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Reader:
Where Reality and Illusion are No Longer Distinguishable!
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Reader is a play that requires a very high level of attention from the audience
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For
many years we have watched plays that deal with the suffering of those who have
become victims of terror, censorship and political repression under the rule of
autocratic regimes. In Reader, Ariel Dorfman1
introduces a different dimension to our understanding of state censorship,
through the exploration of the character of the censor himself, who is the
protagonist of this play.
The
play starts when Daniel Lucas, a dedicated and qualified censor, receives a
futuristic novel that reveals the mistakes of his own past and the victims he
has created throughout his career as a state censor. This novel is about a man
called Alfonso Morales, a character who seems to be the exact mirror image of
Daniel Lucas. Lucas strives to ban the novel, which talks about what Ariel
Dorfman called "the past he cannot hide and the future he cannot
avoid". While doing so, and throughout the play, the significant characters
in Daniel Lucas's life-his former wife, son, secretary and lover, and the
director of the Moral Resources Company-keep alternating with their counterparts
in the novel until it becomes very difficult to distinguish the former from the
latter; they are actually played by the same actors in the play.
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View
two scenes of Reader
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Ariel
Dorfman believes that the roots of repression lie not in the state power of
class society, but in a deeper human failing. "Politics in my work is not
merely a matter of the state doing terrible things to people, it's people doing
terrible things" said Dorfman, "you have to start from the point of
view that it's characters, human beings, who have these motivations".
Having said that, Ariel Dorfman has created a story that leads the audience to
sympathize with Daniel Lucas, as he brings about his own end, despite all the
mistakes he has made in his life. The underlying theme in Reader is that
"the agent of the state has to confront the terrible truth that if you
destroy another human being you will end up destroying your own self as
well."
The
play is part of "The Resistance Trilogy", which consists of Death and
the Maiden, Widows in addition to Reader. Dorfman is a playwright with a message
and the three parts of his trilogy explore, in different ways, the minds and
bodies of the victims of terror. This play, in particular, has been influenced
to a very big extent by Dorfman's own experiences. Dorfman himself has suffered
from the censors of the Pinochet regime in Chile who banned his own work and
that of many others.
By
writing this play, Dorfman takes his own personal experiences to a universal
level, in the form of a play that is viewed by spectators from all parts of the
world, specially ones who live under similar conditions and where a few
officials decide among themselves what the rest of the population are going to
read, see and hear. This is why in his script, Dorfman identified the venue
where the play takes place as "everywhere", so that one can easily
relate to it and think of the characters and the locations as ones that are
familiar to them.
In
his forward to the play, Ariel Dorfman explicitly expressed his wish that his
play be viewed or read by censors around the world, people who would be able to
relate to the character of Daniel Lucas and hopefully think more about their own
ends. "I have another, more secret, desire", said Dorfman,
"Perhaps a hidden censor or two will read this story, will see this play,
will buy this book or steal it from a lover's house. Perhaps he will discover,
with horror and wonderment, that this is his life; that the truths he has been
trying to suppress are irrepressibly alive in these pages I wrote for him and
myself and everybody else in the world."
This
was the first time for a play by Ariel Dorfman to be staged in Egypt. It was
directed by the internationally renowned director John Dillon and staged at The
American University in Cairo Theater. The structure of this play is a new and
interesting one. The story line is hard to follow, particularly with all the
switching between different characters and the confusion of reality and
illusion. Therefore, the production of the play has been very difficult and has
required the director to integrate all the tools at his disposal-costumes,
scenery and lights-to make the story as clear as possible to the audience. The
costumes, the movement of the scenery and the mood of the light have illustrated
very well the switching of scenes from the life of Daniel Lucas to that of
Alfonso Morales. Dillon has managed to create a distinction between the
different sets of characters while maintaining a degree of similarity, to show
that these changing characters are merely different reflections of the same
person.
Finally,
Reader is a play that requires a very high level of attention from the audience,
to understand the link between different events and the reason behind the way
they are arranged. I have been fortunate to watch the play several times and,
being a member of the technical crew, attended most of the rehearsals.
Personally, every time I watched the play, I found something new that I had not
noticed before.
Therefore,
if I had been to this play only once, I definitely would not have been able to
understand most of the story, and I would have had a hard time understanding the
themes of the play. I personally like to watch plays with complicated plot
structures and strong effects like Reader; however, a playwright should take
into consideration the variety of spectators, their different backgrounds and,
accordingly, should make himself as clear as possible.
Here,
we are giving you the opportunity to view the play by yourself and have your own
opinion. Enjoy it!
Mohammad
Shawky, A graduating senior in The American University in Cairo majoring
in business administration, but is more passionate about education&
learning, social development, performing arts, and creative writing.
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Ariel Dorman's website: www.adorfman.duke.edu
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