Egyptian Products
By Laila Soliman
Translated by Khalid Laith
Themes: Gender & Sexuality
Genre: Absurdism
Key Scenes: Scene 3, Scene 15, Scene 26
Number of characters: 10
Age recommendation: 14+ (sexual references)
Country: Egypt
Original language: Egyptian Arabic
Description:
Hadia is an independent woman living in modern day Cairo. Gasir is a painfully awkward lab assistant with attachment issues over his dead mother. Is he really her knight in shining armour?
The play charts the journeys of Hadia and Gasir as they struggle to find a life partner. Gasir is stuck with his ‘nice guy’ image, crippling shyness and attachment issues to his recently deceased mother. These prevent him from connecting with women. Hadia has dated many men but her fierce independent-mindedness means she is awake to the contradictory expectations her society places on women, leading to a blockage in her mission to find a suitable husband. The pair live entirely separate lives in the same Egyptian town before a series of chance encounters bring their worlds together.
Egyptian Products is written in Egyptian Arabic and translated into English by Khalid Laith. Its first outing in the English language was as a rehearsed reading at the Royal Court in 2008.
+ DETAILS
Author: Laila Soliman
English translation: Khalid Laith
Original language: Egyptian Arabic
Publisher: Nick Hern, 2017
World Premiere (in the Engl. lang.): Royal Court, London (2008)
Education Pack Resource Writer: Alia Alzougbi
+ CHARACTERS
HADIA, a young woman in her late 20s who suffers from a lack of a romantic life. She works as a nurse/companion to the Ustaz. The word Hadia in Arabic means ‘she who is calm’.
GASIR, a young man in his early thirties, an introvert, who works in a medical lab and suffers from loneliness after his mother’s death. Gasir is the Egyptian pronunciation for the Arabic word Jasir, which means ‘he who is heroically brave’.
USTAZ IDRIS, an elderly writer who is relatively famous and well off. He suffers from loneliness and a few medical illnesses related to his old age. Ustaz is a term used for a learned elder.
Also, a SPICE SELLER, a female LINGERIE-SHOP ASSISTANT, four PSYCHOTHERAPISTS, a TAXI DRIVER, all of whom can be cast singly or be doubled up with one male and one female actor.
+ PLAY TEXT BLURB
Hadia is an independent woman in Cairo. Gasir is a painfully awkward lab assistant with attachment issues over his dead mother. Is he really her knight in shining armour?
Egyptian Products by Egyptian writer Laila Soliman was first performed in this English translation by Khalid Laith as a rehearsed reading at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2008.
It was developed as part of an ambitious project by the Royal Court Theatre’s International Department and the British Council, working with twenty-one writers from across the Near East and North Africa. Egyptian Products is also available in the collection Plays from the Arab World.
Buy play text here
