At the Venice Biennale, the hypnotic “Drama 1882” in the Egyptian pavilion

The long queue in front of the Egyptian pavilion at the Giardini is a sign that word of mouth is favorable. The trickle of entries can also be explained by the fact that Wael Shawky presents a forty-five minute film, in classical Arabic, with a gauge defined by a concern for readability of the subtitles, at ground level. It’s worth being patient. The Egyptian artist (born in 1971) revisits the story again in his own way, at once epic, serious, and full of fantasy.

In his trilogy Cabaret Crusades (2010-2015), it recreated medieval conflicts between Muslims and Christians, and made Greco-Roman deities coexist with those of ancient Egypt in 2023, in the ruins of the temples of Pompeii. With Drama 1882, this time he looks at a key episode in the history of his country: the nationalist revolution of Urabi. In September 1881, Colonel Ahmed Urabi organized an uprising against the khedive (viceroy) Tawfik Pasha, whom he considered a traitor for his concessions, particularly in the face of European financial domination of Egypt. A revolt which ended with the takeover of the country by the British in 1882.

Sense of catastrophe and theatricality

Wael Shawky makes it a musical comedy between fact and fiction, in settings and with stylized costumes, in the colors of a fable. The characters, hieratic, evolve in slow motion, swinging back and forth in moving scenes punctuated by the music and singing of the performers. The story, very gripping and hypnotic, highlights strategies, alliances and subjective visions, and makes war appear as a logic as implacable as it is absurd.

Between sense of catastrophe and theatricality, Drama 1882 fits in its own way with the theme of the central pavilion of the Biennale, “Foreigners Everywhere”: “What does it mean to be outsiders?” Who were the strangers? They were the occupiers, not those we call immigrants today”reacts the artist. “We are in a moment of political emergency and revolutionary change, on a global scale. It seemed essential to me to represent my country with a strong message, commensurate with this moment”, he said again. Through its prism, always alternative and poetic.