“A Writer on Honeymoon”

by Ahmed El Attar

Ali Salem’s famous play Madrasat Al-Moshaghbeen (The School of Mischief) continues to be an international hit even after its author has been widely rejected in the Arab world for his reprehensible political views. In a special commission for Perform Sharjah, theatre director Ahmed El Attar collaborates with renowned actor Sayed Rajab to adapt a one-act by the controversial playwright.

 

Setting aside Salem’s political position, El Attar reclaims his play A Writer on Honeymoon, which was published in the early 1970s. In this contemporary adaptation, the plot revolves around a prominent writer whose honeymoon with his much younger wife gradually descends into an intractable mess due to his constant suspicions that he is being monitored by an intelligence agency.

 

The play acquires new meaning today, in a time when unprecedented technological developments are, on the one hand, allowing the monitoring of people’s words and actions to advertise and market consumer products and, on the other, being used in the large-scale wars in many cities of the Arab world.

 

Commissioned and produced by Sharjah Art Foundation.


Starring the critically acclaimed actor Sayed Ragab

4–5 January 2025

8:30PM–9:15PM

Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts

Al Mureijah Square, Sharjah

Image:

A Writer on Honeymoon, Ahmed El-Attar.  Photo: ©