Directed by Bassam Koussa After a 16-year absence Duraid Lahham makes a comeback to theater

Duraid Lahham, whose political plays have become timeless classics in the Arab world, returns to the theater at the age of 74, having retired from stage acting 16-years ago, back in 1992. The new play, adapted into Arabic from Turkish, will be directed by the renowned Syrian actor Bassam Koussa. The first performance will be on November 1, 2008, and the entire show will last for one month, sponsored by the Secretary-General of Damascus as Capital for Arab Culture 2008, the United Group (UG), and the Ministry of Information.

The project is the brainchild of the actress May Skaff and her private theater group “Theatro,” which started in 2004 and aims at injecting life into Syrian theater. Skaff approached Lahham and Koussa with the script, written by the Turkish novelist Aziz Nesin, and both of them accepted, raising expectations in the Syrian press that this play will unite two legendary Syrian actors who have never worked together.
The play depicts a tormented father, anxiously listening to the radio, awaiting a coup d’etat in his hometown (common in Syria in the 1950s and 1960s). His daughter (played by the Palestinian actress Nisreen Tafesh) is engaged to a member of parliament, who is earmarked for a cabinet post if the government is not toppled by a military coup. The father (Lahham) is worried; gambling with his daughter’s future, with the high chances of her ending up in jail with her husband, or taking the risk and marrying her off into a life that might also contain, power and money.
Lahham, who first turned to theater in response to the war of 1967 with Israel, teamed up with Mohammad al-Maghout in the 1970s to perform works like “Day’et Tishreen” (October Village), “Ghorba” (Alienation), and “Kasak ya Watan” (Cheers to the Homeland). Koussa, who has been named “Syria’s Al Pacino,” is more famous for television drama, attracting an audience all around the Arab world for his work in historical epics like “al-Khawali,” “Layali al-Salhiyah,” and “Bab al-Hara,” part 1.