"My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse."

Julie predicted rain for the last few weeks.  She wasn't sure when the clouds would split but they were fated do so. The humidity was high, the pressure was erratic, and the temperature moved between fifteen and thirty-five Celsius. The downpour came the night at the start of this five-day storm. We were on our way to Sharjah's Heritage Area, a several-block district where the city had preserved some of the cities most representative houses from the 19th century. Artists and performers from the Arab world (and beyond) converged in the Heritage area and around the city for the Ninth Biennial.  Sharjah's leader, His Highness Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, initiated the Biennial in 1993 to facilitate dialogue between  Arab artists and institutions to create a broader reception of their artwork throughout the Arab world. The weather failed to cooperate with the Biennial's lofty goals.  The downpour forced the the organizers to cancel the play. 

The play was not canceled until an hour after it was scheduled to begin.  Driving downtown, lightning flashed above the Gulf. I still predicted that we would just have a lightning show to go along with the play. I was wrong.  Right after we approached Government Square the clouds opened and the downpour began. The rainy day stories about Sharjah mention how the roads can't handle any rain and that they flood with even the smallest drizzling. With only a few days of rain a year, its not worth the emirate's resources to retro-fit a drainage system. I never knew the extent of the flooding until that night. Puddles ran into the sidewalks. People jutted across the under-lit street to find a dry place.  Cars raced the same as if it wasn't pouring.

We parked and took advantage of the short break in the rain to get our tickets for Richard III: An Arab Tragedy. It was supposed to be performed in the courtyard of the 1854 Bait al Naboodah. Most events in the UAE are scheduled outside. The only event I'd heard of being cancelled was a concert inundated by a remorseless dust storm. After waiting in a nearby souq for half an hour we found out the play was cancelled. Luckily, we both still enjoyed visiting the Heritage Area, an area that felt unlike any other place I'd been to in Sharjah or Dubai.  The buildings exhibited the trademarks of the area's traditional architecture. The wall's fossilized coral base was filled and plastered for a smooth finish. The roofs were made from tightly woven reeds that leaked under the rainfall. Narrow passageways ran between houses and souqs until they intercepted open courtyards. Several adans harmonized their call to prayer, concomitantly announcing their presence in historical Sharjah. Leaving this anachronism behind for another day, we made our way home, stopping for mint lemonade from Emirates Flower. We could only hope that the crew and cast would remain in Sharjah for a Thursday night performance. 

Midday through parent-teacher meetings, I got a hold of the Biennial's office and found that there would be an additional show that night at the Theatre Association to prevent any chance from getting rained out. Julie and I arrived early. I forgot the tickets in the car but a theatre-going British man from the night before established our credibility and said that we were at the show the night before. We waited in the courtyard for forty-five minutes as the organizers hoped more people would trickle in. They didn't. The thirty of us then moved into the humid black box theatre with two idiosyncrasies: the traditional reed ceiling and the TV above the stage to translate the play into English. Sulayman al-Bassam, the director, gave a slight introduction of his rendition of Richard III. 

The play was set in an archetypical oil-rich Arab nation amidst power struggles and feuding family rivalries. The director seemed to strike the right balance of twisting traditional Shakespeare. The Shakespearean names remained the same while the costumes were now candoras and keffiyehs, abayas and hijabs. Lines from the original play were interposed with Qur'anic verses, Arabic poetry and political commentary. The lead musician was supported by his Apple computed and four Arab men playing kawala (a traditional flute), bendir (a snare-like drum), daf (like a tambourine), buzuq (lute). These shifts created an odd feel that the play itself took place in neither the past or the present. Yet, its political commentary and message remained relevant.

The cast remained on the small stage for most of the five acts.  Costumes were changed on the fly on stage or in the wings. Fayez Kazak, the actor playing Richard III, played the manipulative, tyrannical, and Machiavellian part perfectly. The sweat that saturated his stringy hair only enhanced his character's madness as he exploited family tensions and secrets throughout the play. The rest of the cast followed his pursuits as they deceived, exploited, and seduced each other. Shakespeare's drama was interrupted by .  The most explicit contemporary came when the Minster of State (played by al-Bassam) asked how King Richard would get away with his tyranny. The answer comes explicitly in English when the Minister answers "cooperating with the War on Terror." Richard III's end comes not in a battle on the English countryside but with the sounds of American troops crossing the country's barren desert oil fields.  His demise is precluded by the notorious line, "Mr horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse." 

After the abrupt ending, the small audience filed out of this theatrical world back into Sharjah, a city with the reputation for being the conservative and backwards older brother to Dubai's forward-looking and visionary  younger brother. Such small pockets of open dissent--no matter who the actual or intended audience--speak of realities that challenge Sharjah's undeserved reputation. The fact that Sharjah hosts the Biennial, an undertaking with the goal of bridging between cultures, societies, and times, indicates the emirate's openness not only to artistic expression but where it may lead. Overall, I reveled in the opportunity to see a play performed all over the world in an intimate atmosphere, a Shakespearean story rendered to the present to elucidate the realities of the modern Arab nation, the night after the show had been rained out in the desert.