Shakespeare's immortal sculpture, with its magnificent body, is a masterpiece for the third time.
By Iman Awad
You shouldn't have grown old before you became wise.
With these powerful words, the artist Yehia El-Fakharany touched our hearts on the stage of the National Theatre as he portrayed King Lear, who endured the bitterness of estrangement, cold, and hunger after succumbing to the ravages of blind pride. This tragic downfall was the price of his liberation from megalomania, replaced by the madness of wisdom. This profound transformation embodies the essence of the brilliant text written by Shakespeare in 1605, a text that remains relevant and contemporary. The artist Yehia El-Fakharany masterfully embodied this role on the stage of the Egyptian National Theatre.
The esteemed artist returns to masterfully embody this text for the third time in a new form that aligns with reality, presenting us with a story of power, weakness, and eternal hypocrisy.
Lear's tragedy begins with a fatal weakness: his arrogance of power and his narcissistic desire for glorification and praise. His habit of flattery leads him to test his daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. While the two elders exaggerated their flattery, the youngest expressed himself with simple words. This honesty did not satisfy his vanity, so he became angry with her, disinherited her, and gave his kingdom to the two hypocritical sisters who conspired against him and banished him. He was transformed from a powerful and great king into a fugitive, ostracized by his own people. It is here that Lear's bitterness erupts as he realizes the extent of his defeat in a resounding cry.
Having a disobedient child is sharper than a snake's fang.
The essence of King Lear's tragedy transcends the issues of filial impiety and misguided upbringing, becoming a stark embodiment of the philosophy of human suffering in its most extreme form. In this timeless work, honesty is punished and treachery is rewarded, presenting a profound artistic image of the sighted man who has become blind to the truth, and the blind man who sees with his heart. For this reason, critics have compared this immortal tragedy to great musical works by composers such as Bach and Beethoven.
Faced with this immense artistic challenge stands Yehia El-Fakharany, who has become synonymous with the Egyptian King Lear, having previously performed the role in 2001 and 2019. Now, the play returns to the National Theatre in its new 2025 version. At eighty years old, El-Fakharany stands out as one of the great creative minds who have returned to this iconic character, offering a fresh perspective on a role demanding the utmost psychological complexity. His renewed return to this work is not merely a theatrical performance; it is a rewriting of Arab theatrical history, reaffirming that profound human emotions such as love, betrayal, and madness are a universal language, and that Lear's immortal cry will continue to resonate in theatre halls as long as there is a heartbeat.
King Lear remains a microcosm of human frailty, which ultimately leads to everyone's downfall. After the deaths of Cordelia and the two treacherous sisters, King Lear dies heartbroken, finding a kind of tragic solitude that proves the truth of his saying, which Shakespeare drew from English myths and folk tales, shaping his message.
In life, we are nothing but miserable people picking each other up
0 تعليقات