Every year, on World Theatre Day, which is celebrated on March 27, An internationally recognized personality is invited to deliver a message, which is translated into over 50 languages. This year, the author of the International Message for World Theatre Day is Egyptian actress Samiha Ayoub.

"To all my friends, theater artists from all over the world,

I am writing this message to you on World Theatre Day, and although I am very happy to address you, every fiber of my being trembles under the burden from which we all suffer – theatre artists and not only – that of the crushing pressures and contradictory feelings that the state of the world today provokes. The instability is a direct result of what our world endures in terms of conflicts, wars and natural disasters, which have had devastating effects not only on our material world, but also on our spiritual world and our peace of mind.

I speak to you today with the feeling that the whole world has become a scattering of isolated islands or ships rushing towards foggy horizons, each unfurling its sails and sailing without a compass and without seeing anything on the horizon to guide it. And yet we continue to sail, hoping to reach a safe harbor that will shelter us after our long wanderings in the midst of a seething sea.

We have never been so closely connected to each other as we are today, but at the same time, our world has never been so disharmonious, distancing us from each other. This is the dramatic paradox that our contemporary world imposes on us. Despite the phenomenon that we are all witnessing in terms of convergence in the circulation of information, with these modern communications that have abolished all geographical borders, the conflicts and tensions that we are witnessing have exceeded the limits of logical perception and have created, in the midst of this apparent convergence, a fundamental divergence, which distances us from the true essence of humanity in its simplest form.

Theatre, in its original essence, is a purely human act, based on the true essence of humanity, which is life. As the great pioneer Konstantin Stanislavski said: “Never come to the theatre with muddy feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Leave at the door, together with your street clothes, your little worries, quarrels, your little burdens, all these things that spoil your life and distract you from your art!” When we go on stage, we do so with only one life within us, the life of a single human being. But this life has a huge capacity to divide and reproduce itself to transform itself into numerous lives that we spread in this world, so that they may flourish and spread their fragrance over others.

What we do in the world of theatre, as playwrights, directors, actors, set designers, poets, musicians, choreographers and technicians, all without exception, is an act of creation, of creating a life that did not exist before we stepped on stage. This life deserves a benevolent hand to support it, a loving chest to embrace it, a tender heart to feel as it does and an alert spirit to give it the reasons it needs to continue and survive.

I am not exaggerating when I say that what we do on stage is the very act of life, and that this life is generated from nothing, like a burning fire that throws sparks into the darkness, illuminating the darkness of the night and warming its cold. We are the ones who give life its brilliance. We are the ones who embody it. We are the ones who make it vibrant and meaningful. And we are the ones who provide the explanations necessary to understand it. We use the light of art to confront the darkness of ignorance and extremism. We embrace the doctrine of life, so that life can spread in this world. For this we spend our efforts, time, sweat, tears, blood and nerves, for this we do everything we can to carry this noble message, defending the values of truth, goodness and beauty and sincerely believing that life is worth living.

I address you today, however, not just to speak, nor even to celebrate this father of all arts – “theatre” – on the occasion of its World Day. Rather, I invite you all to stand together, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to shout with all your might, as we do on the stages of our theatres, and to send our words to awaken the conscience of the whole world, to seek within ourselves the lost essence of humanity: that of a free, tolerant, loving, empathetic, gentle and open being, capable of rejecting this vile image of brutality, racism, bloody conflicts, one-sided thinking and extremism. Human beings have trodden this earth and under this sky for thousands of years – and will continue to tread. So, take your feet out of the quagmire of wars and bloody conflicts and leave all this at the entrance to the stage. Perhaps then our humanity, now questionable, will once again become a categorical certainty, which will make us all truly proud that we are human and that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity.

It is our mission, as theatre creators, bearers of the torch of light since the first appearance of the first actor on the first theatre stage, to be in the vanguard of the fight against all that is ugly, bloody and inhuman. To confront these with all that is beautiful, pure and human. We, and no one else, have the power to spread life. Together, let us make it shine, in the name of a single world and a single humanity.”

Romanian version: Alice Georgescu

Biography of actress Samiha AYOUB, Egypt

Egyptian actress, born in the Shubra district of Cairo. She graduated from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Art in 1953, where she studied with playwright Zaki Tulaimat. Throughout her artistic career, she played in approximately 170 plays, including Raba'a Al-Adawiya, Sekkat Al-Salamah, Blood on the Curtains of the Kaaba, Agha Memnon, The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Although her main activity was in theater, she also worked in film and television. In cinema, she distinguished herself with several films, including The Land of Hypocrisy, Dawn of Islam, With Happiness, Among the Ruins, and on television she presented numerous shows, the most important of which are Stray Light, Time for. Roses, Amira in Abdeen, Al-Masrawiya. His talent was also recognized and honored by several presidents, including Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, as well as Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

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