Issam Mahfouz

In the 1930s, the brothers introduced cinema to the region with the establishment of the Haramoun Cinema and Theater in Marjayoun which drew audiences from the entire region, including Syria and Palestine.

Abdel-Masiḥ was also one of the founders of ‘The Marjayoun Awakening’ (al-Nahḍah al-Marj’āyūnīyah), a weekly newspaper focused on socio-economic conditions in the country.

In 1937 he published “Symbolism”, a comparative account of western symbolism and eastern symbolism, with the latter embodied in the writings of al-Sharif al-Radi.

It was one of the first books to discuss symbolism in Arabic literature.

The family home in Marjayoun hosted many poets and critics, including Ahmad al-Safi al Najafi, Bchara Al-Khoury, Amin Nakhle, Ameen Rihani, Sheikh Abdul-Hussein Sadek, Sheikh Abdul-Hussein Sharafeddine, Bulus Salameh, Ahmed Aref el-Zein, Suleiman Daher, al-Sayyed Mohsen Al-Amin, and many others.

Abdel-Masiḥ himself wrote classical Arabic poetry and was known as the "Nightingale of the South" (Bulbul al-Januub.)

Mahfouz spent most of his childhood in his hometown, Marjayoun.

However, the period was marked by several displacements of his family to different regions in Lebanon as conflicts, including World War II and the Israel-Palestine war, affected Marjayoun significantly.

Mahfouz's childhood was also affected by the death of close family members, including his mother at the age of two.

Mahfouz finished school in Marjayoun.

He showed an early inclination for theater by writing and producing plays in the attic of the family home, using accessories from the Haramoun Cinema and Theater.

Friends and neighbors were invited to play different roles in his productions but he reserved the main character for himself.

His childhood plays, with titles like “The Prisoner” and “The Wheat Seller”, revolved around the same issues he went on to develop in his adult productions: love, justice, and freedom.

Issam Abdel-Masih Mahfouz (also written 'Isam/Essam Mahfood/Mahfuz') (12 September 1939 – 3 February 2006) was a Lebanese playwright, poet, journalist, author, translator, and critic.

His literary works include dozens of books on politics, culture, and theater, as well as “dialogues” - imagined exchanges with historical figures.

During his lifetime he was also well known as a Professor of Dramatic Arts at the Lebanese University and for his writing in the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahār, particularly its culture section.

Mahfouz is best known for his call to reform theater in the Arab world.

Mahfouz was born on September 12, 1939, in the southern Lebanese town of Jdeideh Marjeyoun, to a culturally active Christian family.

His mother, Monifa Shadid, was a schoolteacher before marriage.

His grandfather Eid managed a popular brass band that played music during ceremonies.

His father, Abdel-Masiḥ, was educated in Jerusalem and began producing plays in Marjayoun with the backing of his brother Ramez, although he earned his living as a dentist.

In 1957 Mahfouz moved to Beirut to continue his education and fulfill his ambitions.

In 1958, Mahfouz met the poet Shawki Abu Shaqra, who in turn introduced him to Yussuf Al-Khal, the founder of “Majallat Shi’ir” (Poetry Magazine), a publication about modern poetry in the Arab world in which Mahfouz published some of his poems and was a member of its editorial board from 1958 to 1964 when the magazine temporarily ceased publication and from 1967 to 1970 when it was revived.

He had already written his first collection of poetry, “Ashya’a Mayta” (Dead Things) which he published privately in 1959 and from which selected poems were modified and published in a 1961 collection of poetry, “'Ashab Al-Ṣayf” (Summer Weeds).

He produced two further poetry collections, “Al-Sayf Wa-Burj al-Adhra” (“The Sword and the Sign of Virgo”) and “al-Mawt al-Awwal” (“The First Death”) in 1963 and 1967 respectively.

His poems were written in the modern free verse that was being introduced into the Arabic literary scene at the time.

After the Arab defeat in the Six Day War, Mahfouz abruptly stopped writing poetry.

He claimed that poetry “prevents us from seeing the dagger pointed at our hearts”.

He completed his first play “al-Zinzalakht” (“The Chinaberry”) Theater of Lebanon in 1963, but it met with resistance from the theater industry due to its use of colloquial Arabic.

In protest he wrote pantomimes.

In 1968 he published “The First Theater Manifesto” in which he proposed changing the language used in the theater from classical Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic or fuṣ’ḥa) to the local dialect to reflect the language of the street as “it is closer to the hearts of the people”.

He also called for the themes of theatrical pieces to be international rather than local.

Once he had moved to France in 1975 he began writing prose poetry drawing on the image of Abd al-Rahman I, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty of Spain who was known as “The Entrant”.

Mahfouz wrote as “The Leaver”, which in Arabic means "the rebel" or a "member of the Khawarij", dissidents of early Islam.

Mahfouz turned his hand to playwriting as he saw it as an effective medium of communication with audiences.

In 1991 he altered his language proposal from the use of the local dialect to the development of a hybrid form of fuṣ’ḥa that would be comprehensible throughout the Arab world while still retaining the immediacy of the dialect.

He subsequently translated all his plays into this “popular fuṣ’ḥa” (al-fuṣ’ḥa al-sha’abīyah).

Mahfouz's own plays met immediate critical and popular success, and inaugurated a new era of theatrical production in the Arab world.

Most recently, his play "The Dictator" was awarded the Sultan Award at the Arab Theater Film Festival in Doha in 2013.

A translated version of “The Dictator” was selected by the Between the Seas Festival in New York for 2015 production.