(Photo from I am now dead Facebook event page)
I Am Now Dead is being performed at the Falaki Theatre on 14, 15 and 16 May. The play won best director, best show and best actor at the Festival for Creative Youth in 2005 and later received the jury’s award at the National Theatre Festival in its first edition in 2006.
“The play is about the distortion and depression Egyptian youth go through on all fronts, be it economic, intellectual or social. In this sense they are alive but not enjoying life. It’s a life where you are both alive and dead. This is where the name comes from,” said director Hany Afifi.
Afifi chose to portray this reality through a young man who is in a coma. “Though there is no traditional plot from start to finish, we see a young man who is in a state between consciousness and unconsciousness and his ideas and images of what’s happening around him is what informs us throughout the play,” he said.
The play can be classified as a black comedy, according to Afifi. “I Am Now Dead has a lot of sarcasm, and it pokes fun through a caricature style of comedy, the kind that makes you laugh and cry at the same time,” he said. Afify describes his play as experimental, merely consisting of separate sketches “that come together like a puzzle at the end.”
Afifi graduated from the directing section of the Artistic Creativity Centre and participated in directing, acting and cinematography workshops, including those of the Avignon festival in France and the “Ana Honak” project with the English Royal Court. He represented Egypt in many international festivals, including the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre in 2009 with his “Ana Hamlet” which received the award for best actor.
His “Aan Segn Soqrat” won the second prize at the festival for Ancient Greek Drama in Cyprus and his last work is “Aan El Oshaq”, a play based on a the book Tawq El Hamam by Ibn Hazm Al Andalusi. The play was performed by the Beit Al-Oud troupe under the supervision of Nosseir Shamma and the Artistic Creativity Centre’s Khaled Galal.
The play is supported by the Doum Foundation, Studio Emad Eddin, Falaki and Al-Mashraq productions. The play will start at 7.30pm on 14, 15, 16 May at the Falaki theatre. Tickets cost EGP 10.
