Arabic play ‘Rayya’ attacks assumptions about serial killers

Are some people born evil? Or is it an ill-fated twist of fate that causes them to act in an abhorrent way? The Arabic play Rayya, The Legend of Alexandria, which will be staged at The Junction this weekend, hopes to pick at the question.

Rayya is based on the true story of two well-known serial killer sisters in Egypt back in the 1920s. They – along with their husbands - would lure unsuspecting women to their homes and murder them, using their money and jewellery to fund their lives. They became the first women to be executed by the state of Egypt.

Writer and director Mohamed El Sawi, whose credits include two other full-length plays and several roles in English productions, says, “A lot has been written about the sisters – there have been plays and movies, but in these productions, they always play criminals. I will show you their story from the very beginning – from when they were born.”

“Who is innocent and who is guilty? Is there anything like absolute innocence or absolute guilt or is there a mix? So, we’ll see the two women, Raya and Sakina, their mother, father, aunt, friends, husbands – and all of them are subjected to the same question: are we all good or all bad or a mix of both?” he explains.

An Egyptian tale

Rayya is set in Alexandria in the 1920s and being Egyptian himself, for El Sawi, the setting provides a grand aim. “I want to show the people the character and the story and my place – Alexandria, which was the capital of Egypt in the 1920s. How the people used to dress, talk, to dance, enjoy their life. There is live music with Egyptian instruments. If you want to know about Egypt, just come and watch the play,” he says.

It’s an unusual subject matter, the creation of a killer, but it called out to the award-winning writer, director and actor El Sawi. “I’m actually an actor so when I write I write with a character in mind. If you want to be a good actor it’s not only about acting, you also have to study the psychology of the character. I always look at the root cause of what happened.”  

The play is completely in Arabic, but El Sawi is quick to point out that theatre is a language all on its own – the actors emote powerfully, the music draws out the emotion and the stage is crafted and manipulated cleverly so that the action is received by the audience. But still, for those who want to follow dialogue by dialogue, he laughs, “There are surtitles in English.”

Logistical tussle

The challenges of putting together the show surprisingly do not come because of the sensitive subject matter, but because of logistics. “I’m salaried, and having to produce a play needs sponsorship, which is tough to get. Then there’s coordination – all the people working with me are not working full-time as actors, so practice depends on their availability. For this play, we are in the summertime so most of the people are away, so attracting an audience is not easy,” he sighs.

But the show must go on, and El Sawi is confident that those who do show up will be enraptured by the workings of the human mind. The mechanics of a psychopath or sociopath are fodder for a good story, but then sprout the questions: was she born that way or was she nurtured into becoming a killer?     

The details

Tickets to see Rayya, The Legend of Alexandria, start at Dh80 and are available at Platinumlist.net