Texts in the Memory of Sudanese Theatre
Al Sir Al- Sayed
There are many texts that color the memory of Sudanese theater throughout its long history. Some of them even constituted a sign of creative and cognitive production in Sudan. Who does not know the play “The Engagement of Suheir” or the play “Al-Mak Nimr” or the play “The Mixed School”? In the Sudanese theater archive there are stories and anecdotes about the call for women’s education, and the struggle for their public and personal rights.
Its archive contains stories about oppression and resistance, love, madness, and defending life. In this short article, I will tell you a few details about (the play “Those Who Crossed the River” by Adel Mohammad Khair. This play was based on a real event that actually occurred.
In Sudanese political life, it is the bombing of the Al-Gezira Aba , south of the capital, Khartoum, by the official military establishment during the rule of President Jaafar Numeiri, specifically in March 1970, when the conflict intensified between the Mayan regime and the Ansar sect, led by Imam Al-Hadi Al-Mahdi, who was killed in the context of the events in Al-Gezira. The play was sculpted in Its construction is a trend that can be somewhat placed within the circle of what is known as documentary theatre.
Soldier: You could have defeated us if you had crossed the river and attacked us from behind.
Imam: Victory over you was not difficult…
We defeated the lust for victory.
Soldier: How, for God’s sake, help me understand?!!
Imam: If the Ansar had crossed the river, that would have meant that blood would have crossed the river as well, and war would have broken out in the entire nation.
Therefore, we preferred that the heart of the Gezira bear the wound and not burn the entire nation.
This play, which consists of two scenes and contains four characters: the soldier, the soldier’s wife, the doctor, and the imam’s character… I tried, in a poetic language characterized by dialogue, to present a story about the violence of the Sudanese state based on a real political event, as we mentioned, but the poetry and eloquence of the text were able to create a similarity between Al-Gezira and the entire country, and between the bombing of Al-Gezira Aba and the bombing of Omdurman by the British forces, which is known in the modern history of Sudan as the Battle of Karari in 1898 AD, the central saying of the text comes in asking the difficult question:
What is defeat and what is victory?? As an existential question that always troubles war makers in every time and place.
