On the nights of 10th and 11th December the KICS community experienced the long awaited performances of Tennessee William’s ‘Camino Real’

      

Written in 1953 this complex play is set in a fictitious tropical seaport and, through the mechanism of a dream sequence, relates the arrival in the run down, seedy town, of an innocent young American, Kilroy.  

In the KICS amphitheatre, the seediness, corruption and hopelessness of the Camino Real was brought to life through the exceptional acting talents of the large cast. 
Gordon Teny breathed life, elegance and cynicism into the dangerous character of Gutman who related the progress of the play from his balcony overlooking the Plaza whilst manipulating the lives of the flotsam who inhabit it.
In his first - and triumphant - appearance on the KICS stage, Alexios Limnios was utterly convincing as the innocent dupe, Kilroy.  The role was portrayed with confidence and charm and the audience believed in his good nature, sympathised with his disappointments and longed for him to escape his fate on the Camino.
Christopher Frattina, now a seasoned veteran on the KICS stage, once again impressed with the maturity of his acting and conveyed perfectly the aging, ruined Jacques Casanova, drinking his life away on the terrace of the Siete Mares hotel, waiting for his credit to run dry and for his mistress to bail him out yet again.
The female lead of Marguerite was beautifully played by Marijke Schuurs who eloquently displayed the desperation of its inhabitants to escape the Camino Real, when trying to board the plane without the correct papers or money, only to be left behind and forced to return to her dissipated life.

      

Other roles may have involved fewer lines, but were acted with equal maturity and talent.   These included fine characterisations of Lord and Lady Mulligan by Calvin Cox and Alison Seadon and a heart-wrenching portrayal of a dying survivor by Thomas Herve in his first English language role.  The Baron was played humourously and intelligently by Kirillos Masoud.  The outrageous Rat, proprietor of The Ritz Men Only, was compellingly played by Dena Osama, whilst Anavi Chakravorti and Sara Osama  convincingly took on the roles of  the passionate Esmeralda and her jaded and bitter mother, the Gypsy.
AbdulWahab Zubair played a suitably romantic Lord Byron, declaiming to the audience before wandering off into the desert and Nadine El Roubi once again delighted the audience with her manic interpretation of Olympia , one of several ladies of the night who inhabit the play, and was ably assisted by Layal Abdu’s Prudence when successfully fleeing on the ‘Il Fugitivo’.  Lars Wiltberger’s policeman provided just the right balance of menace and boredom and Anna Maria Masoud once again excelled as ‘Nursie’.
The adult actors, led by Morris Lando’s excellent Don Quixote and Lynda Schuur’s haunting La Madrecita contributed a welcome and enriching community dimension to the talented cast.  Cindy Webber’s acting talents once again made quite an impact as the oblivious tourist and later leading a sinister post mortem team.
The artistic flair and meticulous attention to detail by director Mark Webber meant that the cast members who played the street cleaners, street people, the policemen, the airline crew and the random characters populating the Plaza were constantly acting to the highest level possible.  All the cast were totally immersed in their dramatic characters and this elevated the quality of the whole production to a level previously unseen at KICS.
The set, imaginatively constructed of scaffolding, provided dramatic relief to the set and recreated the balconies overlooking the Plaza .  Scaffolding was also used to represent the central fountain that figured so prominently in the unfolding of the play, but offered no inkling of the surprise in store for the audience when it splashed into life to mark the ending of the dream sequence.

                                          

The atmospheric set and student-designed lighting powerfully recreated the threatening atmosphere in the town.  The magnificent period costumes acquired and recreated by Ms Ann gave a level of sophistication and finish rarely seen outside professional theatres.
We are very grateful to all those involved in bringing to the Khartoum theatrical scene a challenging and provocative piece of theatre that will live long in the memories of those lucky enough to have been in the audience.