Un’opera per leggere la Tunisia di oggi: Ḫamsūn di Ǧalīlah Bakkār
(A play to analyse today’s Tunisia: Ḫamsūn by Ǧalīlah Bakkār)
in La rivista di Arablit, a. III, n. 5, giugno 2013, pp. 41-50.
This article is focused on Ǧalīlah Bakkār’s Ḫamsūn (Fifty), which stands as a highly representative example of Tunisian dramatic production. Since its early onset, Tunisian theatre has been characterized by a variety of trends revealing a pervasive pattern of social criticism. One of the pioneers of the new generation of Tunisian artists of the ‘60s, Ǧalīlah Bakkār (Jalila Baccar) never ceased to support the idea of using theatre as a tool for social change and to assert the right to free expression for her whole country. Actress and dramatist, member of Tunisia’s first independent theatre company, in 1993 she founded the still operating production company “Familia Productions” with director and dramatist Fāḍil al-Ǧaʻāybī and producer al-Ḥabīb bi ’l-Hādī. In 2006 she wrote Ḫamsūn, which deals with fifteen years of socio-political history in Tunisia. Full of poetical and historical anecdotes, Ḫamsūn also contains an in-depth analysis dramatically conveying the image of a nation still looking for its own identity. The play denounces the lack of political debate which marked Tunisian politics since national independence, thus offering a read on the country’s current situation: in fact, considering recent developments, Ǧalīlah Bakkār’s call for renewal of individual and collective ideologies now appears more topical than ever.
