Ahead of its international day..Theater in Sudan… gets sick and does not die

Sudan Events: Magda Hassan

Theatrical life has almost stopped, if it has not already stopped, for at least five years. This impression prevails, especially when we take a fleeting glance at aspects of theatrical life in Sudan and when we pass in front of the gate of the National Theater and its presence diminishes day after day and its lights dim evening after evening.

Free and clean

But the show is still going on, and as we approach World Theater Day on the twenty-seventh of this March, we will say in the beginning that theater is free and clean from the brutal occupation that took its place on its stage for nearly a year.

It occupied the place, but did not occupy the minds, and did not prevent the will from theatrical action.

Those who were divided between displacement and asylum They armed themselves with their tools, their personal abilities and their belief in the necessity of work.

Theater director Rabie Youssef said in an interview with Sudan Events that he was displaced twice, the first to the city of Wad Madani, where he spent several months during which he presented theatrical performances in shelter homes and its environs.

Then, after the attack on Madani, he was displaced to the city of Port Sudan, and now he also works. I have a new offer.

Rabie said that he is working through performances to regain his identity as a theatrical actor who works despite all circumstances, as he is one of those who were not stopped by the war from working.

Improving the environment

If it were not for the brilliance of the recent emergence of a Dramatists Syndicate, out of the long night of suffering, it would be true to say that theatre, the father of all arts, had died, or the life within it had died.

Not long ago, theatrical activity stopped, in particular, in the capital, the center of cultural action in general, and drama. Because of the war, even though accuracy had become scarce before it, the war

It increased the suffering of creators

Suffocation in the work atmosphere, and as stated in a previous statement by the Dramatists Syndicate during this period

Stopping many activities for various reasons, immigration and asylum: We lost quite a few of our cadres as a result of this damned war. Arrests included some of our members and those in the arts. Some of our members disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The union promised that it would not stand idly by as a result of what is happening in the country: The war has disrupted, as it has disrupted everything in our public life, many of our ambitious plans to create a different reality for our profession, improve the conditions for practicing it, and raise its value.

Peace symbol

In the month of Theater Day, the theater actor Awad Shakespeare confirmed in an exclusive interview with Sudan Events that theater is here to stay and will rise. He said in a speech to it: (Arise, you old genie, and be a destructive weapon and a symbol of peace.) These are necessarily the foundations upon which the art of theater is based, a message as strong as a weapon and a message. Delicate call for peace, and in this context, Dr. Shams al-Din Younis, specialist of theater at the College of Music and Drama, said that theater is the art of demanding it. He said: We know that theater will remain as long as life remains, and that theater is the art of demanding what is right. He added: O theater, you have great tasks in normal society. O playwrights, rise to your tasks. They are many tasks. It will rise from the ruins to build a new Sudanese reality.

truce

Theater, like the nation, gets sick and does not die despite the obvious neglect and over the years that the theatrical work has continued to suffer from those in charge now. The brilliance of theater has not faded in the capital, and in the regions, attempts to have a theatrical renaissance have not ceased.

But a truce often occurs, as many have entered the marathon of searching for livelihood through approaches other than art and drama.

Big theatre

When World Theater Day comes, on the twenty-seventh of this month, you will find that the drama’s facilities and podiums are hooting with owls, especially the National Theater in Bamdurman, which contains the remnants of war and corpses littering its sides instead of the audience that was distributed in Allah vast land, after it was transferred War has turned its homeland into a large theater in which women and children, looting, plundering and rape are represented: (Give me a theatre, and I will give you a nation) We have been repeating it for a long time, and the conclusion that we can draw from examining the dryness of our theatrical reality is that we no longer exist as a nation, or almost, so what will we say to the theater on its feast day? Continue with theatrical signatures.