World Theater Day 2023 – March 27
Today, on World Theater Day, we rescue this text by the actress Samiha Ayoub, who so much represents the soul of Espai Philae. I hope it moves you as much as it has with us and leads you to continue using Art as medicine and antidote to transform the world:
To all my friends, theater artists around the world,
I write this message to you on World Theater Day, and as much as I am filled with happiness to be speaking with you, every fiber of my being trembles under the weight of what we all suffer – theater artists and the non-theatrical – from the crushing pressures and conflicting sentiments amid the current state of the world. Instability is a direct result of what is happening in our world today in terms of conflicts, wars, and natural disasters that have had devastating effects, not only on our material world, but on our spiritual world and psychological peace.
I am speaking to you today while it seems to me that the whole world has become like isolated islands, or like ships fleeing on a misty horizon, each one spreading its sails and sailing without a guide, seeing nothing on the horizon to help it. he guides it and, nevertheless, they continue sailing, hoping to reach a safe harbor that will contain it after its long journey in the midst of a roaring sea.
Our world has never been as closely connected to each other as it is today, but we have never been more dissonant and further apart from each other than we are today. Here is the dramatic paradox that our contemporary world imposes on us. Although we are all witnessing the convergence in the circulation of news and modern communications that broke down all the barriers of geographical borders, the conflicts and tensions that the world is experiencing exceeded the limits of logical perception and created, in the midst of this apparent convergence, a fundamental divergence that takes us away from the true essence of humanity in its simplest form.
The theater in its original essence is a purely human act based on the true essence of humanity, which is life. In the words of the great pioneer Konstantin Stanislavsky: “Never enter the theater with mud on your feet. Leave the dust and dirt outside. Leave your little worries, quarrels, little difficulties with your outer clothes – all the things that ruin your life and divert your attention from your art – at the door.” When we go on stage, we go on stage with only one life within us for a human being, but this life has a great capacity to divide and reproduce to become many lives that we project into this world so that it covers life, flourishes and spreads its fragrance. to others.
What we do in the world of theater as playwrights, directors, actors, set designers, poets, musicians, choreographers and technicians, all of us without exception, is an act of creating life that did not exist before going on stage. This life deserves a loving hand to hold it, a loving chest to embrace it, a kind heart to sympathize with it, and a sober mind to give it the reasons it needs to go on and survive.
I am not exaggerating when I say that what we do on stage is the act of life itself and generating it out of nothing, like a burning ember that sparkles in the dark, illuminating the darkness of the night and warming its coldness. It is we who give life its splendor. We are the ones who embody him. We are the ones who make it vibrant and meaningful. And we are the ones who give the reasons to understand it. We are the ones who use the light of art to face the darkness of ignorance and extremism. We are the ones who embrace the doctrine of life, so that life spreads in this world. That is why we put our effort, time, sweat, tears, blood and nerves, everything we must do to achieve this noble message, defending the values of truth, goodness, beauty, and truly believing that life deserves to be lived.
I speak to you today, not just to speak, or even to celebrate the father of all arts, the “theater”, on his world day. Rather, I invite you to be together, all of us, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to call out at the top of our lungs, as we are used to on the stages of our theaters, and let our words come out to awaken the conscience of the entire world, to search in us the lost essence of man. The free, tolerant, loving, friendly, gentle and understanding man. And allow them to reject that vile image of brutality, racism, bloody conflicts, one-sided thinking and extremism. Man has walked on this earth and under this sky for thousands of years and he will continue to walk. So take your feet out of the mud of wars and bloody conflicts and leave them at the stage door. Perhaps then our humanity, which has been overshadowed by doubt, will once again become a categorical certainty that makes us all truly capable of feeling proud of being human and of being all brothers in humanity.
This is our mission, we playwrights, the torchbearers of Enlightenment, from the first appearance of the first actor on the first stage: to be in the forefront against all that is ugly, bloody and inhuman. We confront him with everything beautiful, pure and human. We and no one else have the ability to spread life. Let us propagate together for the good of the world and humanity.
Samiha Ayoub