As usual, and like every single other story
Impossible was the first word my colleagues and I heard when we decided to start up our project
Theatre? You want to create a public theatre? And you think people would come and buy tickets to watch you perform?
You are certainly out of your mind!
And this is just a sample of the comments we'd heard
I kept on wondering; "why is it that theatre, the mother of all art forms and the true mirror of culture..
And despite the fact that Yemen had one of the earliest theatres in the Arabian Peninsula..
In Aden, the first play performed was in 1905..
So why is this "enforced disappearance" of theatre?
The answers would always be; there is no proper infrastructure, theatre has ended long time ago..
No one would come to see you, there isn't support…
are you insane? You want to do what the Ministry of Culture and the State have failed in doing for years?
These were the type of justifications, negative and frustrating as they were, we'd heard
Those who wanted to be positive with us, would simply keep their mouths shut
Because there can't be a "sane" person who would give hope to a group of nuts..
Wanting to start up a project that could plainly and logically be only described as "impossible"
In life, there are two types of people, who show up with every step we take..
Encouragers and discouragers
No matter how many they are, from both ends, their influence on us and our decisions is trivial..
Compared to one person, one creature that can influence us to the greatest lengths
This creature could be encouraging and pushing us to get through distress and obstacles..
Or discouraging pulling us down to the bottom of depression to stuck there with no way out..
This creature lives here.
Each one of us has a creature living inside his head
Such creature varies in shape from one person to another
Each picture it based on how far his imagination could go..
Melancholic people would picture him as this
Optimists and life lovers would depict him as this one
Naïve and innocent people may reckon he looks like this
Some, however, may picture him as this!
Actions are but by intentions
Your imagination, you rules!
I have a feeling half the audience are keeping an Angelina Jolie-like creature
For me, as an all-time theatre fan, and fascinated by puppet theatre in my childhood..
The person inside my head looks like this character; let's call him "Uncle Fekri"
* Good Morning! Ooops! What's it Amr? Why are people gathered? What happened?
It all started with a group of young people brought together by school theatre
We were very passionate about theatre
So, thinking of a simple project, we came up with the idea of making short sketches
And as usual, the best timing would be during the holidays
And the best venue would be, at that time, the amusement park
As they attract heavy crowds
We asked the owner of the park to grant us a spot in a corner to perform
We insisted until he finally conceded
Nevertheless, we had to pay for the spot. And because we were short in cash, the payment had to be of a different kind
In order to perform on such a small piece of land, we'd had to collect trash from the entire park at the end of every day
And for the sake of performing the sketches and acting, we did clean
* What? you cleaned? fools! I swear you are indeed fools!
What kind of foolishness is this? Shame on you! You are the children of reputable and respectful families!
You turned out collecting trash in the amusement park? How stupid is that?
And for what? for performing a short play? Stupid!
- At that time, we could have…
- Stupid!
- I was saying, we could have…
- Stupid! I swear you're being stupid!
- It was possible at that time to…
- Man, It's stupid! I'm telling you this for your best interest! Don't you leer at me!
- Here you go, I shut my mouth!
At the time, I could've listened to Uncle Fekri inside my head..
and convinced my colleagues to throw the idea away and kill the project in its cradle
his voice was sharp and annoying as you could see
I used to think all the time of ways to get rid of him
Sometimes, I thought of killing it, and getting over with but I wanted a peaceful solution..
Remote control
An inner remote control was the optimal solution
Once you hear such negative rhetoric, press the button to change the frequency
And hear, from the creature living inside your head, positive words pushing you forward, for example
- How nice of you to clean, boys?
- So what? first and foremost; cleanliness is a sign of faith!
- And second, for the sake of one's dreams, one should do the impossible
- Clean ahead! And don't let people frustrate you!
- It is said that the 1000 mile journey begins with a sweep!
And it really did! In order to find my inner remote control and tame Uncle Fekri, I took a long time
But it paid off
The positive words I heard over and over again pushed my colleagues and I to pursue our bigger dream, the true dream
So we established the Gulf of Aden theatre group as the entity that brings us together
It is well-known that the city of Aden has multiple cinema theaters and each had a small stage for live performances
We thought of renting one classic cinema theater for a simple price
Raised from the money we'd got for our earlier performances in the park, in graduation ceremonies
or from our cooperation with international organizations in awareness-raising campaigns
the amount was little but we took much pride in producing our very own performance
we printed modest ads and designed a simple stage decoration
each one of the group brought a piece of furniture from home
we conducted intensive rehearsals over the course of 45 days to depict the best image
throughout the way, I had been hearing positive words from Uncle Fekri
and as soon as he tried to change frequency and start the depressing chat,
I would resort to the remote control
We performed the play
Ailah.com was the first public play to be performed 12 years after the demise of public theater
The premier performance attracted about 350 attendees
- How many?!
- Wait a minute you idiots clapping foolishly!
- How many? Only 350? You worked that hard to get just 350 attendees?!
- And what was all that decoration, ads, dream and hope you were talking about?
- And 350 at last?! Stupid!
Remote control time!
- How creative you are, boys!
- 350 is such a great number for a first time!
- Don't worry just keep it up and the next performance will attract more people
To tell you a secret, the number was actually disappointing
It is true that years later, I came to know that even by international standards 350 was quite an excellent number
I had dreamt of a full house and people lining line up before the tickets box
And that we'd have to apologize to them and tell them to come the next day
This of course didn't happen in the premier, which is quite normal
Because good things never come together
But like any other young man, I was enthusiastic and always in a hurry
I didn't wait long, the next year the number doubled
We performed "Hala Hala Yestahel" play
We had a 10-day show time instead of one week
The next year, with the debut of "My Fair Lady", the play ran for two weeks and the theater was packed
The number exploded in 2009 with the performance of, in cooperation with the German House, Maak Nazel
Maak Nazel was based on a famous German play
It was performed continuously in Aden for three weeks, and for one week in Sana'a
When the German House did the statistics; they showed that the total stage audience was 13,000
Maak Nazel was an overwhelming and exceptional success
It became the talk of the town especially in the city of Aden
To the extent that people, in their everyday chats, quoted the play's dialogues
- Oh, Come on! Overrated!
- Remote Control time!
- Oh! Such a creative group! I'm a big fan of Maak Nazel..
- and memorize all the dialogues by heart! You can ask me anything, go ahead!
We further performed in Berlin in 2010 as the first Yemeni play to be showcased in Europe
From a group of modest young performers sweeping parks in order to perform..
to the Gulf of Aden Group performing in one of the finest experimental theaters in Europe
there was a long and enjoyable journey ..
the largest obstacle of all wasn't the traditional difficulties..
but to overcome the negative inner voice and switch it into a positive one
- And what's the point? What did you get after all? Tell me?
- you revived theater, attracted audience and travelled to Europe and then what?
- what is the use? Neither a theater was built nor interest or recognition was garnered
- and not even prospects for theater in the country!
- Come on, son! Go find yourselves a job and earn a living
- Stupid!
Once you have come a long way in your journey, and feel you have achieved many dreams and aspirations..
A rather harder challenge emerge; durability
Durability was the real challenge and the crossroads where you have to either go on
Or give up everything and throw away all you've accomplished in seconds
You know what? at that crossroads you must have already reached maximum ability to control uncle Fekri
Or whoever lives in your head
Because at that time, you'll really need the positive version of uncle Fekri more than ever
- Yes! Folks! Never be frustrated! Anything but frustration!
- We put high hopes in you! Keep it up!
- The best is yet to come!
I've learned from my experience that the biggest hurdle in the road to success
Lays within ourselves
You or others may have all the elements of success; talent, creativity and people around you who love and support you
But very few have actually made it and fewer have kept it up
And they only have because, as I explained earlier,
they managed to switch and tame the negative person into a positive one
as for me, I'm in constant struggle with….Uncle Fekri
whenever he attempts to pull me down, I get more determined to beat him
as they say in movie posters and clichés;
it is either me or him! And let the battle begin!
Thank You