Fever Chart’s Wallace speaks at AUC
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The performing and visual arts department (PVA) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) will be producing and performing Fever Chart, a play about the Middle East by playwright and international human rights advocate Naomi Wallace, on the Falaki main stage starting March 13.
Wallace, a distinguished visiting professor at AUC, will talk about the play today at 5:00 pm at AUC’s Oriental Hall.
“The Fever Chart is a play that has a strong political pinning, but I don’t see it as a message play. Viewers should think to get the message,” said Frank Bradley, associate professor of PVA.
Fever Chart is a pro-Arab play from a Western, specifically an American, point of view. The cast are all students at AUC and many of them think that it is a challenging play, but say that it has been fun to act in a political play.
“It’s interesting to see the situation of the Middle East from eyes other than our own,” said Amira Gabr, theatre and political science senior.
Wallace added that all plays deal with power one
way or another, and that everything on stage is political. According to her, freedom of speech is important to be able to produce a political play; however, the public still has to accept it.
“Politics and art put together give us the most powerful form of expression,” said Amina Khalil, theater junior.
In the United States, for example, there are some issues that are censored, including racism, sexism and the occupation in the Middle East, said Wallace.
As an American, Wallace has taken interest in the Middle East and the Palestinian occupation.
In 2002, she organized a trip to Palestine by a group of American playwrights. Following their visit, they wrote and published a collection of essays in American Theater Magazine.
“We don’t have political writers in Egypt. Through Wallace’s play, political writers will emerge in Egypt” said Bradley.
Wallace was invited to AUC by Bradley. “He invited me because he knew about my work,” said Wallace.
Bradley’s first encounter with Wallace’s work was when two of his students directed one of her plays as their final project. He also taught one of Wallace’s plays, “One flea spare,” in his directing class.
