At the Cadmus Thursday

In its regular meetings every Thursday evening, the preparatory committee for the Lebanese theater is hard at work, with all the diligence, faith, and talent its members possess, toward bringing out — God willing — the play Cadmus, at next summer's festivals, at a world artistic level.

Yes.. yes.. in Said Akl's Cadmus the fruit will ripen.. the fruit of Lebanese efforts for the rise of a theater in Lebanon.

And the need for the theater is more than a new appetite for a new amusement. It is a procession of mirrors for our lives.. in the truthfulness with which it renders what makes us weep and what makes us laugh.. and this weeping or this laughter does not fade away before it has planted a grain of light in the soul.

As for Said Akl's Cadmus, it is a mirror whose frame was drawn from the depths of the courtyard.. and I fancy that humanity today and humanity yesterday are in something like a oneness, threatened by an evolution that prunes but does not uproot!

And the judgment that "Cadmus" is among the most magnificent of Arabic tragedies.. is not mine alone.. In it our poet followed the classical theatrical course, and he bestowed on it a gift of love from the marble of his verse!

Cadmus is a story of heroism and love and the rule of fate.. it is a legend from which history took a leap for a launching and a foundation for its own foundation.. it is the tale of him from whom the West had the key of writing, and the story of her in whose name a whole continent was baptized.

The sensitive Europa — "the Happy One" knew how to set her moans to music as she laments a vagabond existence unpitied by wrong: a love her homeland cast out, and which her brother confronted with his life.. his whole life.

And the author gave speech to the composure of Mira, whom anxiety defies... and how should she not be anxious, when Europa's heart is no longer wholly her country's, now that Zeus has become her suitor!

As for Cadmus, he is the hero denied the intoxication of victory, for his sister's burning grief attends him as he stabs the dragon of Zeus that bars his way.

And there remains the blind man.. how dreadful his vision.. how heavy the robe of his wisdom... he is the dusk of the tragedy!..

All these pages glide, line upon line, through the mind of the group... foremost among them Kamil Qustandi and Nizar Miqati!.. I might put their modesty to the blush were I to say that what quickens our hope in this project is their will, their talent, and their trained grasp of the "secret of the craft" — a virgin craft that will devour their energy whole...

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We said last month that "The Woman's Voice" is ready to accept applications from candidates for the roles of Mira and Europa.

After Miss Jinan Jaroudi's application for the role of Europa, we have received Miss Layla Abu Dahir's application for the role of Mira, the handmaiden.