‘The Temple Independent Theatre Company’ was founded in 1993 by Ahmed El Attar and a company of devotees in Cairo (Egypt) to create new and relevant Egyptian theatre that is sensitive to the contemporary context in both form and content.
Among most notable productions are: ‘Life is Beautiful or Waiting for My Uncle from America’ (2000); a performance in the moving bus ‘On the road to nowhere: A Cairene Journey for tourists and lovers’ (2001); lively multimedia production ‘Mother I Want to be a Millionaire’, premiered in 2005 at Berliner Festspiele, one of the leading European theatre festivals; ‘F..ck Darwin, or How I’ve Learnt to Love Socialism’ (2007); ‘On the Importance of Being an Arab’ (2009), balancing between drama and visual installation.
Ahmed El Attar wrote ‘The last Supper’ in 2015. The title is a reference to the episode in New Testament, when Jesus Christ dines with apostles for the last time. However, there is much more than meets the eye.
“The plot is broader than just a description of Egypt’s present-day political agenda. It is also about public discontent with ruling class and life.”
Ahmed El Attar
Ahmed El Attar,
theatre director and playwright. He is the founder and General Manager of the Studio Emad Eddin Foundation that was established in Cairo as an open space for independent Egyptian performing artists. He is also a founder and Artistic Director of the Orient Productions, The Temple Independent Theatre Company, of D-CAF (Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival) and the Falaki Theatre (Cairo). His plays were shown in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Sweden, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, United Kingdom and in United Arab Emirates. In April, 2005 issue he was mentioned by the Arabic edition of ‘Newsweek’ magazine among personalities who have influenced change in the Arab world.
Premiered on November 2014 (Cairo)
Duration: 50 minutes with no intermission
Media about the
The title is no doubt ironic: no talk of biblical Last Supper in a modern, but still entirely Muslim Cairene family. However, the family is not fully religious and it is wealthy enough to have a servant. But father is not just an ordinary member of the family. Like in entire Egyptian society, he is an undisputable leader, who bears almost infinite authority.
Ahmed El Attar diagnoses Egyptian society’s total paralysis with the fear of father, of boss at work, of President; he claims that this complex national psychological trauma is the cause of deep political crisis lasting from Arab Spring. In fact, the depiction of society’s post-revolutionary condition is the actual task of the performance.
Shaped as a satirical comedy with absurdistic intonations, performance states that Egyptian society is in complicated, but stable condition. (…) Generally, this miniature one-hour performance is carried through so lively and lightly, that fills you with optimism, rather than anxiety for Egypt’s history.
Roman Dolzhansky
