The Cats of Renée Deek: End-of-Year Theater Workshop Performance

"Cats" during the performance

The renowned Iraqi theater director and playwright Jawad Al Assadi offered an intensive theater workshop at AUB from April 18 to May 16. Almost twenty students participated in the workshop, which was offered by the English Department as English 244A, Special Topics. The project involved working with Al Assadi and Robert Myers, an associate professor of English and creative writing at AUB, on writing, producing, and performing an original theatrical piece, The Cats of Renée Deek. Deek, described by Myers as a pioneer female actress in the 1960s, is a prominent Lebanese figure in modern Arab theater, whose rich life has sadly spiraled downward with the onset of old age.

Deek posed as a nude model for students enrolled in AUB's fine arts painting classes, and dozens of the student paintings of Deek's naked and sagging old body were displayed outside West Hall's Room 204, where two performances of Cats were given on May 18. The play features five female cats: Jihan Abou Rahal, as the cat who attempts to steal Renée's make-up because she wants "to glow" like the aging actress once did; Israa Dandache, as the cat who deplores Renée's nightly excursions on the Corniche; Ansam Sinjab, as the drunken cat who has fights with Dana El Hanouni, the small pink cat; and Pascale Harb, as the cat carrying a doll and endearing herself to Renée. Two male cats, Nassim Jibai and Omar Ghosn, provide comic relief, with their boisterous acting heightened by drunken behavior.

The play suggested that Renée, played by Yasmine Agha, is not only the victim of circumstances, in which the purring of cats and the intoxication of liquor have replaced the warmth of human company; she is also the victim of her own ill-advised choices. Her lover, played by Kareem Ramadan, constantly reminds her of her promiscuous lifestyle and preference for multiple lovers. Typically, the show ends with an arresting scene, in which all seven cats assemble in the shape of a heart around a prostrate Renée, as she touchingly laments her plight and then lies completely still-presumably dead.

The laudatory reception of Cats was not surprising, given the extensive professional experience of Al Assadi and Myers. Al Assadi, who has a PhD in theater from the University of Bulgaria, is the author of Forget Hamlet, Women of War, and Hammam Baghdadi. The latter was performed for six days in May at the Marignan Theater in Hamra as part of the celebrations of Al Assadi's reception of the prestigious 2005 Prince Claus Foundation Award, which is presented annually to one international theater artist. Revealing his interest in women's issues, Al Assadi's directing credits include productions of The Maids, an adaptation of a Chekhov story, Miss Julie, and A Doll's House.

Professor Myers is also a well known playwright. His works, mainly produced in the United States, include Atwater: Fixin` to Die about the political adviser to George H. W. Bush; The Lynching of Leo Frank, which received the Joseph Jefferson Award for "Best New Work" in Chicago in 1999; and Dead of Night, about the official murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.

Myers, who during the spring term taught a graduate seminar on the making of modern American drama, commended the efforts of the AUB students who participated or volunteered in the workshop, performing multiple tasks as actors, writers, dramaturges, and technicians.