Writers and Critics to QNA: Heritage is Never-Ending Source for Qatari Theatrical Works

Doha: The Qatari heritage is a never-ending source and will remain inspirational for theatre players and dramatists, writers and critics have affirmed. Speaking to Qatar News Agency on the margin of the 36th Doha Theatrical Festival currently organized by the Ministry of Culture, these writers and critics stated that the Qatari heritage still abounds with treasures that can be inspired by epochal theatrical works, especially that the current festival obviously pays tribute to multiple art works that are inspired by heritage, they added, such as many Qatari theatrical works created by Saad Burshid, Ali Hassan and Hamad Al Rumaihi. Professor of drama theories at the Community College Dr. Marzouq Bashir bin Marzouq, affirmed that heritage is obviously inspired by theatrical works and is not employed or transferred, highlighting that inspiration is to directly go and evoke that heritage in order to approach it with reality, since dramatists derive incidents from the heritage and history they deem appropriate t o reality and they do not transmit history or heritage, he said, because dramatists are neither historians nor documentarians, but rather dramaturges who obviously deal with history and patrimony with their own art tools. Dr. Marzouq added that playwriting debuted with inspiration from heritage, history, myths and epics, especially that in the ancient Greek era, the tragedians had been inspiring heritage and epics from the ancient Greek poet Homer in their quest for selecting the incidents and reformulating them to the reality and approaching them with people with the objective of conveying messages and not the messages of the past. The Qatari theatre inspires works from culture whether positive or negative, particularly the land and sea as one environment, he highlighted, adding that Qatari playwriters inspired many epochal works from patrimony such as Abdul Rahman Al Mannai and Hamad Al Rumaihi, Dr. Marzouq said. He added that Qatari playwriters also inspired their works from history of the Arabs as the t wo writers Abdul Rahman Al Mannai and Hamad Al Rumaihi resorted to heritage as a source of inspiration for their ideas and derived the stories and myths of the past to be projected onto reality. The matter seems more obvious in Hamad Al Rumaihi who tried to employ the patrimony of the past to project it onto contemporary issues. Writer and director Hamad Al Rumaihi told QNA that most theatrical movements in the Gulf and Arab region have been primarily focused on heritage and subsequently inspired critical topics from patrimony, in addition to deriving works from history, as well. Al Rumaihi stated that following the remarkable evolution of the Gulf and Arab theatrical movement, numerous art works have been inspired from patrimonial works, highlighting that the Gulf and Qatari patrimony still abounds with massive treasures that be inspirational for innovators, but the foremost work lies in the method of essentially capturing these treasures and present them to the audience. Writer and director Saad Burshid, faculty member in the theater arts program at Community College stated that the Qatari patrimony is one of the most consequential elements of inspiration for theatrical works and innovators as demonstrated in plays since the inception of the Qatari theatre in the 1960s and heretofore, affirming that the current festival features some plays inspired from heritage. The Qatari heritage is conceived as evolutionary, he said, and it is particularly important for the Qatari innovators to highlight their culture and heritage through these plays that obviously set acculturation and creativity in motion. Burshid pointed out that there is an opportunity for innovators to join the theatrical works whether through writing or directing to ensure the continuity of generations in knowledge and culture, as well as heritage and history, thus giving hope that this patrimony will continue to provide theatrical creativity. Source: Qatar News Agency