The Iraqi theater has recovered some of its beauty through the play entitled Tuffahat al Qalb (Heart’s Apple) which has recently been staged at al Rashid Theater in Baghdad and hailed by a number of critics and writers, according to the daily al Hayat.
In the play scripted by Falah Shaker and directed by Riyadh Shahid, Sami Abdel Hamid plays the role as a king who visits one of his nationals in her house at night. The girl is an intellectual gearing up for her Ph.D. (played by the actress Alaa Hussein).
An unfamiliar relationship is built between the girl and the king who tells her about the real reason behind his repeated visits, sudden affection and orders to make general check up for her. He wants to get acquainted with the lady whose heart tissues match the tissues of his heart, which has become feeble and should be substituted by a strong and young one.
The king admits the difficulty surrounding the replacement of his heart by the girl’s heart after he falls in love with her and her refusal of that even if he implements his wish by force. The girl is surprised with the king entering her residence with a suitcase and ordering her to leave the country so that his doctors will not be spurred to make a transplant surgery if the king suddenly suffers an acute heart attack.
The girl responds to this move by the king and her discontent turns into satisfaction and more love. She insists on the operation to save her lover, the king, out of her love rather than obedience. She faces persistence on part of the king on the travel and his refusal of the surgery out of the same thing.
With the conflict between the two wills out of altruism and sacrifice for the other, the king submits to her will and gives orders for moving her so that she will be near him in his palace. He crowns her as a queen and offers her an apple which makes her fall down unconscious as a result of an anaesthetic in which the apple is immersed in preparation for taking the heart of the girl out of her body.
In Tuffahat al Qalb, we can see the fierceness of power in extracting the heart and destroying love and faithfulness -- Albawaba.com
