PERSONAL OPINION

DROP YOUR MASKS BEFORE YOU STEP ON STAGE.

(auditions with Nagy Souraty)

Alaa Minawi in SILENZIO33 - 2007

It puzzles me how Nagy Souraty chooses his Dramatist Personae. 

What are the criteria or specifications?

There is no age limit, no need for physical fitness. Having a previous experience is only an asset. Singing, dancing, or playing on a musical instrument is not a requirement. Skating is a plus! Gender is not important. There is no specific height, weight, or skin color. The educational background does not intervene in the selection. What is it then?

Nagy’s auditions are an occasion to meet with previous participants of his major productions. I might call them “Souraty’s Alumni”. How do you become an alumnus in the Souraty’s school? It is by being honestly involved in one of his productions till the end. The alumni do not necessarily come to Nagy’s auditions to join in the forthcoming production. They attend for various reasons; to see the new applicants and observe how Nagy will deal with them, it could be to salute partners who participated in previous productions. Some even come to choose their cast for upcoming theatre, film, or TV projects. 

I have been attending Nagy Souraty’s auditions for the past seven years at LAU. I asked myself frequent questions; what is this man doing? Is he serious! "Talk to the chair!" Again! “What would you live for?” “What would you die for?” and no matter how creative the answer turns out to be, Nagy will criticize it. Even when humor is involved, I know that Nagy Souraty’s auditions are a learning experience for those interested in acquiring methods and techniques for casting. 

Nagy’s theatre starts from an idea or a theme. It usually starts very general and abstract. How can he, in the first days, choose performers accordingly? How does a director choose from tens of applicants without having a script specifying “the characters” or a story “outlining” the needed performer(s)?

After years of observation, I came to a conclusion that Nagy Souraty does not really do auditions. He puts the posters for try-outs, but it ends there. I have a firm belief that if Souraty conducts Try–outs, based on the standards he requires, most of the applicants would be out. However, things are never simple or banal as they might sound. Eventually, Nagy proved to be right in his choices of performers, who are a possibility for becoming “dramatist personae”. If most succeed, some simply fail... but this, I will talk about in a later article. 

Through the years of knowing Nagy, I found out that he is looking for true humans/humanists. [...] it is something hard to explain. The only criterion that is needed to pass in Nagy’s auditions is to have something real amidst all the shallowness, fakeness, useless ego, peer pressure, society conforms, and stereotypes. Nagy is searching for a gleam of hope in the applicant; the possibility of finding something true. He provokes the applicant in the auditions and asks unexpected questions to unbalance his/her “perfect image” which is drawn with such care. In the middle of this attempt to destabilize the applicant, something true bursts out. As a result, he/she is “In”.

A piece of advice for the applicants who would want to audition in Nagy Souraty’s next performances, drop your masks and then step on stage. It is only then that you will fit the occurring space and time.

Alaa Minawi - February 2011