In 2022, Moroccan writer Ahmed Amal wrote a text entitled «A Wound in a Man’s Organ”, based on Samuel Beckett‘s text “Waiting for Godot”, adopting a mixture of the remnants of the dramatic material in Beckett’s text, taking advantage of the spaciousness of the hermeneutic horizon it offers, and the vitality of the material of the characters it provides. My friend, director Abdelmajid al-Hawas, suggested to me to dramatize this script for presentation on stage by the Aphrodite Theater Company. I had already read the text, and so began the journey of this text, whose title will become “What a Wonderful world!”
Returning to the etymology of the word dramaturgy, we find that one of the basic meanings it entails is bridging the relationship between text and presentation. So, our dramaturgy work in What a Wonderful World! It necessarily falls under the banner of this meaning. Thus, here are some of the dramatic foundations that framed this work:
- To familiarize the intellectual structure of the text, including, in particular, giving meaning to wait, and how these waiting atrophies as much certainty as doubt. That is, accepting the metaphorical interpretation of the need for Godot that does not come requires linking the text to something external, with a structure of ideas and beliefs, which we do not see available in the current version of the text. This is why our dramatic work is based on the dramatic reconfiguration and dramatic adaptation of the ideas of waiting and doubt, making them an artistic expression of the irrational and irrational state of ignorance into which we are trapped, the state of mental imbalance that transcends reason. Therefore, we will not only keep the text in its current form as a structure of abstract ideas, but we will work to make it a dramatic representation of a state of existence dominated by radical ignorance and suspicion.
- Carving the dramatic structure of the text: The writer of the text classifies his text “Wound in a Man’s Organ” as fiction, and the introduction to the book written by Professor «Muhammad Mustafa Al-Kabbaj” describes the text as a theatrical novel, and we imagine from the standpoint of our dramatic work that the general dramatic structure of the text needs to be carved and reshape.
- Rewriting the text in colloquial Moroccan language: The text was written in Arabic, but the desire to adopt the colloquial language is not only a linguistic option, but it is an option that is at the heart of the need to resurrect the Beckett’s text, just as waiting for Godot expressed the conditions of anxiety and wandering of the post-war man, we aspire that this text will express the anxiety and wandering of man in the Maghreb of the third millennium.
- Adjust the tempo at which the big questions fall apart along the text and the needs of the show for the necessary dramatic fluidity.
- Adjust the rhythm of seriousness and humor in the text.
- Reshaping the duality of narrative and dialogue.
- Strengthen the idea of the audience in the text.
In practice, we worked with the team according to two intersecting lines:
- The first line required the provision of textual material according to the new dramatic scenarios before the beginning of the rehearsals.
- The second line required the accompaniment of the work team during the rehearsals, and the aim was to provide and multiply the dramatic proposals within the framework of what can be called collective dramaturgy.
