Abu Dhabi community theatre wants to attract more Emirati talent

Faisal Salah, Resuscitation Theatre's Emirati head, says the experience gained can be enriching both artistically and professionally.

Rehearsal for Knights and Wolves directed by Faisal Al Jadir in Abu Dhabi. Vidhyaa for The National

An Emirati community-theatre’s head has launched a dramatic mission – to find more of his compatriates to join his Abu Dhabi theatre company.

Faisal Salah, 24, who took over Resuscitation Theatre in March last year, hopes to eventually direct a play featuring an entirely Emirati cast.

“We’ve had lots of ideas for making Resuscitation Theatre a grassroots Emirati theatre company from and for Abu Dhabi,” says Salah. “I would like to open doors to enable more Emiratis to come forward – that’s always the goal.”

To do so, Salah realised he has to persuade his fellow citizens the value of community theatre – starting with his own relatives and friends.

“Most of them don’t understand it yet,” he says. “I have family members who did theatre when they were kids, but it was usually paid gigs. The idea of doing theatre for the sake of the effort itself is a new concept.”

The lack of financial incentive also dissuades local professional actors from becoming involved, says Salah.

“But even if you aren’t being paid for it, the experience can still be enriching artistically and even professionally,” he says. “You learn a lot of skills that you wouldn’t be able to learn anywhere else.”

Before he became involved in the theatre, Salah says he always preferred to work alone.

“My experiences in theatre have taught me how to work with others, and through that I am able to do more group work and take command of that in my university studies,” he says.”

“Public speaking was something that I used to dread – but as director of a show I have to direct 20 people at a time – and that’s helped me have more confidence in myself.”

Salah says he has also benefited from the social aspect of theatre life.

“You make relationships with people from all jobs, ages and nationalities,” he says. “When you’re all there for a common goal, and money isn’t the issue, you build stronger ties with each other.”

Salah rose through the ranks of the group after joining in 2011 – from actor to script supervisor, assistant director and producer – before becoming managing director. He juggles his role studying for the final year of his degree in media and communications at Zayed University, and co-presenting a twice-weekly podcasting show, Where The Script At, with American-Eritrean friend Jaffar Mahmoud.

With all these commitments, he took a step back from directing the group's latest play, Knights and Wolves, handing over the reins to Iraq-Canadian assistant director Faisal Al Jadir.

It follows a formula set down by Resuscitation founder Maggie Hannan when she started the theatre company in 2009 – of adapting older, classic scripts and giving them a modern twist.

Salah also wants to stage more plays written by Emiratis.

“We’ve used the work of Emirati playwright Saleh Karama in the past,” he says. “He’s been very supportive with us adapting his work and translating it from the original Arabic text. We are definitely happy to bring his work to the stage again and he is in touch with any new projects. We’d like to always be able to do something that no one has seen before, at least in English.”

A classic gets a twist to suit modern times

Knights hell-bent on destruction. Orphaned sisters desperate to escape the chaos around them. Will our hero reclaim what is rightfully his, or will the wolves push their prey over the edge?

It might sound like a plotline from Game of Thrones but this is Resuscitation Theatre's latest play, Knights and Wolves, which will be staged this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Written and directed by Faisal Al Jadir, 26, the play is loosely based on The Two Noble Kinsman, by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, which was inspired by A Knights Tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

"I wanted to do something that was bright and adventurous," says Al Jadir. "The Two Noble Kinsman came my way and I appreciated some of the themes that were tackled.

“But for the most part, it was a very flamboyant, almost mindless play to me. I could see nothing but the darkness underneath and the absurdity. So I decided to turn it on its head and almost parody the original.”

Knights and Wolves marks a solo directorial debut for Jadir, 26, an aspiring filmmaker and "a huge fan of German expressionism". Instead of featuring traditional male knights, Jadir chose to use two women who are refugees fleeing a war-torn country.

“I wanted to focus on two people who were thrown into the crossfire between two warring entities,” he says. “In the original play, the knights were fighting for their emperor, who is a tyrant. They didn’t agree with him, but were forced to abide by his rules. I never believed those knights were really very honourable. So I decided to take that aspect away and focus on ordinary people. I have given it a bit of a time warp too, so its not specifically set in Ancient times but in some alternate universe where things may seem to simulate what’s going on right now in the world.

“For a play that is admittedly dark, it’s also very absurd and wears that on its surface proudly.”

• Knights and Wolves will be staged at 7.45pm on February 18, 21 and 23 in Emirates Writers Union at the National Theatre, Abu Dhabi, opposite Sky News on 17th Street, Muroor. Tickets are free, but a donation of Dh50 is welcome