Interview: Mahmoud El Deeb

She is one of the most prominent playwrights not only in the Kingdom but also in the Arab world. She has provided the Arab library with 52 theatrical works, ranging from texts for adults, children and monodrama, and won the first international prize in the "Monodrama Texts" competition held by UNESCO. via the Arabic version in the Emirate of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, and has received many local and regional awards, including an award from the Gulf Cooperation Council. We are talking then about Dr. Malha Abdullah, holder of the title of Pioneer of Saudi Theater. So who is Dr. Malha and what is her story with theater and why did she choose this field despite its social sensitivity? It was natural to let her initially introduce herself to the reader of "Ahwal al-Ma'rifa" ....

From Abha to Cairo to London

I am Dr. Malha bint Abdullah Murai' Mazhar, born in the city of Abha, where I received my primary education, starting with the primary stage at the First School for Girls, and ending with the middle stage. Then I obtained my high school diploma from the Arab Republic of Egypt from Al-Saniyah School in Cairo, and also obtained my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in criticism and drama from the Academy of Arts in Cairo. As for the PhD, I obtained it from Brunel College University in Britain, in the same specialty (Criticism and Drama).

When did you start feeling your passion for theatrical work?

My inclination for theatrical and dramatic work started from a young age. I was interested in reading stories, such as the stories of Al-Zir Salem or Saif bin Dhi Yazan, and I used to read them in women's sessions in the afternoon. My mother used to gather women in our house for me to read these stories to them, and my age then did not exceed ten years.

You are nicknamed the pioneer of Saudi theater, so what is the state of Saudi theater?

ــ The theater in Saudi Arabia is going through a commendable movement and I am optimistic. But there can be no theater without a specialized job cadre to whom I give powers and hold accountable as in most of the Arab world. Saudi theater depends on the Theater Association and the Association of Culture and Arts, and those who work in theater are not employees, which makes the theatrical creator work in another job and then return to practice his hobby in theater. This is exhausting and distracting for the creator and places theater in the last degree of interests. What if theater conflicts with the creator's work? He definitely leaves theater and goes to his basic work and this is something destructive for theater. Theater has another status in global culture. Theater is the passion of theater people where they sleep and wake up on the theater boards and between its corridors.

What is the importance of the international Monodrama Prize you won?

ــ I was very proud when I obtained this global prize that no Arab woman writer had received. Because the prize was nothing but a prize for the nation, the Saudi theater, those who love theater and for the Saudi creator. All of us as intellectuals and theater people follow this big prize. I was surprised that the management of the prize in Fujairah contacted me and informed me of the win. My joy was overwhelming for several reasons: first because I had the first place and the prize is global, second because this prize is the first global prize for Saudi theater and I am from it and by it and only came out of its womb, thirdly because "Saudi" precedes my name so it is said "The Saudi Malha Abdullah" and this is the least I offer to my beloved country, fourthly Saudi theater needs such a prize because many outside the Arab world and inside look at Saudi theater with passion.

What are the most common types of theatrical arts in the Kingdom?

The Kingdom is a very large spring that never runs dry of creativity that has not been excavated yet, of innate arts and literature, which is what the world is looking for now and modern art is heading towards. The diversity of the Kingdom's area worked on the diversity of creativity and the diversity of practice and the diversity of reflections produced by these arts or produced by the arts. However, creativity depending on free imagination such as the novel, poetry and visual arts has the luckiest share, and that is due to the psychology of the creator, his climate and the environment surrounding him. The Arab in the Peninsula carries these genes for the vastness of the desert, the extension of the horizon, the clarity of the sky and oral heritage, which made the creator in the Arabian Peninsula enjoy verbal creativity, "verbal culture" that we enjoy from our ears due to the narrative culture ingrained in us. It is a feature we must care for and develop because it belongs to us alone except for those who enjoy a similar environment on the same lines of latitude and longitude. As for Western culture, it is a visual culture that excels in sculpture and writing musical notes; we enjoy hearing them and they enjoy reading them, and here is the difference. As for theatrical arts and their types, the prevailing and only type is amateur theater and there is no professional theater so far, because professionalism means that you receive a material fee in exchange for work. So park theater or school theater or women's theater may be equal, with the exception of university theater excelling in terms of presence and practice.

When was the women's theater established in the Kingdom?

ــ Women's theater has existed in the history of Saudi theater since HRH Princess Iffat, wife of King Faisal, founded it when she opened a theatrical performance for girls. From here Saudi theater was dated by this beginning in the sixties. However, it lay dormant for a period then started moving and about seven women's plays were recorded in one year. There is a complete women's theater troupe in Abha and it has shows. But the problem is not in the number of plays and how much they produce but rather the problem is in how they produce.

There are some women's shows brought from outside the Kingdom, but I do not consider them Saudi plays. Art history is attributed to its environment and not to its viewers and we want to create art history and theater history, because when we want to view the history of states we analyze their arts. Historians may lie but artistic creativity does not lie.

Do you look at child theater as a maker of children's personality and not for entertainment?

I know the extent of child theater's influence in their reference formation, and I like to build and not perform a restoration process. Child theater does not care about the artistic culture of the child only but rather forms for us an integrated personality that we shape as we wish on all national, religious, educational and moral axes. We are a state that has its privacy and it is necessary for our children to carry this privacy by which we are distinguished. We do not have a theater for the child, meaning there is no integrated body for this matter. The history of child theater started in the early eighteenth century in Europe, and child theater in the world has an educational function in the first degree, and it is enough to say that theater in Saudi Arabia started from school theater.

Why do we find confusion between monodrama theater and the one-actor play?

That both types are performed by one actor on stage. The first, the actor performs all roles, and this type of theater started since the beginning of theater until today. "Thespis" used to move with his cart and one actor stood on it performing his shows before the spectators in about 2500 BC, which is a type of theater. Also, the first theater director "Sophocles" started his theater with one actor then developed it to two then three. As for monodrama theater, it started in the eighteenth century, and the difference between the two classes is the action "the play", where monodrama is based on a single action embodying the character's crisis, and is performed by one actor. As for the second type, one actor performs multiple actions in it, and here the confusion between them occurs in the concept due to the presence of one actor on the stage boards. I have put with my humble effort a comprehensive and exclusive definition for monodrama and it was adopted by the Saudi Playwrights Text Forum in Riyadh because a comprehensive and exclusive definition had not been reached on the global and Arab levels. 

As for the definition of the term I put, it is: (Monodrama: simulation of a specific dramatic action that has a certain length for one character presented by one actor reviewing the character's crisis towards itself or towards others through soliloquy, aside, and dialogue with virtual characters and accompanied by artistic decoration colors).

From here we can stand on all pillars of monodrama art and differentiate between it and the one-actor play. A good example of a monodrama play or single action is the play "Tobacco is Harmful to Health" by the Russian writer "Chekhov".