Negotiating Theatrical Modernism in the Arab World

Although unquestionably profoundly influenced by European discussions and experiments in theatrical modernism, the Arab world of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reacted to these discussions and experiments within the context of its own internal tensions and concerns, among them the introduction into that world of theatre practice in the European mode in general. The pioneers of a European-style theatre in Lebanon and Egypt prepared the way for the Arab dramatists who are generally considered to be the major representatives of dramatic modernism, Tawfiq al-Hakim and Alfred Farag of Egypt and Sa'dallah Wannous of Syria. The implications of theatrical modernism, especially in Egypt as the leading force in modern Arabic theatre, are suggested through the contributions of such authors.