The Theater as a Space for Dialogue

By Al-Sir Al-Sayyid

Introduction:

It has become an accepted fact that theater is inseparable from the daily life that people live, not only in that it necessarily expresses it but also in that it employs some of its techniques in expression, as in the rituals of birth and death and the methods of religious and social celebrations.

Anyone who contemplates the history of theater from its inception to the present day, with its various schools and trends, can sense this authentic connection to peoples daily lives. Theater borrows from daily lifes creativity and metaphors, enabling humans to interpret reality and make it livable. This is perhaps what prompted the renowned playwright Peter Brook to say, I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theater to be engaged.

This means that everyone does voluntary representation and free viewing simultaneously. The day is rich in various scenarios based on camouflage, hypocrisy, lying, representation, conflict and other elements of a theatrical nature - see Hassan al-Yousefi - theatre and its paradoxes - first edition - p. 104 - Sindhi Press - Meknes - Morocco.

The theatre, or lets say theatrical, has therefore constituted a rare cultural connection with excellence and a focus of enlightenment, education and pleasure, because it is based on specificity that distinguishes it from other arts. The theatrical show, while telling a tale of peoples lives, builds a virtual reality through which this tale is embodied in many different and simultaneously mutually reinforcing languages, composed of the actor, music, photovoltaics, decoration, costumes and language, forming a reality that resembles and does not resemble the reality of the spectator. One word is to enable the spectator to live two worlds at a single moment through an implicit and undeclared agreement between the show and the spectators audience, through which the spectator can be a partner and resource of the show, as provided by the synergistic languages of the show and the references it governs, relevant to the spectators culture and reality of living.

Live Art:

Theatre is described as living art, and here it is meant as the only art that is alive because it is presented by real people in front of real people. The moment in a theatrical show, for example, cannot be repeated again in the same way. Spectators feelings and interactions cannot be repeated in the same way either. This quality of life makes it the only art that reacts directly to it, making it an interactive art that is complete only through that interactive relationship between its creators and viewers, so it is the art of dialogue and a worthy exchange of ideas, feelings and attitudes.

Theatrical presentation is only a space for dialogue, not between performers and onlookers, but between spectators themselves. The fascination of the theatrical show with its clarity and ambiguity ignites time at its real (time of the show) and imagined (time of the shows tale) levels. It makes the place (where events take place play space) and the place where spectators (dramatic space) are located a space for dialogue, where spectators, as we have referred to, are transformed into participants and elements of the show.

Not surprisingly, the theatre itself is a shroud that is only a result of dialogue at a level, and here is the civilized dialogue. The theatre, which was established in Greece under specific conditions, is now a world art home to all cultures and civilizations. He has also, throughout his long career, been removed from the form of cultural exchange. There is no theatrical experience in all countries of the world but I know to quote other texts from other cultures, as well as to prepare and process text for many texts from different countries of the world.

This intercultural formula has made this art (Western of Origin) a global art and instrument that has contributed to enlightenment, education and pleasure through the dialogue mechanism that is the cornerstone of theatre art. Perhaps this is what has made the art of theatre a living art. One of the meanings of dialogue is (responsiveness, questioning and circulation, that is, flipping the matter or the idea more than one face) - see Abdul Rahman Al-Nahlawi - Education with Dialogue - p.13 - House of Thought. One of its prerequisites is to listen and put forward the idea clearly and to allow the other party or parties to express their thoughts, to move away from the disruptive and direct knees and to use the best and most beautiful way of putting ideas forward, by supporting the idea and ideas with metaphors and features and all the incentives that give the idea its clarity and strength.

Perhaps all this is reflected in the theatre with great creativity. Ideas in the theatre are presented only through the synergy of the different languages of the show, which constitute a space of beauty, dazzlement, dignity and metaphor that supports the possibility that ideas or ideas contradictory to them can be reached in a beautiful and logical manner governed by the evolution of the theatre and its relationships. Because of this, the theatre has been the most effective means of communication to teach dialogue, especially since dialogue in the theatre must reach its desires either a solution or questions that open up the prospect of thinking about the appropriate solution or solutions.

Here I find it urgent to borrow this bright idea from the word of World Theatre Day 27 March 2011 written by Ugandan theatre activist Jesca A. Kahua (Theatre can participate in political life on its plurality among peoples in simple straightforward ways, and because it is inclusive, it can offer experience capable of going beyond the misconceptions that have been established for some time. In addition, theatre is an effective means of advancing the ideas we collectively hold as we prepare to fight for them when they are violated.

Theatre, Dialogue/Dialogue and Theatre:

The theatres relationship to everyday life with its grief and joys, with its peace and war, with its good and evil is inevitable. It was also said (give me a play... Give you a nation) The relationship of dialogue with human life through its long career is nowhere and at some point in time, but dialogue is an urgent need for them. It is the effective means of familiarizing peoples, individuals and civilizations, the ideal means of exchanging cultures and ideas, but the best means of managing interests and managing life itself.

Experience has shown (that human beings can safeguard their dignity, rights, freedom, ideas and beliefs by dialogue more than any other means). Our witness here is the experience that divine religions, foremost among them Islam, have devoted to the value and necessity of dialogue in preserving and protecting peoples lives. A quick look at the Holy Quran shows how much it rallies with the dialogue between God, the devil, the angels and the prophets and their forces. Without dialogue, in its absence or absence, it does not have rights, dignity and freedom, but only death, withdrawal.

Because theatre is now a global phenomenon known by all cultures and civilizations, it has crystallized itself through interculturalism and exchange of experiences as one of mankinds most powerful interlocutors. Because one of its collective attributes is the only art that collectively accomplishes unlike poetry, narration and formation, for example. The theatrical presentation in the latter is merely an act characterized by a multiplicity of voices and the multiplicity and diversity of its makers, as a direct result of the dialogue. It is also popular because it presents peoples thoughts, problems, concerns, questions and struggles -- art that mimics their lives but in its way -- in their language and ways of celebrating dance, singing, music and performance. It is popular because it restores their tropes, rituals and dreams to tell them their tales, not on their behalf but through their participation and interaction through that undeclared tacit agreement, constituting a space of magic that rises to the polemics of clarity and ambiguity, on the arguments of two realistic and hypothetical worlds. This space, which is created only by the art of theatre, is the legitimate son of dialogue, but the art of dialogue indisputably.

*/This article has benefited greatly from Dr. Hassan Al-Yousafis theatre book and paradoxes.