The last Kuwaiti play I attended was a production starring the incomparable Abdulhussain Abdulredha, God rest his soul — a show called Sword of the Arabs, staged in the years following Kuwait’s liberation. I have been carrying the memory of that evening ever since. The Kuwaiti theatre I grew up with was something particular. It was the theatre of Saqr Al-Rashoud, God rest his soul, and the stages of Kaifan and Al-Da’iya names that carry a whole era. In those days, the atmosphere was measured, the sensibility was present, and people understood instinctively where the line was, without needing anyone to draw it for them. The wit came fast and sharp: a well-aimed political observation, a deft social comment, delivered in a flash the kind of joke that lands in the chest rather than the ear, that says everything without crossing anything. We called them qattat the quick, clever aside that the best comic performers deployed like a seasoned fencer, with precision and a light touch. Like most Kuwaitis of my generation, I loved the theatre from childhood. It was never simply entertainment here it was part of the country’s memory, a window into its civilised and cultural identity. Kuwaiti art shone in ways we are still proud of, from the grand dramatic stage to the children’s theatre, in which Kuwait distinguished itself for decades. But like much else, the theatre faced headwinds: insufficient support, ageing infrastructure, a shortage of properly equipped venues. It went through long periods of stagnation though I would argue it fared somewhat better than sports, which is not saying a great deal. Still, the artistic legacy endured and imposed itself on successive generations, because the most honest work outlives its era. Think of Umm Kulthum’s songs, or the masterpieces of Egyptian cinema’s golden age art that lives regardless of what century it finds itself in. Which brings me to last night is that my dear daughter invited me to a Kuwaiti production and, anticipating every excuse I might produce, pre-empted them: “This time you have no reason to say no. The theatre is well-arranged, the seats are comfortable, and the performers are well known.” She was right on all counts. So, we went. From the moment I sat down, I found myself running an involuntary comparison between what the Kuwaiti stage once was and what I was watching now. I want to be careful here, because that kind of comparison can easily become unfair. The times have changed, the audience has changed, and the very idea of entertainment has been remade by streaming, by social media, by a hundred competing claims on people’s attention. The production clearly represented real effort. The young cast brought genuine energy. The audience laughed and engaged and seemed, on the whole, to be having a good time. After the weeks of tension and the relentless weight of the news and the conflicts we follow from a distance, that release matters. It counts for something. I want my criticism, therefore, to be the kind that builds rather than diminishes because what these young artists need most right now is not another voice telling them what is wrong, but guidance on how to go further. That said, I do have observations and I suspect many in the audience share them. The first is the overuse of the quick aside the qattat. A well-placed improvisational remark, timed with comic instinct, can be the highlight of an evening. But when the aside becomes the engine of the entire performance when it arrives every few minutes, escalating into mockery of specific nationalities, or into crude insinuation, or into jokes at the expense of how someone looks or speaks or was made by God something shifts. The comedy stops feeling light and starts feeling heavy. The audience senses it, even when it is still laughing. What began as wit tips into vulgarity, and what looked like ease is revealed as laziness. I want to ask the writer and director a direct question: is this the language you actually use in your daily lives? In the office? At a family dinner? With your children? I think we all know the answer is no. So why present it on stage as though it were the natural register of Kuwaiti society? The production would have been richer and more enduring had more of its energy gone into the script, into building comic situations that accumulate and pay off with intelligence. Real comedy does not live in the shock or the volume. It lives in the well-constructed scene that makes you laugh on the way home, and again the following week, and decades later the way certain sketches from the old Kuwaiti series Darb Al-Zalaq still bring tears of laughter to people who have watched them thirty times. That is the standard. It is not unattainable. My second observation, offered with the same goodwill: the production leaned heavily on male actors playing female roles, and it did not, in my view, always serve the material. More often than not it lowered the register of certain scenes rather than lifting it. I recognise that casting constraints are real, and that those who made the production are likely aware of this themselves. But it is worth naming, because it did weaken the work. Despite all of this: we had a beautiful evening. Children, grandchildren, a shared laugh, a few hours away from the noise. There is real value in that, and it speaks well of everyone who worked to put something on that stage. I am grateful to everyone who is keeping Kuwaiti theatre alive. Good art is part of the soul of this country. And I am still waiting — with genuine hope, not mere patience for the moment when this generation’s enthusiasm meets a script worthy of it, and a standard of taste that does justice to both.
Stay safe