Mohamed Saadouni
Tayeb Saddiki, een bevlogen theaterfiguur

Tayeb Saddiki (1938–2016) can be regarded as one of the founders, if not the founder, of contemporary Moroccan theatre. His practice was multifaceted: he was an actor, director, writer and calligraphic painter; he worked in theatre, film and television; and he actively sought to forge a connection between Moroccan performative traditions and Western methods and art forms. At a young age, he left his hometown of Essaouira to study theatre in Casablanca. He later continued his studies in France, where he became acquainted with the work of European playwrights such as Shakespeare, Brecht, Molière, Racine and Beckett. The work of the French playwright Molière held a special place in his oeuvre. He wrote two plays as a tribute to this writer. In Paris, he was associated with, among others, the Théātre National Populaire, which was directed by Jean Vilar. As an actor and director, he later returned regularly from Morocco to France during the international tours of his productions.
At a young age, Saddiki became artistic director of the Mohamed V National Theatre in Rabat, and from 1964 to 1977 he headed the Théātre Municipal in Casablanca. During his career, he founded several companies, including the theatre groups Al-Masrah Al-Jawwāl (The Travelling Theatre) and Masrah Al-Nās (The Theatre of the People).

Tayeb Saddiki wrote dozens of plays in Arabic and French and translated various Western texts into Arabic. Well-known theatrical works of his include Gogol’s The Inspector General, Molière’s The School for Wives, Sultan Al-Talba, Sidi Abdel-Rahman Al-Majdoub, Al-Haraz, Maqamat Badi’ Al-Zaman Al-Hamadani and Abu Hayyan Al-Tawhidi. He directed a vast number of productions in which he regularly appeared as an actor himself, and he produced films and several plays for television. As an actor, he starred in renowned films such as Al-Risālah (1976) by Moustapha Al-Akkad.
By translating Western texts, he sought to introduce the Moroccan and Arab public to the Western repertoire. ‘We cannot move forward if we do not know what has been done elsewhere in the theatre world,’ he believed, and he made a passionate plea for openness towards diverse cultural influences. Alongside his knowledge of European theatre, he was deeply steeped in local traditions and Arab-Islamic art forms. He regularly drew on heroes and characters from classical times or folk tales to shape his theatre. He drew inspiration from traditional Moroccan theatre forms such as the Al-Halqa and Lebsāt, and from the classical Arabic repertoire of Al-Maqāmāt. Perhaps one of his greatest achievements is that he fused acting styles and forms from the Moroccan and Arab traditions with Western methods and techniques. Experts therefore often characterise his work as a form of ‘hybrid theatre’.
One of the oldest and most popular traditional forms of acting in Morocco is the Al-Halqa, which literally means ‘circle’ or ‘round’. To listen properly to the stories, the crowd forms a halqa around the hlayqi (the storyteller) just before his performance. It is an open-air performance, taking place in a public space, with no distance between the audience and the actor. There is no set and no artificial interventions are made. The plays are performed in various genres. The subjects range from social and political themes to stories about love, religion and morality, or about life and death. As a tribute to the oral tradition of the hlaqiya, the storytellers in the public squares, Saddiki created the theatre production Diwān Sidi Abderrahmān El-Mejdoub in 1967, based on the work of the 16th-century Moroccan folk poet of the same name. ‘I was trained in Djemaa El-Fna Square in Marrakech. I went there to find inspiration. For me, it is a place to leave my sorrows and troubles behind. Djemaa El-Fna is actually a real theatre school. I therefore wish to pay tribute to those who taught me there how to make theatre without even realising it.’

Another traditional form of theatre from which Saddiki drew inspiration is the Lebsāt, which literally means ‘rug’ and was synonymous with entertainment. This form originated in the eighteenth century and was initially performed in the palace (Dār Al-Makhzen). Later, the Lebsāt moved to the streets. It was a popular spectacle in which humour and satire, stories and poetry, dance and song intertwined. The short performances, based on archetypes, offered a sharp and critical view of society, politics and the living conditions of the people. The texts were either written in advance or improvised on the spot. By adapting the stories of the ninth-century writer Badī’ Al-Zamān Al-Hamadānī into a theatrical form, Saddiki also drew upon a classical Arabic literary genre, namely Al-Maqāmāt, or Assemblages, a long narrative poem. Saddiki saw Al-Maqāmāt as a form of theatre. ‘This is the first written Arabic theatre,’ he said in an interview with Moroccan television. In his play, he used a mixture of classical and spoken Arabic for the first time. Partly due to this play, his work as an innovator of Arab-Islamic heritage was also recognised outside Morocco.
The play Abu Hayyan Al-Tawhidi is a prime example of the hybrid theatrical form that Tayeb Saddiki sought to create. The text is based on a classical Arabic work from the tenth century by the philosopher Abū Hayyān Al-Tawhīdī. In addition to employing the linguistic variety of Classical Arabic, Darija and French, he incorporates burlesque elements from the Lebsāt into the play. In this way, he interweaves a modern theatrical style with the grotesque humour of traditional social satire, with the aim of scrutinising the difficult position of the critical intellectual in the contemporary Arab-Islamic world. The play is among his finest theatrical works. Saddiki dedicated this text to his friend, the renowned Franco-Algerian Islamologist Mohamed Arkoun. Arkoun was an advocate for the revival of rational and humanist thought from the classical Islamic era, and in his work he focused on free thinkers and writers from this period. Tayeb Saddiki was a passionate theatre figure who left behind an extensive body of work. He was frequently honoured for his work both within and outside Morocco, and is still regarded as one of the most important figures in the Moroccan theatre world since independence.