The Egyptian play Mandil Al Helo (The Pretty Lady’s Handkerchief), directed by Nader Salah Eddin, began its run August 1 at the Floating Theatre in Cairo.
The play was adapted from Othello by Noaman Ashour. Back in the 1960s, Ashour, the playwright who became famous for portraying the lives of ordinary middle-class Egyptians, decided to embark on a project of “Egyptianizing” foreign texts to make them accessible to the public, according to Al Ahram Weekly.
The project may have been ahead of its time, because in that era, classical Arabic was the medium of choice for the presentation of foreign texts. Consequently, the play has been lying on the shelf for decades.
Enter Salah Eddin, the inspired young comedy director with a flair for parody, who first burst onto the theatrical scene in 1995 with Foulan Kaman wi Kaman (So-and-So Again and Again), a hysterically funny spoof of Yousef Shahine’s movies.
This time, he has decided to turn his delightfully wicked sense of humor on Othello - a play which, as many Shakespearean critics have said, "teeters on the edge of farce." Here it has fallen off the edge, as Othello is made into a Nubian ‘bawab’ (doorman) inspired by the unique Ali Al Kassar, the famous movie comedy character and contemporary of Ismail Yassin, who always played the stereotype of the naive, bumbling Sudanese.
Khaled Saleh is inspired as Othello, playing as just such a doorman, with his deliciously funny refrain, "ental habeeb ya Daydamoona" ("you are my darling Desdemona") in the stereotypical Ali Al Kassar accent.
Mandil Al Helo was adapted and shortened, but the slightly old-fashioned colloquial Arabic of Ashour’s time, where it remains, only adds to the humor. The set, in keeping with the new adaptation, resembles a shantytown, with lots of plastic, cardboard and corrugated iron in evidence. This makes it all the funnier when Othello leans out the window and bellows at Iago and Roderigo not to make so much noise outside his and Desdemona’s window on their wedding night.
Ashraf Farouk turns in a magnificent performance as Iago as the play hurtles along to its inevitably tragic -but quite impossible to take seriously- ending. This play seems to have something for everyone, as critics with quite different tastes are singing its praises and audiences are flocking to the theater – Albawaba.com
