Theatre
ديوان سيدي عبد الرحمن المجذوب
Not translated into English
Tayeb Saddiki · 1966
Synopsis
The play brings back to life Sidi Abderrahman El Majdoub, a sixteenth-century Sufi poet whose verses are still known throughout the Maghreb. On a Jemaa el-Fna square recreated on stage, a storyteller recounts his life and poems, while singers, dancers and charmers translate through music and gesture what the narrative says. The printed text opens on the square itself, then on the halqa, the circle formed by the spectators around the storyteller, and alternates his speech with the poet's zajals.
Context
The play, written and staged by its author, was published in Casablanca in 1979 by Stouky. Abderrahmane Ben Zidane sees in it the conscious adoption of the halqa as a form of spectacle, and Amr Abdelmuttalib ranks it among the works through which the writer turned popular heritage into theatre, the Marrakech square becoming the very place of the performance. Moroccan television broadcast an adaptation of it, and the Tayeb Saddiki Foundation produced in 2018 a new version performed in Morocco, France, Italy and the Emirates.
Who it is for
A play in Moroccan Arabic dialect, made to be performed in a circle; no French translation of it is recorded.
Prizes and reception
Counted by Al Jazeera among the most famous plays of its author, in the tribute paid to him.
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