ABSTRACT
In the introductory remarks to my book Seen and Heard: A Century of Arab Women in Literature and Culture (2004), I noted how literary genres seek to leave traces in space and time by inventing worlds to assure their continuity. Arabic literature and specifically Arabic drama is in that spirit deeply preoccupied from its earliest inception with finding answers for its bewildering realities. The relationship between a writer and his/her tools is an intricate web that the author attempts to unravel in his/her writings — or, in the case of drama, present on the stage. A brief survey of the origins of dramatic theatre especially in Egypt can help shed light on this thriving genre, which has survived many adversities as well as numerous successes for more than a century and a half. Egypt became introduced to modern Westen dramatic form as early as the Napoleonic Expedition in 1798. The great chronicler aj-Jabartī described in some detail not only the plays, translated and adapted, but more interestingly the audiences and their reactions to this new form of entertainment, as well as the architectural importance of the spaces, arena-style seating, decor props, all of which fascinated both him and Rifā‘a at-Ṭahṭāwī, the great Arab sociologist. Aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī in his seminal Takhlīṣ al-Ibrīz fī Talkhīṣ Bārīz (The Extrication of Gold in Summarizing Paris), known in English as Manners and Customs of Modern Parisians, revels in that new form of entertainment. He enthusiastically embraced it as a wonderful new medium for his compatriots in the mid-nineteenth century.
