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Rabat – The sweeping tale of the emancipation of a Moroccan girl brought to the stage by The Akoun troupe for Culture and Arts in Rabat won the “Sheikh Soltane Ben Mohamed el Kacemi” prize for the best Arab theatrical work of 2017.
“Solo” was announced winner on Tuesday at the closure of the 10th Festival of Arab Theater held from January 10 to 16 in Tunis. Just last month, Solo won the Grand Prize award during the National Theater Festival held in Rabat.
Written by Mohamed El Hor and Hajar El Hamidi, Solo was in competition with plays from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Tunisia. The festival’s 2018 theme was “Towards a new and innovative Arab theater.”
Solo represents a theatrical adaptation of Taher Benjelloun’s “The Sacred Night,” telling the story of Zahra, a Moroccan girl forced to live as a boy in order to obtain her father’s inheritance. The story shifts between a painful reality and a dreamlike journey, imbued with spirituality and piety.
The protagonists of the play welcomed the prize, saying that it confirms their previous distinctions in several festivals in Morocco but also in other great theatrical events, including the Theatrical Days of Carthage where the piece won a prize for the best male and female performance.
The event recorded an influx of nearly twenty-five thousand spectators as well as 250.000 Internet users who have followed the ceremony via the the event’s YouTube channel. In his speech at the closing ceremony, Secretary General of the Arab Theater Committee Ismail Abdallah announced that the next edition of the festival will be held in Egypt.
