"O fie, fie, fie!"

It is stunning how one can create a breathtaking changing ringing masterpiece. By masterpiece, I mean a work that confuses your senses and blends them into one to absorb every detail with attentive eyes and ears wide open. Sulyman AlBassam's Richard III: An Arabian Tragedy is what I am talking about.

The show starts with former Queen Margaret expressing her sorrowful emotions to the crowd. She is my favorite character of the play. Her impression of a sound woman turned psychotic by emotional blows is simply captivating. The show ends with the fulfilment of her curses, which lure the audience's senses towards the stage when uttered complementing her tragic heels.

The use of the dicovery place, a Shakespearean assett, is extremely important in this play. In that place, conspiracies are created, characters express their emotions, characters reveal their true colors, and characters...dance.


The music by a live band backstage belongs to the Kuwaiti culture. An "Oh Ya Mal" rings in the audience's ears when Stanley dreams of a ship. "Ya nass delooni" is played to expose Lady Anne's lost then found sadness. A display of the 3artha fills the stage during an event of celebration.

The most arresting scenes, in my opinion, are Catesby's monologue after one of his many treacherous deeds, and Richard's belittling of former Queen Elizabeth when asking for her daughter's hand in marriage. The struggle of good and evil is depicted in the characters' lines.


Some of the most intruiging additions to the play are simple. Letters from Buckingham to another foreigner are typed on stage. A brochure warning the people of an escaping terrorist flutters from the ceiling onto the audience's laps. Well-known Kuwaiti sayings are interwoven into the dialogue in a very sophisticated manner.


I have to say. I see every one of my fears in this play. I see a world of pessimism. I see people forced to live a life they do not want to live. I see vindication. I see.




From the Director's Note:

"The play is a mask.

A mask not to hide: but to reveal.

The mask reveals lines of our own identity that the mirror obliterates.

I use the mask to explore our world.

The mask always carries its own essence, one deeply rooted in secret and ritual.

Cycles of blood and revenge, lamentation and cruelty:

These are the lines of the mask.
I use our world to explore the mask."

Richard III: An Arabian Tragedy by Sulyman AlBassam. 17/01-19/01. 19:30 @Dar ElAthar ElIslameya

The show must go on.