Sabab (Sulayman Al-Bassam Theatre) is an independent, international touring theatre company led by Kuwaiti writer/director Sulayman Al-Bassam.
The Company’s work challenges, questions and celebrates the complex relationship between the Arab world and the West. Working across boundaries with an ensemble of pan Arab and European theatre practitioners, musicians and visual artists, the Company is dedicated to the production of dynamic cross-cultural theatre. Its productions are characterised by a radical approach to text, bold production styles and an uncompromising engagement with issues concerning the contemporary Arab world, challenging the negative preconceptions surrounding Arab and Muslim culture today and championing the Arab humanistic voice internationally.
The company has achieved worldwide acclaim and recognition for its productions, performing to audiences across four continents. Recent work includes: Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) for the Complete Works Festival; The Mirror for Princes / Kalila wa Dimna co-produced by the Tokyo International Arts Festival, Barbican bite06 and Dar al Athar al Islamiyyah, Kuwait; and The Al-Hamlet Summit, co-produced by the Tokyo International Arts Festival
Poetic, intensely physical, marvellously inventive.
The Scotsman, UK
Highly unpredictable, brilliantly performed and full of surprises.
Liberation, France
Sulayman Al-Bassam seems capable of taking on any theatrical convention, anytime, anywhere. Watch out for the name.
The Stage, UK
sabab (verb): to cause, bring forth, provoke, trigger, arouse, inspire, prompt
sabab (noun): reason, cause, motive
Relevant links for further information :
Sulayman Al Bassam Theatre
Zaoum (UK arm of the company)
I have read the two plays you gave me, Hamlet and Kalila wa Dimna, and also Richard III, which I found in its French version. Not only was I extremely impressed by their extraordinary style and density, their Shakepearian strength, their sheer beauty – and how much do I regret I missed R III at the Bouffes du Nord last year – but I was struck by the fact that you and I share the same vision of Arab politics today, yourself as a playwright and myself as an academic (immensely admirative of your talent). To put it more simply, I felt that I found what I had been looking for over my whole life : a work of fiction which is both coming from the Arab world and universal in its content and outreach,that plays with an in-depth knowledge of the core issues of power,religion, violence, authoritarianism etc. which plague the region and its relation with the West, while making it perfectly understandable both to the local and the general public – far away from caricatures or complacency. In brief, your work to me is absolutely illuminating and I would like to make my students aware of it as a key to their grasp of the challenges that we are facing while dealing with the Middle East.
Gilles Kepel