Iraqi Silent Theatre: The Body and Sound in Anas Abdel-Samad’s A Dream in Baghdad (2006)

Abstract

The interactive body and sound become a visible feature of Iraqi theatre after 2003, due to the importance of body language in today’s theatrical performances. A Dream in Baghdad is a pioneering experience, the director of which relied entirely on body language, according to a calculated kinesthetic system.This theatrical performance, which lasted 50 minutes, was silent and did not adopt traditional dialogue. Thus, the director signaled his protest against what is happening in his country, making the actor’s body a loud trumpet against darkness, isolation, marginalization, and chaos.For the voices, they sometimes embodied the logic of force, chaos, and war through the sound of ambulances, the sound of missiles and planes. However, they sometimes expressed peace through calm.The decor was characterized by a chaotic state similar to the chaos in Iraq, and the lighting seemed dim.The scene was often bleak, with blood, corpses, body parts, and paramedics present. However, that chaos began to disappear so that the actors could sweep up the remains of the devastation and clearly confirm that the Iraqi people are able to ‘sweep up’ their differences and stop the bloodshed. The director and the author of the play wants to say that the dream is a dream about stability, security, and democracy in Iraq.Abdul Samad sees that the silent theatre may be more eloquent and influential on the recipient in terms of sensing the tragedy of the Iraqis by employing actors’ bodies, which speak and express all the facts.The present article is an attempt to see how the Iraqi director, Anas Abdel-Samad exploits the body and the sound within the silent theatre in A Dream in Baghdad to send a humanitarian message aimed at building anew Iraq full of love, hope and culture. This is done without uttering any words, through the medium of only the movements of body and sound.