A performance by Yas Theater at the Dubai Festival for Youth Theatre

Dobby.. People's stories are told by their clothes

• The work weaves out of people's clothes tales and stories that transport us from their worlds to the suffering of the two main characters on stage.

  Photography: Patrick Castillo

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At the sound of the clock, the curtain opened on a stage armed with a beautiful scenography consisting of a table and hanging clothes that filled the stage, in the theatrical performance "Dobie", which was presented on the stage of the Culture and Science Symposium, within the Dubai Festival for Youth Theater.

The work, which is produced by Yas Theater, written and supervised by Muhammad Saleh, and directed by Abdullah Al Hammadi, weaves from the clothes of the people in the laundry, tales and stories that transport us from their worlds to the suffering of the two main characters on the stage.

The work begins inside a sink that leads us to the scenography in which clothes are piled up hanging or thrown on the floor.

At the beginning of the play, we witness the distinguished performance of Awad's character, played by Mazen Al-Zadjali, while he is waiting for his colleague, Tammam, played by Abdullah Al-Yaroubi, when he is late for work for the first time.

Awad enters the laundromat, and the story begins with a comic motif that exploits the scenography on the stage, especially when he socializes the clothes. He narrates the story of Badr, who betrays his wife, the owner of the white dress, using Badr's shirt and the wife's dress, to take us with a dialogue that brings them together from a dramatic theater to a puppet theater.

The author strips clothes of their function as fashion, and turns them into stories and tales, so we see that the presence of a lot of clothes is not absurd, for every dress has a story.

Tammam enters the theater and from the comedic events that accompany his entry, we go to the dramatic plot with the story of his wife, whose characteristics are dominated by the love of money, and she deals with him in a way that includes emotional exploitation to achieve her goal.

The director plays with the scenography in a dynamic and energetic way, as he transforms the ironing table into a vertical bed that brings Tamam and his wife together, so we dive through the dark comedy into the depths of marital relationships built on loose foundations, and the difficulties of the daily life of a worker who gets his strength from a humble job.

From this story, the writer takes us to the story of Awad, who we discover that he was married and had a daughter, and he lived a marriage story that ended in divorce due to his wife's indulgence in the aspects of life that are being woven through social media platforms.

Here the table turns again into a seat on the beach, where we witness Awad's wife and her friend, and then turns into a "bathing shower", without its disassembly, installation and transformation hindering the main characters from continuing to tell the story.

The author, Muhammad Salih, tends to raise many issues in his works, as his text often carries daily life concerns, and details that are dominated by simplicity, but which constitute our world. In this work, he deals with love, greed, divorce, laws that may be unfair in some stories.

The writer delves into the depths of the characters presented on the stage, and succeeds in transforming the main male characters in the work into female characters who narrate the events.

The work takes us into the depths of human souls, social relationships, and difficult life circumstances, and shows us, in the last monologue, that we are just “dead without a shroud.”

The director of the work, Abdullah Al-Hammadi, told "Emirates Today" about his work: "I entered the theater from the world of acting, and then worked in production, decoration and lighting, until I decided to have a mark in directing, and I saw that the time was right to present my first work as a director, because I wanted to make sure From the existence of the director inside me, and to this day I may not be a director, but I am testing my abilities.”

Al-Hammadi noted that he worked for three months on the play, and he benefited greatly from the observations of Muhammad Salih, the author and supervisor of the show, explaining that all the team was supportive of the directing work.

Abdullah Al Hammadi:

• “I entered theater from the world of acting, and I decided to make my mark in directing.”

The text was present at the output

The author and supervisor of the work, Mohamed Saleh, spoke during the applied symposium about the play “Dobe”, and said: “I hope that this show has covered the defects that appeared in the first show (To Whom It May Concern) presented on the first day of the festival, and I can say I am satisfied with the offer made.”

He pointed out that as an author and supervisor of the work, he cared a lot about working to create momentum in the image presented on the stage, explaining that he saw the text clearly in the work, and directing and acting gave him his full right.

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