Beirut dramatist Nagy Souraty discusses the themes of his latest theatrical venture
BEIRUT: Life and art, as we know, are fond of imitating one another. Of all creative endeavors – if the annals of popular culture are to be believed – theater is particularly prone to such cross-fertilization.
From William Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to John Madden’s film “Shakespeare in Love,” the resonances between onstage and offstage shenanigans have provoked an entire genre of “let’s put on a show” stories.
Given the parroting propensity of theater and life, directors should probably choose their subjects with care. In a move either courageous or foolhardy, Nagy Souraty selected the theme of violence for his latest production, “Post-Fight Dissonances.”
First shown as a work-in-progress at the Lebanese American University (LAU) last year, “Post-Fight Dissonances” debuts at Masrah al-Madina at the end of this month.
Sure enough, the production period has seen a season of violence both political and personal.
“It was November and this violence that we had on stage was reflecting what was happening in town,” says Souraty, taking a break from rehearsals Saturday evening.“We were kind of scared of having a civil war here again.
“Now, particularly today, it’s reflecting what’s happening in the Arab world. It’s scary. And of course it’s reflecting what happened to me in the university.”
This last comment is a reference to Souraty’s recent dismissal from the Lebanese American University. Amid accusations of misconduct from both sides, Souraty left his alma mater under something of a cloud.
“They considered that I was a violent person and that my teaching methods were violent – after 10 years of teaching!” says Souraty.
A slanging match ensued and lines were drawn among LAU faculty and Beirut’s artistic community. Feeling misrepresented, Souraty held several conferences in the past month at Masrah al-Madina, one for the LAU community and one for the press.
As a result, the director has devoted a lot of thought to his vision and methods. “I realized, when I looked back at the performances that I’ve done over the past 10 years,” says Souraty, “that I’ve always created a situation of the edge for the actors, whereby they are forced to become themselves onstage.”
In my productions, he continued, “the actors worry about their safety –they know that if they lack concentration there could be an accident. Somehow, this pushes them to drop the masks and they become themselves.
“They have to be true – not necessarily real – but true to themselves and to the audience. This is what touches the audience.”
In “Post-Fight Dissonances,” for example, the actors batter at each other with planks of wood, waddle around the stage in huge metal bowls and grapple with each other in fight scenes that are intended to be as close as possible to the real thing.
It is this perilous quest for emotional truth that makes the director such a divisive figure.
To his detractors, Souraty is a bullying megalomaniac. His fans speak adoringly of the director as someone who pushes his actors to the limit in order to create theatrical magic.
Over the past 10 years, Souraty has developed his theatrical aesthetic under the aegis of the “major productions” at LAU.
Intended to give students the experience of working in a professional production, these “major productions” gave Souraty the mandate and funding to hire professional actors and crew alongside LAU students.
Blending physical theater with text, Souraty eschews realism and any obvious narrative.
“I consider that realistic theater died a long time ago,” says Souraty, rather grandly.
“I’m not interested in telling a story. What I’m interested in is to express a particular situation that tells many stories. I express a state in which we are in this moment in Lebanon or in the world and this state provokes identification from the people.”
Souraty’s workshops with his actors begin with a single theme, developing characters and sequences of movements.
“What I do is that I start creating a show and then at a certain point I feel the need for a text to underline what is happening on stage,” says Souraty. “I don’t use the text as a starting point for my creation.”
His previous production, “In the Heart of the Heart of Another Body,” used works by Etel Adnan.
“Post-Fight Dissonances” deploys “Thus Speaks the Murderer,” Nasri Sayegh’s meditation on the Lebanese Civil War and its aftermath.
Snatches of the text are spoken in English, French and Arabic throughout the performance. Sometimes these are intoned as though by a Greek chorus. Other times they are yelled out in a call-and-response sequence. At times they are narrated from wings of the stage.
Sayegh worked with Souraty to adapt his writing for its theatrical debut. “For the last 10 years, all the texts I’ve used are the texts of authors I know,” says Souraty. “They know that when I take a text I deconstruct it and of course they agree on that before I start using it.
“Here, Nasri rewrote some parts, telling me that it was written for a book and that if we formulate it differently for the stage then it would be much more interesting.
“But he reached a point where he said, ‘You know Nagy, I even think you can take off the text because it’s there, even without saying the words.’ Of course I don’t agree with him on that, because I need the text to push [the play] further.”
A glimpse of rehearsals showed topless male actors grappling with each other in whirling dervish-style skirts as Perspex objects and wooden structures dangled above.
Accordion players wobbled on unstable platforms on either side of the stage and a high-octane soundtrack thundered alongside.
“A lot of people cried during [earlier] performances,” says Souraty. “A lot of people contacted us saying that they weren’t able to sleep.
“Any person who has experienced violence in any form is extremely touched by the performance. They don’t necessarily like it,” he concedes. “It disturbs.”
However audiences eventually react to this second outing of “Post-Fight Dissonances,” it is hoped that, this time around, life will refrain from imitating art.
“Post Fight Dissonances” shows Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays at Masrah al-Madina, March 31-April 13. For reservations, call 01-753-010/1.
Matthew Mosley, March 2011
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