The Buffet (play)

The Buffet (Arabic: البوفيه Il-Bufayh) is a 1968 one-act play by Ali Salem which is widely regarded as a classic of modern Egyptian theatre.^[1]^[2] The Buffet was written in 1967, first performed at the Hakim Theatre in Cairo in March 1968, published in Arabic in 1969, and in English translation in 1973 by John Waterbury. The term al-Būfīh in Arabic refers to an office canteen or snack bar, although the play is set not down in the canteen, but upstairs in the office of the theatre manager. The cast requires only three actors: a theatre manager in an unnamed Kafkaesque authoritarian state, a playwright trying to get his play produced, and the waiter who brings food up from the buffet below. These characters symbolize the human contract between the powerful (the manager) and the powerless (the playwright) and the waiter (brute force).^[3]

References

^ The Independent Sep 29, 2015 - Ali Salem was an Egyptian playwright, author and political ... the Angels and The Buffet, are widely regarded as classics of Egyptian theatre.
^ Ali Salem (ʿAlī Sālim): A Modern Egyptian Dramatist - JStor "With the analytic outlook of a dramatist dissecting his problem, Ali Salem focuses his microscope on Man in his play The Buffet (Il-Bufayh), written and performed in 1968 and published in 1969. In The Buffet, Salem expands one of the scenes in Oedipus. In the latter work, Awaleh, the chief of police, seems more interested in grilling anyone who even unintentionally implies something against Oedipus than he is in preserving the security of the city."
^ Northeast Africa Series 1973 "The Buffet is a one-act play by Ali Salem which was performed at the Hakim Theatre in Cairo, March 1968. It involves only three actors. The author has reduced the complexities of political power to their simplest elements: executive power, muscle, and brains locked into a single room and bound by a contract none of them can break. The first sophisticated forms of centralized political power may have been developed in the Nile Valley. Thousands of years later Ali Salem evokes the same immutable forms of the use of power and force. The situation depicted in the play is universal, but I have left unchanged most of those details that are particular to Egypt. The title itself. The Buffet (Al-Bufay) of course has a certain connotation in English. In this play it is the equivalent of an office canteen or snack bar, but the word "canteen" does not really do justice to the Egyptian institution, thus I decided to use the word "buffet" despite its rather different implication in English. The Characters : The Author The Theater Manager The Waiter The Place: a spacious office along whose walls are enormous bookcases. There is an imposing desk, seated behind which is the theater manager."

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[1] The Independent Sep 29, 2015 - Ali Salem was an Egyptian playwright, author and political ... the Angels and The Buffet, are widely regarded as classics of Egyptian theatre.

[2] Ali Salem (ʿAlī Sālim): A Modern Egyptian Dramatist - JStor "With the analytic outlook of a dramatist dissecting his problem, Ali Salem focuses his microscope on Man in his play The Buffet (Il-Bufayh), written and performed in 1968 and published in 1969. In The Buffet, Salem expands one of the scenes in Oedipus. In the latter work, Awaleh, the chief of police, seems more interested in grilling anyone who even unintentionally implies something against Oedipus than he is in preserving the security of the city."

[3] Northeast Africa Series 1973 "The Buffet is a one-act play by Ali Salem which was performed at the Hakim Theatre in Cairo, March 1968. It involves only three actors. The author has reduced the complexities of political power to their simplest elements: executive power, muscle, and brains locked into a single room and bound by a contract none of them can break. The first sophisticated forms of centralized political power may have been developed in the Nile Valley. Thousands of years later Ali Salem evokes the same immutable forms of the use of power and force. The situation depicted in the play is universal, but I have left unchanged most of those details that are particular to Egypt. The title itself. The Buffet (Al-Bufay) of course has a certain connotation in English. In this play it is the equivalent of an office canteen or snack bar, but the word "canteen" does not really do justice to the Egyptian institution, thus I decided to use the word "buffet" despite its rather different implication in English. The Characters : The Author The Theater Manager The Waiter The Place: a spacious office along whose walls are enormous bookcases. There is an imposing desk, seated behind which is the theater manager."

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