Revolutionary Egyptian Playwrights

This thesis addresses the revolutionary role of an Egyptian playwright during times of socio-political flux. The key question is: to what extent do socio-politically engaged Egyptian plays mirror and contribute to historical moments characterised by revolutionary and political flux. After providing a critical survey of the history of Egyptian theatre, I analyse and contextualise plays by three Egyptian playwrights after which I subject those plays to six criteria I have composed. The playwrights are Tawfiq Al-Hakim (1898 – 1987), Nu’mān ‘Ashour (1918 – 1987) and Sa’ad Wahba (1925 – 1997). The theoretical framework of this thesis employs terms from Marxist-Leninist writings such as Party Organisation, Antonio Gramsci’s Hegemony and Raymond Williams’ Structures of Feeling. Since I contend that a revolutionary play should break the rules of Aristotle’s Poetics as understood by Egyptian scholars, I have used Rashad Rushdy’s translation of the Greek text. I also employ Egyptian founding documents, The National Charter (1962) and the six tenets of the 1952 Free Officers’ July movement. The conclusion of this thesis is that ‘Ashour and Wahba’s writings play a revolutionary role in the history of Egyptian dramaturgy while Al-Hakim, despite his contributions to the development of Egyptian theatre, has, in terms of dramaturgy, provided the Egyptian canon with texts that critiqued the socio-political order in a manner that Nasserists would view as counter-revolutionary.