Mama, a new play by Egyptian director Ahmed El Attar, will see its domestic premiere at Cairo’s Falaki Theater this month.

The play will be performed in the evening from 12 to 15 September, and then from 20 to 23 September.

Mama is the director’s final play in a trilogy that deals with family themes.

It is set in a bourgeois living room in Cairo and offers an unforgiving portrait of a mother, a woman who becomes monstrous through her limitless love.

Through the setting and the 13 characters, El Attar explores the symbolic and physical imprisonment of the Arab woman and her children, while creating a miniature society made up of alternating relationships of power.

The play premiered in July last year at the Avignon Festival, and has been performed since on stages across France and at other international festivals.

The cast of the play includes Ali El Sabh, Belal Mustafa, Dalia Ramzy Yanni, Hadeer Moustafa, Heba Rifaat, Magdy Atwan, Menha El-Batraoui, Menna El Touny, Muhammed Hatem, Mona Soliman, Nanda Mohammad, Noha ElKholy, Ramsi Lehner and Seif Safwat.

The play is produced by Orient Productions and the Temple Independent Theater Company, and co-produced by numerous Egyptian and French creative bodies.

Ahmed El Attar is the co-founder of Studio Emad Eddin Foundation, a project which offers rehearsals and training spaces to independent performers. He is also the founder and artistic director of the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF). 

Programme:
12 to 15 September and 20 to 23 September, 8pm
Falaki Theater, Falaki Street (inside AUC), Downtown Cairo

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