Syrian theater: facts and ambitions ... visions of writers and filmmakers on the stage of El-Kabbani

Damascus-Sana

The Theaters and Music Directorate chose to start its celebrations for the World Theater Day, which falls today, by holding a symposium for a number of writers and directors of expertise and experience who talked about the reality of the father of arts in Syria and ways to advance it to achieve more effectiveness and attendance.

The symposium hosted by Khashaba Al-Qabbani and titled (Syrian theater: facts and ambitions), at its outset, writer and director Suhair Barhoum, Director of the National Theater, indicated that theater is a continuous social activity, but it suffers for us as a result of the current conditions and people's preoccupation with many concerns and needs that are not among the priorities of culture, which made the distance The distance increases between the audience and the stage, considering that our performances have not yet risen to the level of crises, with our insistence as playwrights on work because we are bound by hope.

Theater director Dr. Tamer Al-Arbeed stressed the need to produce a theater that attracts people and emulates their concerns, especially since this art in Syria has always carried an issue and is not entertaining or decorative, but it needs to renew ways of communicating with the audience with the need to enhance the media's interest in it and to invest social media in promoting and marketing Reviewing his experience by presenting a television program over the years that deals with theater and its issues.

Playwright and editor-in-chief of Film Life Magazine, Joan Jean, returned in his speech to the experience of television theater that appeared in the sixties of the last century by producing shows filmed within the studio and presented on the silver screen to the audience, wishing to revive this pattern, and in his intervention also touched on the phenomenon of quoting international texts on our stage that began Since Abu Khalil al-Qabbani and continued with the special teams to establish the National Theater, but it suffers from the sufficiency of Arabizing the names without the event and the place, which constituted an alienation between the audience and these works.

Writer and director Samer Muhammad Ismail talked about the great role of the Theater and Music Directorate in the Syrian theatrical movement, which is almost the only producer in light of the reluctance of capital to invest, the lack of work produced by the opera house, the stopping of the workers' theater and the Institute of Theatrical Arts troupe, and the inability of some halls to be shown. That the audience was not affected by circumstances

The war increased his presence to follow up on new works, some of which won awards, and called for the restructuring of independent theater groups and the preservation of our theater from penetration attempts that target our culture, identity and values.

Critic Nidal Qoushaha, who moderated the symposium, drew attention to the importance of building a participatory relationship between official institutions and the Free Theater Ensemble as one of the oldest Syrian artistic gatherings, then after him Imad Jalloul, Director of Theaters and Music, spoke about the importance of marketing the cultural product, especially to the domestic audience, and the need to build a participatory relationship that brings together the concerned parties and create competition between Existing teams and not limiting the production of performances to the Theaters Directorate, as it is not a trustee body, which in turn launched many initiatives, including the project to support youth theater.

Samer Al Shoghry