Lahlo faces a distorted reality in “The Trial of Socrates”… and a new generation shines on stage

Nabil Lahlou excelled in a theatrical creation of high symbolic intensity, through his play “Masha Meshmsha.. The Trial of Socrates”, whose French text was directed for the first time in 1996, and was recently shown after nearly two decades, for two consecutive days at the Mohammed V Theater in Rabat, without losing its freshness and warmth, but rather the transition from the French language to the Arabic language added freshness and life to it. In fact, I consider the play “Masha Meshmsha” in its new Arabic guise to constitute a revolutionary experience, whether in the path of what Nabil Lahlou himself has accumulated or in the product of Moroccan theater in general, with what it contained of a new experimental spirit or in the field of directing and the rest of the components of scenography, from music, lighting and sound, supervised with high and creative technology by Maria Kenzi Lahlou and Reda Zniber.

Nabil Lahlo’s text is based on the first opinion trial in the world, the famous trial of Socrates as immortalized by Plato in the dialogue “Phaedo”, famous for the immortality of the soul, which he wrote on behalf of his teacher Socrates, and tells us about the most dangerous moment in the history of philosophy, represented in the last dialogues of Socrates with his disciples, before he drank the poison and refused to escape justice even if it was unjust, out of respect for the spirit of the law.

This is the same moment that was brilliantly captured by the brush of the French painter Jacques-Louis David in 1787 in his famous painting “The Death of Socrates”, which depicted the scene of this Athenian philosopher executing himself by drinking poison, with the tragedy that befell Socrates and the sadness that befell his disciples. The tragedy of the death of “poisoned Socrates” will be repeated in more than one scene throughout the universal heritage, as it was revived in the Christian heritage through the crucifixion of Christ, which is why Voltaire said: “Christ is the Socrates of Palestine”, or through many enlightened people and activists who clung to their convictions until their last breath, who preferred death, for one of the reasons related to the situation and not changing their perceptions, and accepted drinking poison. I recall Al-Zarqtouni as a prominent figure in contemporary Moroccan times, while Nabil Lahlou’s theatrical text recalls many names, such as Ben Barka and Omar Ben Jelloun, to name a few.

Despite the long duration of the play (about two hours and twenty minutes), we did not feel bored. In this cheerful show, Nabil Lahlo makes you feel that the theater is not just a show or a spectacle, not just a space you enter to come out purified, but rather it is life itself, with all its contradictions, with the conflict between the forces of evil and the forces of good, with the existence of structures and visions that penetrate the world between light and darkness, between authority and freedom, between open thought and the forces of darkness creeping in with a thousand masks.

The play opens with a TV show announcing a competition to select actors for the film “The Trial of Socrates,” directed by the great film director Farid Houta. The news presenter presents the questions posed to the supposed examinees, and the casting begins. The director, with his majesty, his cane, and his scholarly language, appears like the guardian of the temple of theater and cinema. He does not allow mediocrity. He has to choose who will play the roles of his characters in a dreamy scenario about “The Trial of Socrates,” which will transform throughout the play into a trial of triviality, mediocrity, injustice, tyranny, and exploitation.

Each of the characters who come forward for the selection process has his own dreams, frustrations and fantasies. One comes from the space of Ouarzazate and has fantasies about the silent roles he used to play in major cinematic works. He has a defiant streak, even his name is Al-Firdawsi, dreaming of bliss with his mistress, who aspires to stardom and wealth, and entered the world of advertising with its abundant temptations, even if she only received half the amount she signed for his contract. And the young woman who comes terrified and trembling in her little sister’s “qashaba” on her body, wears glasses to hide the rest of the disappointments and the darkness that pervades the injustice of the universe, hides burning, pain and great hopes, and carries a real talent inside her that qualifies her for the role of dancing before the gods.

The stage is divided into multiple spaces, the main street that Nabil Lahlou has made animated, especially at the moment of showing the limousine that indicates the transformation of the beloved of the artist Al-Rahi who came from Ouarzazate, then the house of the great film director Farid Houta with his beloved Macha Mchimish, who has a cheerful artistic presence, who ended up losing her memory and undergoing treatment through which she always shows that she is in a state of hostility to reality and longing for her past glories to play a role that will bring her back to the cinema screen, especially since an obscure director offered her to play a major role in his film project, then the rest of the furnishings: the office space, the bar whose liquor bottles were emptied, the television, then the place where the actors are screened at the moment of their audition to act in a film that the great writer Farid Houta dreams of to revolutionize his “cinema” path.

Young men and women take to the stage to showcase their talent to the film director, and dialogues take place between those on stage and the director Farid Houta, the great screenwriter sitting among the audience, about the role of the actor, the concept of acting, the function of the theater, and great human values ​​of freedom, justice, and love… I truly felt, as I followed the performances of the various actors, that we were facing a new generation of delightful actors, who expressed a great talent: Othman Janan, in addition to the torch artist Nasr Mikri, son of the famous singer and composer Hassan Mikri, who is undergoing his first experience in the world of acting… They all expressed great talent and promising energies in acting.

But I must point out the dazzling performance of two students who are still studying in high school in the first year at the Noon Lam Institute for Acting Training, namely Yasra Al-Qadri, 16 years old, and her colleague Hiba Al-Ahrash (17 years old); they are two burning flames of giving and sacrifice on the stage, they do not act but rather embody, there is no fine line separating the character from the actress, twins in one, rhythm of voice, body gestures and total identification with the theatrical characters.

As for Sofia Hadi, who starred in the play “The Trial of Socrates” under the name of the famous actress “Masha Mishmisha”, who after a traffic accident also embodies a form of social and fatalistic injustice, which distances her from the screen and puts her in a pathological state far from sobriety, she remains an icon lavishly rich with her dazzling performance that is renewed in every role or performance, in her movements, in the form of her clothing and in her gestures… Sofia Hadi succeeded in becoming the lady of the stage, and she excelled when she played the role of the chair that enters into a state of revelation like a candle in the famous poem “Al-Malhoun”, the chair on her tongue and her performance becomes a speaker, regurgitating a history of sorrows and collapses, telling about its pains and hopes, about its sorrows and worries, and it is considered an embodiment of power and the focus of the struggle over it… Or in a beautiful scene when we discover her on the television screen trying to rehearse her role in the film created by an unknown young man, where the dramatic rhythm rises when she fails to retrieve the text of the role, so the screen is torn and she exits it as if she She jumps from a symbolic state to the reality of her frustration and illness.

Nabil Lahlo excelled in the play “The Trial of Socrates”, where times and places overlap, between the past of “Masha Mishmisha”, from a great actress who recalls the moment she met the film director Farid Houta, and the miserable state she has been in since a traffic accident; then the theatrical performance succeeds in moving from one space to another without a single moment of silence or blank space. The most beautiful thing is the dialogue that takes place between the stage, where the director and his lover talk about the film he dreams of, and the scene of Socrates’ dialogue with his student Crito about drinking the poison he drank, ignoring the offer his students gave him to smuggle him out and save him from death, but because of his belief that we must not escape justice even if it is unjust, he preferred death by poison. That is, death out of conviction and existential principle despite the injustice that the trial of Socrates witnessed.