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Sultan Theater Stimulates Awareness

The theater meaning is more than the text and the stage, because it is the result of movement of life in somebody's self, and also the movement of language in the text. Due to the contiguity of both movements, the theatrical speech responds to rhythmicity of the show, which also responds to rhythmicity of viewing and receiving. At this time, the theater bears a wider meaning through this rhythmicity connecting between the self, language, reality and life.

Theater is like a question raising another question, as Peter Brook sees that "Theater is test for all, reflects the existential pains of the human race and discovers the ambiguity of the humanitarian situation". Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda sees that "Theater challenges emptiness, shadows and silence". Therefor; "We should experiment the theatre, not to understand the events happened to us, but to have a glimmer of hope although the chaos and nightmares, as the theater is an act of faith in the value of the word that reflects the wisdom in a world that has lost his mind.

If the theater is also "a strong tool for peace and coexistence", according to Jessica Kaho, it is, according to His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, the question, challenge and rebellion, hope, salvation, regeneration, and space for coexistence, tolerance and dialogue, as well as a school of ethics and freedom, a and message in love, peace and beauty. His Highness said "Theater is a factor of human unity, by which the human can spread love and peace, and open the horizons of dialogues between different races and colors of different beliefs".

At the theatrical vision of His Highness, he connects theater, beauty and life. When the human race does not realize the value of beauty, it gets lost by the wars. His Highness sees that "The complete beauty is not available in an art as much as it is in theater. The beauty includes all arts of beauty, and the person who does not taste beauty cannot realize the value of life. The theater is life. So todays we have to reject all kinds of senseless wars." At this time, His Highness realized the value of theater included in the value of dialogue, as the theater is the real test for the human communication movement, to establish the value of dialogue as a humanitarian need for coexistence. Hence, the relationship between dialogue in theater and dialogue in life becomes dialectical. The smaller distance between people is, the more disputes and disputes are resolved. The further distance is, the more division is, and more dreams get lost. Therefore, the dialogue for which His Highness calls at his theatrical speech is fort and identity for humanity, because it is based on two elements, life and theater.  The dialogue firstly is considered as dialogue with the self, and secondly dialogue with the other person, as well as a dialogue between the past and the present in the movement of the theatrical text. The theater embodies the dialogue and calls for dialogue, where all the people meet each other at the platform of humanity, whether in future or in the past, to be connected with the future.

Therefore and through this philosophy expressing the theatrical vision, and the role of the theater in promoting human values, and enhancing human communication, it was necessary to search for a new theater movement, to establish the Arab theater speech, expand its space, and establish its role in the process of enlightenment and change. Therefore, His Highness called for establishing a theater achieving these visions; because he believes that Arab theater movement needs new visions and real action that makes the theater contribute in changing the human awareness and human relations for the better, as he said "   Today we are in dire need for a new theater that contributes in creating new humanism replacing the current humanism that has been debilitated, and making the human the core of concerns of the world's rulers. We will not exaggerate if we say that the new theater will establish a new civilization based on a global symbiotic system". His Highness emphasize that we need "a strong theater rebelling against these conditions". For such theater renovation and the new theatrical vision that shall be applied by the theater message, the theatrical speech of His Highness was a serious step to achieve that. Therefore, he directed to the history to obtain the wisdom therefrom and to make it a guide to divide the present, as the historical event is not the end as much as it is a mean to understand the present. His Highness put the mirror of history in front of the mirror of reality, and by this way the temporal distance is lost, and the objects see their images after they have conceived by the idea. Therefore, the theatrical vision that is located in the memory of the recipient and viewer became clear, which allows the text to be involved in the process of reproduction of history through the tools of the present, and also provides broad spaces for interpretation, at which the recipient participate through reproduction of text and show with various visions in terms of the number of viewers.

Here, the mission of the theatre is widened to be a revolutionary and an instigator and catalyst act for soul-searching and therefore, reconsidering the nature of different humanitarian relations in light of the controversial movement marked in the humanitarian awareness by the theatre. This is explicit in all the theatrical productions of His Highness A'ouda Hulagu 1998 (Hulagu Return 1998), Da'ash w Al-Gubraa 2016,  Al-waka'a Sura Tabk Al-asel 2000 (Reality is spitting image 2000), Qadia 2000 (Case 2000), Alexander The Great 2007, Nimrod 2008, Samson The Great 2008, Turgut 2011, Black Stone 2011); and then we unfold in front of  the insightful person the theatrical vision, on which His Highness is working concerning rereading  the history to dislocate the reality through technical and experimental visions in form and content without prejudice to the theatrical mission of His Highness in  terms of  the subject, vision, creativity since the historical event or document  is merely an inducer  to read  the reality  from the window of the composer  and the mirror of the recipient.  The theatrical script is neither limit the recipient's vision nor narrow his/ her interpretation distance but rather it opens the door for reading and interpreting as this cooperates  in widening the role of theatre  in changing the consciousness as well as the participation and dialogue role  that  the theatre  gave  among the script, show, and recipient. 

This was also explicit even in his way of tackling the heritage, and its values So as to deepen the relationship with heritage and being in-stilled in one-self  through the contemporary reading taking  from the heritage a mobile memory  throughout time making them more in tune with the movement of the present, and the movement of the future as well as more instilled in  the recipient's memory.

Moreover, the aspect of choosing the title of play is an element with  which  His Highness is distinguished since the titles of his plays are flections of the reality and history as they  sometimes depict a historical event  or   refer to a historical character and other times they tackle an issue without being limited  to a time. They also adopt the rhythmic proportion between two words as " Da'ash w Gubara". The title, here, adopted substitution between the historical word "dahs" and the contemporary word (da'ash) to leave the interpretation  for the recipient  in order to interpret the hidden meaning between both words and thereby, the vision has become wider than the script and show, it triggered through its timeless question  so that  "the theatre will breath as long as there is life"

In this manner, the sight of His Highness is explicit concerning the establishment of the future, blessing, discovery, visionary and humanitarian theatre so as to be a platform for salvation.

Source: Al Khaleej Al Thaqafi- Dr. Bahija Masry Adlabi