AMMAN - Fed up with the focus on political issues on stage, theatre director Majd Qasas said she chose love as the theme of her new play "Papers for Love".

"We have been talking about politics for the past 60 years, so I approached writer Laila Atrash and said: ‘I want to talk about love,’" she told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.

Qasas said she has been working on utilising the talent of Jordanian writers in her plays over the last five years to prove that "we have creative writers in every meaning of the word… with a level of seriousness and class to deliver on stage".

In several meetings and brainstorming sessions with Atrash, which extended over two months, the two agreed on the main topics that the play would cover, and the novelist wrote the dialogue, according to Qasas.

"She gave me her work and I adapted it for the post-modern physical theatre."

"Papers for Love" views love from various angles, with characters such as a cheating husband who takes his wife for granted and condemns his mistress to the shadows; a brother who forbids his sister from falling in love; and two lovers who cannot be together because of their different religions.

The play also introduces love for the environment.

"I was afraid of addressing the issue of the environment, but Laila Atrash encouraged me to do so. We did not seek to address love in a vulgar manner, we wanted to refer to issues that the theatre has ignored so far," Qasas explained.

Preparing the actors for the performance took three months, the director said.

"Papers for Love" is her seventh work in physical theatre, a new school that blends post-modern theatre with post-modern dance, going beyond verbal narrative and incorporating physical and visual elements into the performance.

Qasas, who has an MA in physical theatre from the University of London’s Royal Holloway, recounted her experience in introducing this art form to the Jordanian audience.

"My first play in physical theatre, ‘The Onion Cellar’, was based on a short story by German Nobel laureate Günter Grass. Less than 30 per cent of the performance was verbal, so the audience was shocked," she said.

"But I have grown with each play I have directed since then, and the audience has grown with me. The critics now address physical theatre as a genre in its own right, and the audience is waiting to see what each new physical play offers."

Qasas prefers physical theatre for the possibilities it offers in experimentation on stage, out of her belief that experimentation rejuvenates theatre and sustains it.

"It is experimental in the sense that it is constantly capable of changing and developing, offering an infinite space for creativity, so it can survive as long as there is experimentation," she noted.

In "Papers for Love", Qasas experiments in utilising percussion as a dramatic element, using unfamiliar material such as cooking pots and grass shears to produce music.

"Musician Mohammad Taha helped train the performers on percussion, and he helped me in selecting the unfamiliar music instruments."

Other elements of experimentation also include performing old Arabic songs by popular artists such as Abdul Halim Hafiz and Um Kalthoum in unfamiliar styles, such as jazz or rap, to "shock the audience and invite them to reassess reality".

"Nothing should be taken for granted," she stressed.

"Since only two performers are professional singers and musicians, the challenge was to turn the rest of the actors into musicians and singers, and we managed to do that."

Qasas, who heads the seven-year-old New Theatre Group of 22 members, employs actors from her group and invites other talents to perform in her plays.

The play's oud player Dima Swaidan, who teaches music at Yarmouk University, initially did not want to perform in the play, according to Qasas.

"What is commonly known about acting here is that it is more commercial than a respectable art, so she did not want the theatre to negatively affect her as a professional musician and a professor," the director noted.

"But when she came to us, she experienced the awe of theatre, the father of all arts, and was exposed to alternate music and post-modern dancing that enriched her experience," Qasas told The Jordan Times.

She added that the impression that theatre is commercial rather than serious has also created difficulties when seeking singing talents.

"Songs are a vital part of my plays, but I always face the problem of finding voices to sing in my plays. We have great Jordanian voices, but we need to convince them that theatre is a respectable medium to showcase their voices."

She voiced hope that her plays, along with other serious works, become mainstream art to replace the commercial shows on satellite channels.

"I always work on using an elevated verbal and visual language, unlike the vulgar language on satellite channels, in the hope that this sort of art becomes mainstream," she said.

"Papers for Love" is being performed at the Royal Cultural Centre daily at 8:00pm until April 24. It is open to the public at no charge.

Fees include all transportation costs, meals, Ibex trail fee, entrance fee to the Dead Sea Panoramic Complex and other above mentioned activities.