World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre Volume 4: The Arab World

Don Rubin (Series Editor), Ghassan Maleh, Farouk Ohan, Samir Sarhan, Ahmed Zaki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134929849
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Artes escénicas

One of the first internationally published overviews of theatrical activity across the Arab World. Includes 160, 000 words and over 125 photographs from 22 different Arab countries from Africa to the Middle East.

THE NATIONS AND
THEIR THEATRES

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AJMAN

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(see UNITED ARAB EMIRATES)

ALGERIA

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(Overview)

One of the wealthiest countries in Africa, Algeria's economy is based largely on the exploitation of its natural resources, especially oil and petroleum products buried in the sand and gravel of the Algerian Sahara. Also known as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, and part of the Grand Maghreb, it is bordered on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the south by Niger, Mali and Mauritania, on the east by Tunisia and Libya, and on the west by Morocco. Covering an area of 2,381,750 square kilometres (919,600 square miles), the Sahara Desert blankets more than 90 per cent of the country's land area.

A former French colony, Algeria's population in 1995 was estimated to be 28.5 million, 99 per cent of whom were ethnically Arab-Berber. Arabic is the official language and is spoken by about 80 per cent of the population; the remainder speak various Berber dialects. French is also widely spoken and read. The vast majority of the population are Sunni Muslim, the official state religion. The country's capital is Algiers.

The earliest known inhabitants of Algeria were hunters living in the Al Hajjar region between 8000 and 2000 BC who may have been tribal Berbers. Much later, Phoenicians settled some of the coastal areas of Algeria from their north African state of Carthage, part of modernday Tunisia. The first Algerian kingdom was established by the Berber chieftain and Roman supporter Massinissa during the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage in the third and second centuries BC. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Roman armies were withdrawn and in the third century AD, the Donatists, a North African Christian sect that had been suppressed by the Romans, declared a short-lived independent state in the region. Algeria was invaded by the Vandals—a Germanic tribe—in the fifth century and the country was again occupied for a hundred years before being overthrown by the Emperor Justinian's Byzantine army. It was Justinian's aim to restore the Holy Roman Empire but the spread of Islam and the Arab conquest of North Africa during the seventh century thwarted the expansion of Byzantium and permanently changed the character of North Africa.

The Arab invasion was not without resistance. The Berbers, led by a tribal high priestess named Kahina who claimed conversion to Judaism, fought the invaders but eventually surrendered to the Umayyad Khalif. The Berbers quickly embraced Islam but forcefully held on to their own language thereby withstanding total Arabization. In the eighth century they formed their own Islamic government. Several tribes embraced Shiism and founded Shiah tribal kingdoms, the most powerful of which was the Rustamid kingdom at Tahert in central Algeria, which flourished during the eighth and ninth centuries. The remaining tribes adopted Islam in the form of Maliki Sunni with strong Sufi tendencies.

From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, under two subsequent Berber dynasties—Almoravid and Almohad—northwest Africa and southern Spain were united into one territory. The regional capital Tlemcen became known for its elaborate mosques and Islamic schools and as a crafts centre. Algerian seaports carried on a thriving trade in horses, wax, leather and fabric with European markets. The collapse of this dynasty in the thirteenth century created trade competition among both Muslim and Christian seaports and, in order to gain advantage, city governments hired pirates to seize competing merchant ships and hold cargo and crew for ransom. Algiers became a primary centre for this kind of activity.

By the sixteenth century Christian Spaniards controlled much of North Africa and Muslims asked for help from the Ottoman sultan. The Spaniards were eventually driven out but a sultan's representative—Khayr ad—Dinwas installed in Algeria. Because of the vast distance between Algeria and Constantinople, the centre of the Turkish Empire, Algeria nevertheless maintained a fairly independent state during this period. Their pirates dominated the Mediterranean, bringing great riches to the nation. In the eighteenth century, however, European forces with more firepower and better ships were able to challenge the pirates; subsequent international agreements outlawing piracy brought Algeria's sea domination to an end. As a result, in 1830 Algiers, after the destruction of its defensive forces by an Anglo Dutch fleet, was captured by the French army.

With the French occupation, Algerian life from the late nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century was dominated by French tradition with the French formally annexing Algeria in 1834. This regime sparked bitter resistence from people who by this point were used to the much more unobtrusive Turkish rule. A leader emerged, Abd al-Qadir, an Islamic holy man who claimed direct descent from Muhammad. He launched a rebellion against the French which lasted for more than a decade. Abd al-Qadir remains to this day a folk hero to Algerian nationals for the nationalist feelings he inspired. In 1847, the French began to colonize Algeria in very large numbers and Algerian nationals, although benefiting from French services and economic development, remained a subjugated minority. Though they were French subjects, full French citizenship had its cost: to become citizens Algerians had to renounce their Islamic faith. Very few did so.

Among the Muslim population, there were those who sent their children to be educated at French schools and it was from this group that French cultural traditions—including the staging of a literary theatre—spread to the larger community. Yet even among this group, few were accepted as equals by the ruling class. Interestingly, it was also this group which in the 1930s led a new movement toward Algerian nationalism, a movement aimed at reviving national interest in Algerian origins. With independence, this became national policy.

The French colonial strategy in the nineteenth century was clear to all: to isolate Algeria from other Arab countries and to distance it from the political, social and cultural changes occurring in the Arab world. As a result, Algerians—denied the larger world—turned inward, adhering more than ever to inherited Arab and Islamic traditions. Positive in one way, this approach had a negative effect on Algerian cultural development since the community was also forced to cut itself off from the world around them and was late in recognizing the uses and value of such things as literary theatre.

Algerians, of course, were never devoid of their own indigenous performance forms, either in earlier centuries or during the long period of colonial occupation. Musical forms, dance forms and storytelling along with poetry recitals and recitals from the Quran were long connected to celebrations of such things as seasonal changes and community and family events long before a French-style theatre was introduced. The history of these forms can be traced back to at least the period of the Arab Islamic conquest of what is called al-Maghrib al- ‘Arabi (the Arab ‘west’ or Maghreb), an area that, for all intents and purposes, makes up most of North Africa. Public storytelling, for example, included improvised dramatic elements, singing and dancing and almost always took place amidst a large group of spectators who would form a halqa (circle) around the performers. The style is still popular. Most public entertainments began with the telling of heroic stories such as Abu Zaid al-Hilaali, a saga that is still capable of injecting confidence in the national soul. Such popular forms effectively expressed a deeper national reality during this period of Algerian history, so deep, in fact, that French authorities began to censor both the stories and the storytellers. But they were never completely eradicated and they continue to be performed even now as a mode of expression of the national psyche. Such presentations continue to depend on the virtuosity of a single person performing all the various roles aided by a few key props of which a cane remains one of the most useful. In the style known as al-Maddaah (also called al-Qawwaal, literally meaning ‘Praise’), the rawi (narrator) chooses a subject, usually historical or religious, and improvises praise in verse utilizing either classical or colloquial Arabic. The rawi would also tell stories in prose dealing with daily life or historical events.

Also popular at that time and continuing in popularity at the present time is the puppet form known in Algeria as al-Qaraaqoz, a term also used to describe a scarecrow and linked theatrically to khayal al-zhil (shadow theatre) in the Arab east and the Turkish karagöz (literally meaning ‘black eye’). The form's three leading characters are al Qaraaqoz, a clever but basically good-hearted man, Laala Sunbaya, and her inseparable servant, both of whom ultimately resist all the tricks of Qaraaqoz. The form includes direct interaction with the audience and improvised words, gestures and actions. During the period of French occupation, the form was used to attack and ridicule the French and their collaborators. By 1843, it too was officially banned though it continued to be seen all across the country in various disguises over the next hundred years. This is confirmed by diaries of travellers as early as 1847 and 1862 when similar puppet forms were seen in both eastern and western parts of the country. One variation dates from the period 1910 to 1919 when an unknown Turkish performer in Algiers was noted by travellers as playing for children from beneath a table with a space cut out for his head. Appearing to the audience as if his head had been cut off, he talked and joked with the audience and played whole scenes utilizing only his head.

The earliest recorded examples of European style theatre in Algeria date to the mid-nineteenth century when plays were done by amateur actors in French for audiences almost totally composed of French soldiers, their families, and some early European settlers. By 1853, the French government had built a large theatre for the purpose in Algiers.

The impact of such experiments on the local community was virtually nil, however, in great measure because of linguistic problems (see introductory essay on ARAB THEATRE AND LANGUAGE). One of the major problems was simply what language theatre artists should be using to perform in. Even when attempts were made to perform in classical and colloquial Arabic, audiences still had no interest. The fact that Algeria has several regional dialects and choosing one over another would obviously cause problems just added to the confusion. Other potential audience members, educated in the classical or Quranic Arabic, refused to accept art in a language that they perceived to be unrefined. Then there was the vast number of people who were functionally illiterate (some put this figure as high as 90 per cent before 1955) who stayed away from anything regarded as literary.

Even as late as the beginning of the twentieth century, the lack of general interest in a literary theatre—even among those who spoke French—was clear when a number of Algerians attempted to begin a company of their own. Again, the attempt failed for lack of audiences.

It was not until after World War I that interest in a modern literary theatre began to be seen. Intellectuals and artists were the first to feel a need for a theatre that could deal with serious issues, a theatre that would parallel the more general Algerian cultural awakening which had its beginnings in the early part of the century. Students were among the first to write and perform satiric plays, many presented as part of public celebrations where poetry, speeches and songs were well accepted. Many such events were organized by social and cultural clubs especially during the month of Ramadan.

The first and most important of these groups was the Widaadiyat at-Talaba al-Muslimeen (Society of Muslim Students) founded in 1919. In the spring of 1921, the Beirutborn dramatist George Abyad and his Egyptian Theatrical Company visited Algeria as part of a tour from Cairo. This event was a precious opportunity for students and writers to get acquainted with not just the theatre but specifically an Arablanguage theatre at close range. The company staged its performances in classical Arabic which, though limited to an educated minority, had the benefit of being understood more widely than a performance in colloquial Arabic would have been. Productions included Fat-h a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• International Editorial Board
• Dedication
• Contents
• The Nations and Their Theatres
• International Editorial Board
• The nations and their theatres
• Further reading
• International reference
• Writers and national editorial committees
• Index