Theatre of Bahrain

[1] As civil society became more interested in theatre and influenced by the likes of Tawfiq al-Hakim and Saadallah Wannous, Bahrain experienced a golden age by the 1970s of playwrights such as Ali Al Shargawi, Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh, Aqil Sawar and Yousef al-Hamdan.

Archaeological excavation of sites dating back to the Dilmun civilisation of the Bronze Age in Bahrain have revealed the existence of a ritualistic polytheistic religion that was believed to contain elements of theatre.

These dramatic re-enactments occur during the Islamic month of Muharram and commemorates the Battle of Karbala where the grandson of the Prophet Muhammed, Imam Hussain, and his companions were killed.

[4] The first recorded theatre production was A Judge from God's Will (Arabic: القاضي بأمر الله) which was performed in 1925 at the Hidaya Al-Khalifa Boys School in Muharraq.

[5] As a result of the formal education system in place in Bahrain, plays written by European playwrights, Arab and eventually Bahraini dramatists were staged by students and teachers in school.

[1] The earliest credited pioneers of Bahraini theatre were the two poets Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh and Abdulrahman Almoawda, whose plays in the 1950s were primarily based on historic figures and events in Islamic Arab history.

[6] In its formative years, Bahraini theatre placed a heavy emphasis on the translated works of English playwrights such as Shakespeare; however, as time progressed, it went on to espouse Arabic plays from Egypt and Syria.