Majid Hameed Niama Al-Hachami

The present paper aims to examine the way women are introduced, manifested and treated as commodities in Bateekh Fee Al Mareekh, a play performed at Al Najah Theatre in the capital Baghdad in 2013. The consumer/ commodity relationships are very palpable in the performance. Thus I argue that the performance defines women as mere commodities whose roles are prescribed by the male(s) to win the audience’s attention (tickets!). The analysis of the performance is thoroughly informed by Luce Irigaray’s ‘Women on Market’, an essay in her influential book The Sex Which is Not One. Considering the Iraqi conservative culture Bateekh Fee Al Mareekh violates the social norms since the performance purely objectifies women and, thus, signifies men’s ultimate superiority and women’s deficiency. The performance exhibits sexual lust, seduction and flirtations as components which altogether lead up to gender subjugation. Accordingly, spirituality, genuine love, and intellectual banter do not exist. Finally, it is very apt to argue that the performance is mainly intended to commercialise the female body and structurally built on the disavowal of women’s identity. .

The role of the drunk in Al Mahata is vital to the structural design of the comedy where many ample powerful themes are highlighted. Atwan magnificently and professionally draws the character of the drunk to appear very convincing. Also, he masterfully manifests different stages of drunkenness where each stage explores an area. To achieve this goal, he maintains a rhythmic and smooth development for each stage without any recognizable drawbacks. The paper aims to examine the comedy that is created by using a drunk character. Also, it attempts to address the facts/ realities that require further investigations: The Drunk’s relation with other characters; ills/ good in society, the Drunk’s own concerns and issues and the way this character sees the world. Indeed, the approach that The Drunk physicalises and vocalises his character with has won the audience applause for three times throughout the performance. Accordingly, his excellent performance adds to and elevates the whole performance. Finally, it is very safe to argue that the drunk in Al Mahata is subtle.

Violence against women (VAW) and abuse are common themes that are frequently examined in literary work, particularly drama. Abusive actions are practiced due to many reasons and causes: psychopathological, socio-cultural, and social- interactional. Thus abuse fall within the two main categories (physical and mental abuse) under which many subcategories come. Following certain psychological, social and literary perspectives, the present paper aims to thoroughly examine the spousal abuse (physical and mental) in the home environment and the defence mechanism that the wife uses in Thulani S. Mtshali’s Weemen. Trusting that theatre could challenge, educate and develop people, Mtshali wrote Weemen- which had been favourably reacted to in 1996- to reflect his aunt’s suffering with her husband and the similar cases in other families. Thus, the play is a response to real life experiences that theatre, according to the playwright, must address in order to challenge people to think and eventually take actions in facing such ills in society.

The profoundly original British young playwright, Sarah Kane, is regarded as one of the leading figures of the 1990s playwrights. Although her writing life was short and brief- with five-full length plays- Kane was able to canonize herself as one of the British iconic playwrights. The 1995 production of Kane’s debut play Blasted at the Royal Court Upstairs became the defining moment of a new aesthetic in the British theatre. As playwright born in the 1970s, witnessing the devastating events of the 1990s, Kane’s fears, anger and desire are well reflected in her plays. Indeed, Blasted is the first play in which Kane began addressing the themes that most members of her generation were suffering from. The play pictures extreme physical and spiritual violence that torn apart the three characters. Blasted, as Kane indicates on different occasions, is mainly concerned with the Bosnian conflict. Thus, atrocities committed in Bosnia are masterfully depicted. The present paper aims to examine the manifestations of violence and atrocities in Blasted and the envisaged messages that Kane intends to deliver to her British audience in particular and the world in general.

Abstract The Indian Muslim playwright, director, and producer Ismail Mahomed (1959- ) is considered one of the prominent Post-Apartheid playwrights in South Africa. His theatre, which he prefers to be labeled as 'issue theatre', is profound. Topics that Mahomed's theatre tackle vary to cover debatable issues both in South Africa and worldwide; they range to include, race, gender, identity, and most importantly, subjects that are closely related to women sufferings within their communities. In his solo play Cheaper Than Roses, Mahomed sheds light on abundant themes which are all a result of the reclassification period in South Africa that lasted for over four decades. The present paper aims at investigating the moral and materialistic value systems that the brutal practices of Apartheid tried to destroy. Thus it is intended to thoroughly examine the consequences of the individual decisions, the past and new race layers, forgiveness and reconciliation, and the family integration and disintegration in order to bring up what have the South Africans, especially women, lost due to the most devastating segregation system in the twentieth century. Keywords: Ismail Mahomed; South African Drama; apartheid; postapartheid; segregation; Solo woman performance; race; identity.

Abstract Antonia Susan Byatt’s Booker Prize-winning novel Possession is one of the best metafictional examples, which incorporates multiple voices and narrators, intertextuality, irony through juxtaposition, use of anachronism and critical parody, refusal chronology and dialogic polyphony of various voices that focus on the plurality of truth. Moreover, the plethora use of epigraphs and episodes are magnificently employed in the novel. In fact, all of these aspects shape the novels that are entitled to be postmodernist. It is intended in this paper to examine the structure of the novel; i.e., illustrating the postmodern aspects such as the use of intertextulaity, epigraphs, past and present, and the unattainablity of truth. Besides, Byatt criticizes the role of women in the Victorian era, and elaborates the passive roles that women had in their societies. Such a criticism, as the paper sheds some light on, is considered a dominant theme in the postmodernist novels. Accordingly, Possession is one of the richest texts that provide an ample material covertly and overtly ready to examine the postmodernist aspects.