Continuing the tradition of dedicating each year’s round to the name or memory of a great woman of the theatre (the first cycle was dedicated to feminist writer Fatheya Al-Assal and the second to Aida Abdel-Aziz), this year’s EIWTF was held in honour of the late, great actress Samiha Ayoub, who passed away in June.
The brainchild of writer and critic Rasha Abdel-Moneim, playwright and director Abir Ali, and director and actress Abir Lotfy, this year the festival is directed by chairwoman Abir Lotfy and the festival committee consists of Mustafa Mohamed and Mona Soliman. It is dedicated to exploring women’s issues as well as presenting theatre by women. According to Lotfy, a co-founder, there are women’s theatre festivals throughout the Arab world and it is past time for Egypt, as a cultural leader, to have such a festival. The idea was first presented in 2018 to then minister of culture, Ines Abdel-Dayem (our first female minister of culture), who took steps towards making it happen.
The odd thing about the festival is, of course, its name, which seems more suited, at least for me, to a brand of slip-on athletic shoes. The festival is originally named after the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis, so it would more properly be called – as indeed it originally was called, in English – the Isis International Women’s Theatre Festival. However, an issue arose with the appropriation of the name “Isis” by Islamic State militants, who are variously referred to by the acronym “IS” (Islamic State), “ISIL” (Islamic State in the Levant), and “ISIS” (Islamic State in Syria). Today, unfortunately, a great many Western news outlets use the name “Isis” as an acronym for the militant Islamic group.
Consequently, when deciding upon an English name for the festival, the founders were advised by a press consultant that “Isis International Women’s Theatre Festival” might be misinterpreted as representing the Islamic State – a consummation devoutly not to be wished. The compromise they came up with was to spell “Eazees” phonetically – since, after all, the name is originally pronounced eezees in the ancient Egyptian language, not eye-zis as it is customarily pronounced in English. I personally think this a short-sighted decision, but for better or worse, our goddess, for the purposes of the Women’s Theatre Festival, will have her name spelled Eazees.
International participation in the EIWTF is limited so far, since the festival, being small in scale, only covers transportation within Egypt (for up to six members of each participating delegation), but does not cover international airfare, shipping costs, health insurance, or performance fees. However, what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality, with the foreign performances for 2025 playing to packed houses and garnering rave reviews. This year’s festival has Spain as the guest of honour with two performances, Blood Wedding and Helena, the cost of which is covered in part by UNIC and in part by the Istituto Cervantes (the Spanish Cultural Institute).
It also has a performance from Japan, and a special offering from Italy: a workshop held for Egyptian dancers, selected through an open call followed by a meeting with the director and dramaturg, after which the Egyptian dancers worked with the Italian director and dramaturg for five days before the festival, culminating in a dance theatre show presented at Qubbat Al-Ghouri. In addition, the two performances from Lebanon and Jordan – Gouging from Lebanon, directed by Hanan Hajj Ali, and Fatima Al-Hawwari Will Not Forgive from Jordan, directed by Ghannam Ghannam – played to full houses in Hanager and Samer Theatre respectively, and Gouging especially received wild applause and appreciation.
The Eazees Festival has always been strong on social issues and has called for theatre as a tool of social change. This year, EIWTF signed a protocol with UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund) who have been regularly holding a social arts project dubbed the Community Arts Festival, now in its eighth year, in Egypt. The Community Arts Festival, which hopes eventually to become an international festival, not only hosts but produces films, stage shows, musical performances, and choral concerts. At the Community Arts Festival, all the work is done by volunteer artists from every region of Egypt, with special attention to the provinces outside Cairo. Assisted only by a professional artist as a facilitator, the volunteers do everything, from writing texts to performing them, from composing music to arranging and singing it. Their work covers issues of concern to the community such as gender discrimination.
This year, the Eazees Festival, now in its third circuit, is hosting the eighth circuit of the community arts festival in tandem with the main EIWTF programming. Among the Community Arts Festival shows are performances entitled Pins and In Our House, in addition to the eagerly awaited biographical documentary Bint Yamna. Narrated by the protagonist, the documentary tells the story of Nour, a young girl from Assiut who was forcibly pulled out of school and made to marry, but who later fought to get a divorce and go back to school and is now getting her MA. The Hanager Cinema was packed at the showing on 28 September with standing room only and enthusiastic participation in the post-movie seminar hosted by actress Salwa Mohamed Ali.
Other events included a Hanager choral concert of traditional Egyptian songs as well as songs composed and arranged especially for the event by the young people on 30 September, and on 26 September a workshop entitled “Mechanisms for dealing with technology-facilitated violence against women”, aimed particularly at women working in the fields of theatre and the arts and combining first-hand testimonials with theory, presented by UNFPA gender specialist Sally Zohney.
This community art, festival co-founder Abir Ali told me, is one of her greatest points of pride in EIWTF. “Community art, or consciousness-raising art, is often viewed as second-class fare, something not worthy of artistic attention,” she explained. “I have always been partial to community activism through theatre, so how could we ignore it at EIWTF? That’s why I was thrilled to include the Community Arts Festival as a separate pathway at the Eazees Festival. If you want to change things,” she continued, “it stands to reason that you should produce high-quality art that will entertain people and thereby reconcile them to – and predispose them to hear – your message. A blend of theatre geared towards community activism with professional-tier theatre will present a solution of an artistic calibre that leads to a gradual acceptance and welcoming of change.”
And that, on the other hand, is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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