Operating from the premise that society is always already in a constant "struggle over meaning", I seek in this theatre studies research project to engage with the fluid yet conflictual landscape that became Egypt since the aftermath of the 9/11 events and up to the existing "Post-Revolutionary" order at the time of this writing. To this end, I apply a historically-informed and bi-focal deconstructive mode of reading to a number of theatre-based case studies. Considered in terms of their interrelation, these case studies should offer a more holistic picture in which diverse dramatic, theatrical, and/or cultural practices had set out to negotiate the ur-narrative of contemporary Egypt, that which grew out of a long-brewing state of affairs, but which gradually built to breaking point due to post-9/11 domestic and global changes and the challenges they inevitably posed to the botched post-colonial national project and its concomitant social contract. According to this narrative, the modern Egyptian Nation has "long" been diverted from its "right" course and, as a result, is anxiously anticipating an overdue yet perilous "dramatic" change (which, as some argue further, should help restore the nation to a certain, rather nebulous past glory). While this narrative of "impending change" is hardly unique to Egypt (but rather a regular feature of almost every national trajectory, particularly during similar times of unrest and upheaval), much of the import of the Egyptian situation at hand resides in the uniquely complicated ways in which each contestant group re-imagines the "nation" according to its specific interests. This said, it is not my aim in this thesis is to present an exhaustive view of the existing Egyptian theatrical practice or to do justice to all its voices and narratives at play. Instead, this study focuses on how the conflictual realities in question collide with one another on stage, at the audience area, and in the larger "outside" world. Engagement with this process allows us to gain fresh insights into both theatre and its surrounding moment and confirms how the two are forever in conversation with each other even if—or, more typically, when—the theatre/cultural producers involved cannot consciously process all aspects of the cultural crossfire at which their works operate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:560375 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Azmy, Hazem M. |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/50040/ |
Page generated in 0.0014 seconds