“I can hardly believe that I am still alive and that I have not committed a suicide yet”. Isahoré SAMUEL – Dean of Iraqi Theater

“... Coming from the unknown, expecting the real. Not to escape from death that will come at once, From nothingness
Mahmoud El Brikane - Iraqi poet -


Any Tom, Dick or Harry played with the one-thousand-red-seat national Iraqi theater. Everything has been sacked and looted, including its sound and light equipment.
With its one thousand seats gutted, its dusk lights getting dim, its breaking scattered hither and thither, its equipment smashed, the national Iraqi theater has been totally transmogrified to become, in its turn, a setting worthy of a destruction scene in a play the acts of which have not been completed...

To all the artists of the Iraqi theater,
To all sacked and impounded theaters,
I dedicate this piece of work...

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Presentation of the “The Thieves of Baghdad”
Like a yarn
In a corner
Very far down-town... the man is watching television
When all of a sudden he is prevailed upon by an urgent natural need...
He is unable to make up his mind
Right in front of him there a group of men who were busy talking
About Weapons of Mass Destruction,
Of the axis of evil, of “laalouj”,
Of the chamber of gas,
Of plundering,
Of Kamikaze,
Of the promised land,
There is a cacophony of war jingle sounds, of a nice melody, the sounds rise and undulate ...
And all of a sudden he feels indifferent...
He does feel like going to the loo anymore...
He feels utterly baffled
It is priers time...
How sweet live is:
The comedians are reticent to wake him up.
Lest they get betrayed.
Without references, without any resources,
They give it a try,
They play at the policeman and the thieves...
Yet, for the spectator, the message remains rather fuzzy,
And frustration still prevails.
 
Then, days and years go by
Then, friends part from one another
And we see wonders and witness bewilderment,
And hear the most obscene and criminal phrases
And we mix up with some of the most dull-witted, whimsical and thick people
And fornicating women, just like their husbands in the different markets.
Then beloveds would lose their love
And humanity would be shrouded in a nightmarish darkness
And traffic would come to standstill
And we remain..., unlike the rest of human being , cajoling the same old dream
And longing for the same thing
And we would embark on the same adventure
Until we are visited almighty to part us from one another
It is a lengthy yarn
That we endeavour to spin before you
The world is replete with events
That cannot stand telling
Or narration
Or writing
Or explanation
Or joking, or playing on words
They are vents that fall beyond the scope of history or fiction
And even far beyond Man himself

Taoufik Jebali