In an intensive working atmosphere, preparations are taking place to start the new play of Mansour Rahbani entitled “Hokom al-Ri3yan”. Tunisian singer Latifa will perform the leading female role in her first theatre experience. The play is expected to start showing next month and will be among the main events of Beit El Din festival in Lebanon.
According to the London based Elaph, the play tells the story of a kingdom in Kurdistan and is ruled by a king who goes against all the ancient tradition of his royal family. Simply he is a tyrant who does not have a crown prince or a prime minister and rules the country without any consultation. After a while of continuous pressure, the people start to demonstrate against the tyrant who at the end gives in and decide to have a shepherd called Sa’doon as his successor.
Latifa is performing the role of a servant who brings the milk for the king from Sa’doon and she used to tell the king how much Sa’doon hates his rule and complains about it.
Meanwhile it has been officially confirmed that Latifa is not going to participate in the Carthage festival in Tunisia because she is busy doing the rehearsals for the play. Latifa's last participation in the Carthage festival was back in 2001.
Latifa was the center of a scandal lately and also expected to be in the center of attention in the coming few weeks. The whole story started when Latifa was getting a new identification card to be surprised that she was registered as a divorced woman three years ago. Going back to sources it appeared that Latifa was married to a wealthy gulf businessman who was under the pressure of his father, also a very famous and wealthy businessman, to divorce her.
The husband went to a smart lawyer who started legal procedures without Latifa knowing anything because he completed the case with his wife, who is also a lawyer sharing the same office with him, as Latifa's representative.
The case has raised a big wave of shock because Latifa has always denied being married to anyone then to find out that she is secretly married to this man. Observers think that keeping the marriage in secret was a condition of this marriage especially because the husband is a wealthy businessman and his father is even wealthier and very close to the artistic scene. -Albawaba.com
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
