The People’s Theater in Erbil

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), pursuing to its policy to portray Iraqi Kurdistan as a peaceful and prosperous region, encourages artistic and cultural expressions in an Iraq drenched in a metastasizing and mutating war that relegated art to a mere velleity. Whatever its motivation, I find the KRG’s efforts commendable. I was fortunate to witness one such cultural event, on the 25^th of May, 08, when I was invited by Idriss Kader, a professor of classical drama at the University of Hawler, to attend a play titled “The Story of Two Brothers.” The play was written by Iraqi playwright Mohidin Zanganah and performed at the People’s Theater by three young actors from the Hawler Drama Club. The event was organized by the Kurdish ministry of Culture with the assistance of the Kurdish Artists Association.

 

When I arrived at the theater, about one hour before the scheduled start of the play, there was a long line of attendees, mostly university students, waiting to enter the theater. The presence at the entrance of uniformed guards armed with AK-47 assault rifles betrayed the KRG’s constant concern for security. All the attendees were patted down before entering the premises. An exception was made for dignitaries such as famous Kurdish playwrights, and TV and theater actors and directors. The local TV station took footage of the event as well.

 

The People’s Theater is said to be the oldest in Kurdistan. The lobby is adorned with colorful pictures of actors and singers who performed on its stage since its inception in the seventies. Their smiling faces vestiges of a glorious past. The crackling wooden floor of its dilapidated stage and the putrefied state of its walls and ceiling attest to atrocious neglect. The red velour covered seats stood like cryptic tombstones in a derelict cemetery; they wobbled and creaked as spectators sat on them. The air was filled with dust.

 

The performance was outstanding and lasted only one hour. It recounted the story of two brothers who were displaced by war and stranded in a desert; they surreptitiously connived against and lied to each other in order to stay alive. They both had one canteen of water each that they hid from one another. Long before they were thrust into this predicament, they promised their mother that they would protect one another. The story of course could be an allusion to the current situation in Iraq where Shiite, Sunnis, Kurds, and Turkmen are all scheming against one another for ascendency. The play was totally in Kurdish. Although I did not understand a single word, I was able to make out the outline of the story as the three actors performed. Later when I congratulated the actors on the quality of their acting and talked to some of the dignitaries about the play and its implications, my conjuncture was corroborated.

 

As I was leaving the theater, I recalled the troubling account of an actress I met in Baghdad a few months ago. Rawaa Al-Ni’imi is possibly the only drama dancer in Iraq. While a commentator at Radio Al-Nass, she joined a drama workshop founded by the leading Iraqi dramatist Tal’at Shaqer Al-Samawi. Her first performance was with the “Mardoukh” troupe at Al-Rashid Theater in a play titled “Fire From the Sky.” She traveled along with Mardoukh and performed in Egypt, Japan, and finally in Carthage, Tunisia where they won a prize for a play titled “A Dream in Baghdad.” Because of the war, drama art in Baghdad ebbed and Mardoukh disappeared. But Rawaa never gave up. She and a handful of her former colleagues founded a new drama troupe they baptized “Al-Mustahil” – “The Impossible.” Thanks to her continuous lobbying for the resurgence of theater in Iraq, she was granted a scholarship by the American Embassy in Baghdad to attend a drama dance workshop at Duke University, North Carolina. Al-Mustahil received numerous invitations to perform in theater festivals around the world the last of which was the Amazigh Theater Festival of Casablanca. Morocco offered to provide lodging and transportation in country; unfortunately, Al-Mustahil could not afford the airfare. Throughout these trials and tribulations, no helping hand was extended from the Iraqi Ministry of Culture. And so Rawaa and fellow actors from Al-Mustahil linger in Baghdad dismayed by the abandonment of the Iraqi Ministry of Culture and unable to rehearse or perform for fear of suicide bombers and kidnappers. Of course, Iraqi Kurdistan would be a better environment for Al-Mustahil to evolve, but it requires Arabs to have Kurdish sponsors.

 

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008