Laila Soliman — Theatre as a Tool Against Official Truths
Reconstructed from the original truthisconcrete.org via the Wayback Machine. Source: wayback:truthisconcrete.org/interviews/it-is-time-for-art-used-as-a-tool/:20210918
A conversation with the Egyptian theatre director Laila Soliman about the possibilities and limits of theatre to fight official truths. Cairo, November 26th, 2011.
Soliman’s recent theatre works ‘No time for art’ and ‘Lessons in Revolution’ both dealt with the political situation in Egypt. She reflects on the danger of such pieces being commodified as mere representations of the revolution: ‘That’s what kind of happened with Lessons in Revolution — and that’s why we decided to stop the project after some shows.’
The aim was to create something constantly updateable — a tool that helps investigate and comment on what is happening, to understand one’s own role in it and to redefine it. Soliman wanted to connect material from the past with the present, maintaining the flexibility of a living document. But the very different artistic practices, political opinions and views on the relationship between politics and art within the group created conflicts that ultimately made continuation impossible.
The conversation reveals a fundamental tension in politically engaged art: the desire for immediate responsiveness to unfolding events versus the collaborative difficulties that arise when urgency meets divergent political and aesthetic commitments.