ABSTRACT

This study of Egyptian theatre and its narrative construction explores the ways representations of Egypt are created of and within theatrical means, from the 19th century to the present day. Essays address the narratives that structure theatrical, textual, and performative representations and the ways the rewriting process has varied in different contexts and at different times. Drawing on concepts from Theatre and Performance Studies, Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Diaspora Studies, scholars and practitioners from Egypt and the West enter into dialogue with one another, expanding understanding of the different fields. The articles focus on the ways theatre texts and performances change (are rewritten) when crossing borders between different worlds. The concept of rewriting is seen to include translation, transformation, and reconstruction, and the different borders may be cultural and national, between languages and dramaturgies, or borders that are present in people’s everyday lives. Essays consider how rewritings and performances cross borders from one culture, nation, country, and language to another. They also study the process of rewriting, the resulting representations of foreign plays on stage, and representations of the Egyptian revolution on stage and in Tahrir Square. This assessment of the relationship between theatre practices, exchanges, and rewritings in Egyptian theatre brings vital coverage to an undervisited area and will be of interest to developments in theatre translation and beyond.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

part II|44 pages

Interlingual Rewriting

part III|56 pages

Intercontextual Rewriting

chapter 8|11 pages

Theatre-Making and Theatre Translation in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt

Theatricalizing the Theatre Field in Muhammad Taymur's The Trial of the Playwrights

chapter 9|21 pages

From Spectators to “Spect-Actors”

All Tahrir's a Stage

chapter 10|18 pages

Egyptian Realities on Stage and in Society

Theatre Reviews 1

part IV|51 pages

Intermedial Rewriting

chapter 11|20 pages

Dramatizing Short Stories

Yussef El Guindi's Rewriting of Salwa Bakr's "That Beautiful Undiscovered Voice," and "Thirty-One Beautiful Green Trees"

chapter 12|15 pages

It Is Not Just Phonetics and Aristocrats — It Is Sexuality and Politics

The Adaptation of Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion in the Egyptian Theatre

chapter 13|10 pages

Testimonial — A Documentary in the Making

Live on Stage: A Century and a Half of Theater in Egypt

chapter |3 pages

Afterword