Two girls. One driven to give a lecture about the 1919 revolution that would lead to the Egyptian independence, the other interrupting her cynically with personal stories. Through broken records, confidential correspondences, and old photos, ‘Hawa El Horreya’ (‘Whims of Freedom’) takes you to a historical time when Egypt was about to change. Sounds familiar? Exactly. Travelling back almost 100 years brings one inevitably to a similar point in Egyptian history of merely three years ago: the 2011 revolution. The struggle against a military regime, against powers. By reading history through the Egyptian and Syrian present, ‘Hawa El Horreya’ makes a painful echo in time resound on stage. We had a talk with Laila Soliman (LS), the director, and Ruud Gielens (RG), the producer and creative advisor, to find out how they came to this result. How would you describe Hawa El Horreya? LS: “This play is a difficult one to describe. In a way, it’s a musical acting performance. It’s also the outcome of research four people did about music and theatre of the period between 1914 and 1920. It is our journey of jumping between past and present.”…
Drawing Parallels Between Two Egyptian Revolutions By One Theatre Play
October 9, 2014
