. One needs to appreciate the trauma of September 12th, 1980 when there was a coup d'etat by General Keenan Edwin, Chief of the General Staff. So that is, I remember my conversation with Sarah and I said, God, I mean, everything will be post-September 11th, 2001. And she said, no, that's not our date, it won't work. And very clearly she writes about September 12th, 1980 in Turkey and the change of consciousness, the events that unfolded. So the geographic and general diversity of the six playwrights in her collection reflect a wide range of issues that I think are very analogous to plays from Tureer Square, Tureer Tale, sorry. Questions involving secularity, so mean secular as opposed to religious. The headscarf issue, free speech, the independence of the judiciary, human rights, the disappeared and economic inequities. One more anthology I want to briefly describe entitled Apollonia, plays, new plays from Poland, and edited by Joanne Kloss. So Joanne writes, Poland was a romantic and fin siac la myth that, denying modernity, persisted as long as it could not be made material. This myth persisted under the partitions throughout the 19th century until 1918 when Poland briefly regained its statehood and after World War II, when the country's sovereignty was limited by communism and the Soviet Union, Poland as Apollonia was therefore a fantasy of national identity and as such, she was not a woman but an illusion. Her relationships were all platonic and she knew nothing of real life. Only after regaining freedom and independence in 1989, at the end of communism and Poland, did she acquire a body and with it the bitterness of heartbreak, the burden of unfulfilled expectations and the onus of settling historical accounts and dilemmas of identity. Above all, Poland had to contend with the real problems of real people and social groups with local conflicts and global politics with the standards of political correctness and with postmodern uncertainty. She, Poland had to face the permanent crisis typical of the liquid modernity in which societies of the West lived. So just a little bit, my last comment in regards to American theater. So, yeah, American theater. So from the 1960s, which is kind of important, directors and playwrights experimented with theater as an agent of social change and I think that's what connects all of these anthologies in the series, in performance, much work focused on the convergence of self-expression with the call for collective social justice. In the U.S., changes in approaches to after-training, playwriting, and set design proceeded along a renewed interest in theater as a political forum directly related to the period's abiding concerns, such as feminism, civil rights, and the anti-war movement. The result was that all aspects of making theater, as well as plays and productions resulting from this process, were commonly understood as implicitly late political intentions. And so I think the underscore is the situates the two plays we saw tonight and the plays in the anthology in its entirety. There's a sense of a political urgency and addressing unfolding realities in a form of art that places its creators and spectators in close proximity so that together they can imagine a desired future. So, I'd like to direct my first couple of questions to our playwrights since they've traveled with our list. I'd like each of you to tell us a bit about what prompted you to write these pieces, specifically what questions and dilemmas would you say stand at the core of your work? What questions do you want the audience to take away from your work, wherever that audience comes in? So, can you look over here, basically dancing to the same? No. First of all, thanks for all of you. I want to thank everyone who has come to this work. I want to thank Rebecca, I thank Huntington Theater, and Madame Foundation, and everyone who took the reason for us being here. And forgive me if I miss some of the viewers. Forgive me for this. And I may ask Sarah for help. It just came up again. Being surrounded with all these factors, a revolution, people asking for social justice, and being surrounded with all this corruption, all this confusion, yes, all this mess, on all aspects, religiously, politically, socially, we just pushed you to write something like this. We feel it all the time, but maybe we did not have the carriage. We did not have the carriage to express it before the revolution, maybe. Although our play, Dancing to the Sand, it was originally wrote, we started working on it in 2007, just as an idea, and we had many wonders. If we would be able to perform it or not, because of censorship, you know, we had many concerns if we would be able to do this or not. But for some production reasons, we could not release it before 2012, and I think we were so lucky because we had the revolution on 2011. So lucky us, yes. So it was that year that we can say whatever you think of. So we released it, and we're here now. What would you say, whether it was intended to be staged in 2007 or 2011 or today in 2016, when you see this audience or really any audience watching a performance of your work, what are some of the questions you want them to tell you? I mean, I would work to give the audience some questions to take away from that. That's from my point of view. From my point of view, it's one of the main aims of nature, is to make you think. And it was just said that nature is an agent of social change, right? That's it. It's meant to be like this. That's what I know about nature. So it should force us to think, to think in a different way, to see things from a different point of view. This is part of my project, and it's part of my project in nature, to make people think and ask themselves. Yes, what about you? Okay, it's a very long story. Yes, but I will display like 11 years ago, just after being graduated, and I have that job. You think when you are still younger, that when you grow up, you will be so and so and so. And then you find that the society around you is trying to understand you, to make it that you don't want to do. It's in the marriage thing. It's on work. Okay, this is the available job, so you have to take it. Don't be so ambitious. Don't try to think differently. And this is very, very common in our society in Egypt, especially with our parents and grandparents. Maybe the new generation is different from that. So I usually see myself in marketing. I begin with that question. What if all the things they are, then we do whatever that would really mean? Well, I'm really glad you said that because it actually entails perfectly into my next question for you. When I first saw the viewer as a reader and you knew your performance two years ago, I had a very visceral reaction to the performance because I felt there was a definite generational tension at play in the piece. And this is a generational tension that I've always said, even if I was on the other side of the world for Egypt, it was very central to a lot of issues that were going on there. And the heart of this tension is this kind of crushing certainty surrounding how a young person ought to behave and that any challenged authority is somehow your brand. And underlying that certainty, to me, what I observed was a sort of pathological fixation on middle-class respect. For me, it was no coincidence that the expression of what will people say, which is something people say very commonly in Egypt, not actually cultures around the world to describe our behavior. To me, it seemed a leading obstacle to social change at the individual level. And so I wonder, because you've written so many works recently, we're very concentrated here in Egypt. We're the most playfights. Is this a theme you've visited in other works? Of course. I just need to speak about a point you mentioned earlier about the middle class. We have a bit of a problem with middle class in Egypt, especially in the last 10 years. This is a class that is between the very poor and the slums that have a loud voice and the rich and aristocrats who have a loud voice too. I think that once the middle class was leading those classes, but now the middle class is crushed people. This makes what people say, okay, you are now between what people say and what people say. There's a lot of uncertainty and instability in that world. Not just globally, but in that one sliver of a question. It's a very protective stance people take from the state. You don't want to fall out of favor. But that's really a remarkable way to put it. I'm sorry. Is this a theme that you visited in other works of yours? The main theme I think is that people have to find their own money. I think, although I am from the the artist and the new generation, but I think that revolutions are not going to be very effective. Yes, the revolution must be on the individual level first. Then, everywhere. But, I don't understand how can we remove a president or a system, while the system is innate inside us. Going back to Hany, Tina Bencro, who is the actress who read the role of the dancer in the post-show discussion of her performance, she talked about challenging some of the ideas western audiences might have, might bring to the character of a belly dancer. She said that this woman found her strength and independence through the art form and that had to come through. To this end, she said that she really had to explore issues of who had the power, the dancer or the man. And there's a lot mixed up in terms of how Americans view the term dancer. See, even in power features. Now, it helps that you as a male playwright have written engaging, multifaceted, convincing female protagonists who's authority is on her picture. This is something that male authors are allowed to not do very well so I'd like for you to tell us a little bit about how you put the character together of the dancer. And what did you draw from and what are some of the ideas you wanted to communicate through her? Well, that's a very good question. I'm so happy. The main reason why the state dancing is in San Luis Street the main idea of this play was mine. Of course, I co-wrote it with Muhammad Abdelmaiz. Muhammad Abdelmaiz is the writer. I just did some editions, some editing, some yeah, maybe added some sentences with the things, but the main writing is from Muhammad Abdelmaiz. But the main idea was mine which was in 2007 actually to be frank it was something in my personal life it was something very personal. I had a crisis I really didn't want really. That made me think what can make you strong in this country? What can make you really strong, bold able to do whatever you want able to get your rights able to face what would make you do this and what is the the example the societal example or archetype? Yes, what example among the society can do this? So I don't know why I get that I got the answer, it's the beauty dancer she's a very daring woman she's really strong, you know what does it mean being a beauty dancer in a country like you that it's not something easy at all a country where most of women and girls are wearing beautiful country, yes a religious country being a beauty dancer uncovering most of your body it's not easy at all facing people like those we heard about in the TV or in the play so it's not easy at all so I don't know why I just came out with that result that's the example to be a beauty dancer powerful woman who can face, get her rights who can stop people whenever she wants to stop them and she knows how to stop them she can who knows how to hurt who she needs to hurt and how to defend herself and how to build that shield around her is it pain? is it money? is it connections? who knows but it's the beauty dancer that's how the idea came up so I started talking with Muhammad Abdelmaiz I think so and so what do you think we should do? what a beauty dancer could discuss when she's all alone by herself discussing it by herself all by herself so we started to think and what would make her discuss it so we came up with a result that's her daily concerns these are her daily concerns things are going all the time in her mind all the time she's thinking about that how people is thinking of me how people are trying to deceive me how people are trying to use me how people are judging me how to defend myself how to feel like a good woman how to be convinced I'm a good woman although the whole society is judging me I'm sorry I was lost so these are her daily concerns okay and I think that was a powerful reason reason why she would discuss it whenever she's got the opportunity to discuss it she would discuss it and we went Muhammad was trying to play and coming back to me reading some paragraphs discussing it with me and then we came up with a good outlook I'd like to bring our performers and movement coach into the discussion as well so to begin with you can just talk a little bit about what did you connect with getting to these characters what did you have to learn about them in the process in the characters or the girl the girl well in your character I think that this girl exists in all women and maybe even then for me personally I'm an actress and a dancer and an artist I think that the way that we're perceived and the way that we're so many expectations are put on us on a constant basis whether they're from our family whether they're from a religion of faith society commercial films everything is telling us to be certain ways and certain ways and certain things and how to meet our needs so to find a connection to this girl was seamless it was effortless truly because I think she lives in all of us and I think that's kind of a beautiful thing about this piece is that I think everybody understands I think for me with the dancer the thing that I really read that really resonated in me was this idea of luxury has the luxury to in her case it would be religious but who has the luxury to decide oh I'm going to do this whether it's time or whether it's privilege we talked about a little bit with the idea of white privilege and what that is and how you don't know you have it until you don't and I thought for the dancer it was the same thing that I was talking about especially the ones the rich ones or the ones who have this sense of privilege they don't know even if they're very religious and allowed to be pious she doesn't know that woman doesn't know what the dancer has to go through or why she made the choice she did but it's really easy for her to judge that and that's something that I could just really resonate with as an actress as a person of color this idea of privilege and being able to choose because not everybody has that and I think that that's a universal theme and it's a place where I was really able to meet this woman and what I loved about her was just how how fierce she could be Rebecca talked a lot about Natalie she could be an alley cat she could be so street but that's because she's seen both sides and it's only when you see both sides that you can call each one out to either be the Robin Hood and defend the one that's down but you can't do that if you're not on both sides and there's something about being that shape-shifter that can be quite frustrating because do you enjoy the trips to the ranch in Cairo guiltlessly or is your fee or what you're paying for that experience is it well this guy treated me like a whore or this guy thought he could step on and that's what I pay so I deserve this strip or I'm going to take his money and then I'm going to give it to someone who doesn't have it I mean you're constantly deciding who she's going to be and how she's going to get into Kevin her day of working and he comes how she's going to say hey look I'm at the gate and this is what I've done as well her relationship with God was very moving because she said all these people can stay as much as they want but I know her I know the difference between our characters is you're so certain I feel like my character is nervous I'm in I think one of the interesting things pairing these two is that we have the ballet dancer who's so spiritual and so close to God and then we have this girl who never mentions God and yet is having this dilemma to veil so that that that you know just if I could I'd like to add to what to what Moreno is saying about the where women when can women really be liberated when can they find their own voice and for me what the reason why I decided to translate these works is because I felt that they were asking a really important question and that question is when is a woman free and both of them actually touch on similar issues and in both of these pieces a woman is free when she has a way to make a living when she has independent means when she has her own money you know the dancer she's actually a very successful dancer she does have her own money her own living the character in the mirror who is independent and does whatever she wants and doesn't care what people say that's the cousin Sarah who comes from a wealthy family they have a private car she can do whatever she wants and so I really appreciate what Moreno was saying about privilege is that you have the privilege as a woman to express yourself, to do what you want to choose to have an interesting career and you have that freedom that comes from a material stability Let me talk to us a little bit about how movement factors into translating these works Carol and I were discussing afterwards it was a remarkably physical performance of the mirror this time compared to the previous ones we used to have some of these Wonderful Collaboration Wonderful Collaboration We had a good time so movement is just hugely useful in informing emotion and driving emotion and driving characterization and particularly in the mirror the description is with a lot of opportunity and a lot of room for various physical states to be developed you have a mirror and there's certainly a cliche that you have to do with the mirror but there's also huge possibilities of what could happen and then you have all these characters and the asmene in the room to help us there was a lot happening in the room in terms of understanding the more specific way I think Rebecca would agree that the translation to another turn in terms of another stage of development in this process through movement exploration and being in the room actually being able to work over these four days unless someone is capable as Isla and willing and to go to places that are really wonderful and unexplored both for all of us in a way to display and see if we could really push the edges in terms of its physicality what might be possible so I don't I want to say something so I we have a wonderful work for about just it's a great luxury to work with Melanie I think that in the American theater we don't often get to have movement directors and we have choreographers on musical theater but a movement director choreographer that's something actually the Russian teachers that I studied with at the American Repertory Theater this is a culture that had movement directors and really what's interesting about that is it's a different it's because there's a different kind of theater in Egypt which really brings in it's not musical theater but it's theater with music and movement and so the text I would say a lot of the new plays coming out of Egypt don't they don't do well in readings you can't just stand and read them because there's so much going on physically, theatrically in the space and that's actually one of the reasons that I love the contemporary theater coming out of Egypt and from other countries in the Arab world that you need new movement, you need music because that is the world that these plays live in I was going to direct the discussion to staging our drama in the American context and what are some of the challenges associated with that what are some of the surprises as well or anything well first of all it's not a usual thing to see Arab drama in translation staged in the U.S. how many of you have actually seen an Arab play in translation before tonight you have, what did you see that's wonderful it's really very rare and so I think the first challenge is just convincing people that there is theatre in the Middle East because when we think of the Middle East we don't think about the theatre seen there there's good theatre there and there are great contemporary playwrights who are doing interesting things with form and they're doing very interesting things with theme and they're asking questions and this is why I am so interested in this work they're asking questions that I think we should be asking on the American stage but we don't explore these themes enough of the status of women police brutality inequality we do explore them of course but I think that in a lot of the contemporary Egyptian work that I've been looking at in the last few years it's really done in such a bold way and in such a way that is very aware again of the material circumstances of the characters and who has power and who has resources and so I look at this theatre and there's drama as something that I want to bring to my American audiences that's really where my interest is I've got one more question for our playwrights and then I'll open up the house questions what's the scene like in Cairo? Is there a theater like in Egypt? Yeah Okay First of all I work in the National Academy of Egypt Okay so I am kind of I'm sorry I can't hear you can you speak? Yeah sure I think that in the in the last couple of years the theater is flourishing maybe before that there were artists that are performing themselves to their friends but there there weren't there were there were there was there wasn't there wasn't a real audience for theater before the last couple of years those kind of most ladies small independent things with people's homes with their friends but I think in the last three years because after the revolution there was a kind of in Egypt and probably there was mostly And she thinks this has changed in the past couple of years immediately after the revolution a type of theater that was a lot more direct create scenes from the actual revolution that people had lived. And to her, she thinks that this wasn't very necessary, because of things that people had already gone through and had already lived there. So it was a lot more of a literal, direct kind of theater. After that, a more mature type of theater began to emerge, especially coming out of universities, coming out of independent theaters, even coming out of the national theater, where they wanted to provide theater that was more subtle, more nuanced, and more mature. They created an annual membership for the national theater for a very low price of 50 different pounds, which is less than $10, for an annual membership to encourage people to attend. And this enabled them to attend as many plays as they wanted throughout the year. You can attend as many plays as you want for the price of this membership. Before this, there was a gap between ordinary people and cultural institutions. And people were afraid to approach these cultural institutions or to be a part of theater and places that provided cultural education. So this has now changed. People have begun going to theater a lot more television programs and talk shows have begun to host playwrights and people who work in the theater who are very successful, who have written successful plays. So this has increased the public interest in theater. I know that Yasmin didn't mean this, but you shouldn't get the impression that there hasn't been theater in Egypt before a couple of years ago. I mean, there's a very, very long tradition of theater. There was theater, but there was an audience. But I think, too, there have been different stages within the history of Egyptian theater. And under Nasser, there was a huge renaissance of theater and a huge state support for the theaters. And there was... So again, there's been different stages and a lot of that has to do with... That's the same that Kenny was just telling me. And I thought, again, I was just... She means within her lifetime. She's so... Well, I'd like to open up the house to questions before I do so. I realize I could stand to take my own advice here, but if you can get to the call of your question in five sentences or less, that would be great for everything. Yes, sir. I want to continue with finding out what scope there is now with the way I've heard the news coming out of Egypt. It sounds like all the news is gone, but apparently that's not accurate. So you mentioned TV, and I do remember there was some... what we call situation comedy that had some Jews in it, as well as Egyptians and all that. So you're something... There's a space for feeling of expression that somehow is being created? That's what you're saying. Is there a lot of space in Egypt? Yes, there is a lot. In Egypt, there's a lot of space. We're used to this space, but we're not used to it. Nothing. As for the TV, the space is a bit different. I'm talking about... And in terms of space, there's something else. Oh, in terms of freedom of expression, there has to be what's going on with the possibility of this, or freedom of expression. And we have... She's saying it depends. Freedom of expression depends. In the theater, there is more freedom of expression, and she talks that up to the fact that there wasn't much of an audience before, so it wasn't seen as that great of a threat. So that's why they had a little bit more wiggle room, and they had more space to kind of talk about issues. On television, she was saying that they... talk shows will host playwrights or actors to discuss their work in the theater, but not necessarily to discuss more controversial issues, like to discuss the actual craft and the process of putting the things together, and things like that. In terms of... on an actual theater level, there hasn't been very much censorship. As she said, the audience isn't that big, but on TV, there are a lot more careful with what is said and what isn't allowed to be said. Although, I mean, playwrights do things with an extraordinary amount of censorship. So in the anthology that is coming out, there's actually an essay on the history of the Egyptian stage, in which Nihat Salehah, one of the great scholars and critics in Egypt, actually traces the censorship on the stage in Egypt back to the 18th century and goes through until today. So there is official censorship in Egypt. There's societal censorship. There's actually a whole code of what's allowed and what's not allowed on the stage, and they're having... Okay. You see, didn't she... She's saying that, you know, there's the official rules and there's what people actually do in practice, are not always the same. I don't agree with this. We have a read censorship. A read one. So we have an official censorship. People who attend the... What do they call it? The... The dress rehearsal. The dress rehearsal. Some employees representing the censorship they come to attend the dress rehearsal. And of course, before that, we give them our scripts. They read it very well and if they have any concerns they would call the director or the playwright and tell him this and this and this and this is not admitted. You have to change it. And they call it a discussion. They call them a discussion. But as a matter of fact, they call them just to let them know that this and this and this is not admitted. And he has to change it or to remove it or whatever, and on the dress rehearsal one of the employees come to make sure that everything, every remark that was said in the discussion with the director was polled. And if not, that's a really big problem. A really big problem. After the dress rehearsal the show is open. They sent secret agents. They sent secret agents among the audience. But I think that despite that censorship there's also very clever and creative and amazing ways that the playwrights and the theatre artists find to say the bold things, bold statements and questions that they're asking their work despite that censorship. We've seen that in other places as well. We've seen that in the history of playwriting. I don't have several examples. Well, in Russia when Moliel was writing in France there's ways of getting around censorship. Sometimes it's successful but not always. I'm a small American. I grew up in Dubai. For me, this was like really nostalgic. I was screaming of those that you all know. The three people that show us that they both had different positions. So, for instance, you know, I think this is your character. She reminded me so much of a lot of hypocrisy that I see in the Muslim world. I'm a Muslim myself. But with kind of this emphasis on the importance of being good on the external servers, right? A lot of people say, oh, why are you not doing the job? They're sinning and doing worse things. And there was just a lot of interesting representation to show. So would you speak a little bit more about the theme of hypocrisy in the Muslim world? Right. Can I answer? Can I answer? Yes, yes. So, let's put it into expression. It's a kind of contradiction not hypocrisy. That's, in my beliefs, our major illness. That's our major illness in the Middle East. We have loads of contradictions. Loads of contradictions concerning our religious beliefs, concerning our social flows. And contradiction, evaluating things, judging things at, I mean, that's our major illness. So, I'm so glad that really those two scripts were discussing this issue because it's a clear reflection and honest reflection of what we are suffering from as Middle Easter's I mean, yes, you can wait here and do all the little things. Yes, and you can be unveiled for ability to answer and do really good things and have a real, a real relationship with God. And think about, the most important thing is to think about, not to talk about it. Yes, to be aware he's there. That's the main issue. To be aware he's there. And that was a very beautiful piece of our play that they say dancing to the same. Who do I harm? When she was saying, who do I harm? Okay, they keep saying dancing to the same. Okay, who do I harm? What do I do wrong? Nobody's supposed to come to the nightclub and watch me. They watch me with pleasure. Whenever I do something for myself, I make sure it's not on any other one expense. Isn't that religious? Doesn't it sound religious? And that's ability to answer. So that's what we are suffering from. It's the contradiction, judging people. There's a thing that had to be positive. Who goes to heaven because that's people that have dogs. They go home with dogs every day. And so that reminded me of that. And another thing about a very religious woman who locked up a cat and refused to feed her until the cat was dead. And she went to To Hill. I We are running a bit over. So if any of you still have questions or you might have to come for the subject of words. We'll take one more for you about it. Yes. I apologize for this question because I really respect your concerns. But I have a lot of concerns about the figure of the belligerent. Who seems to me to be really unmoored from the realities of economic life and not just religious, but any place that a woman so outside of the social experience would not have the kind of self-assurance and the judgment that she'd had. Now, okay. It's a story. But I was struck by the fact that you never mentioned that you might have interviewed another belly dancer. I mean, I think I had the sense of a view of society which did not have at its center a viewer so much I don't know. I sound very critical and I suppose I am. But I I mean, I'll be very honest with you. What you're saying, would you say the question is that the character of the belly dancer you don't think invites the viewer in in a credible enough way? Is that the question? Make a question. That's right. Is it that unbelievable? Is that she's not believable? Thank you. The sense that I have is or what connection does this judging figure have to the actual life of a woman? Okay? Well, I think this figure is extremely connected to all layers and categories in society. And we saw it. If we trace if we trace all the things she was telling us we'll find her coming from a very poor category. Poor background. We'll find that her sister was married to a lawyer who may belong to the middle class. Then she became an ability dancer to know people from other social ranks. Businessmen people in authority general. Yeah, general. All kind of people. So, what I think that this character is rich enough is rich enough to help all these experiences. And it's real. If you were Egyptian you would know what ability dancer means. And not all ability dancers we are considering superstar, which is a diva, a well-known ability dancer. She's paid a lot. Because of what she does. So, it's important that she's successful. Yes, very successful. Which is why the entrance to all these places and all these social... But why are we just heard that it's relevant? It is relevant. So, we're really being instructed to wrap things up. So, we absolutely encourage anyone who has a question to ask us in the reception afterwards. So we'll start immediately. Thank you.