اللعب مع النمر

by Doris Lessing, دوريس ليسنج, عبد السلام إبراهيم (ترجمة)

Three acclaimed works for the stage by Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Written from 1950s to the 1970s, the three plays collected here reflect the social and political concerns of the times, and are rich with Doris Lessing’s characteristic passion and incisiveness.

‘Play With a Tiger’ follows the fortunes of Anna and Dave, representatives of the emerging post-war classless society, and their attempts to find a blueprint for living. ‘The Singing Door’, written for children, is a highly experimental play, a clever and witty allegorical study of power games. ‘Each His Own Wilderness’ tells the story of Myra, who has fought all her life for the socialist ideal, and who must now come to terms with the fact that despite her best efforts, her son is indifferent to her politics.

Genres: Plays, Drama

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1972

About the author

Doris Lessing was born into a colonial family. both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and later had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.

During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.

In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.

In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.

She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

(Extracted from the pamphlet: A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin, HarperPerennial, 1995. Full text available on www.dorislessing.org).

Reviews

[Marwan · Rating 2 out of 5]

هي عبارة عن ثلاث مسرحيات الاولي هي اللعب مع النمر وهي بتتكلم عن بعض الآراء لرجال ونساء والثانية هي الباب يغني وهي فانتازيا ولكنها أفضل مسرحية والثالثة والأخيرة هي لمل امرئ بريته وهي بتتكلم عن صراع بين جيلين بآراء مختلفة ولكن بشكل عام فالرواية مملة.

[جلجامش Nabeel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing collection of plays showing the cultural clashes between the different generations and how an elderly communist woman was shocked of her son do not care of respect the values she sacrificed her life for. Another play was a little bit imaginary and left open at the end. The third one "the singing door" is a deep play with political meaning on social classes and other topics. I do like the collection.

[دينا سليمان · Rating 4 out of 5]

فى زوايا الشارع الآن الصبية غير متأهبين ليقاتلوا العالم، يقاتلون بعضهم البعض ، كلنا تم إعدادنا لنتحدى العالم كله بيد واحدة. لم يمر وقت طويل، نمت معرفتهم، تملكهم الخوف، البلد القوى لديه صبية.. كل واحد مثل دون جوان، يعرف إنه يستطيع أن يقهر العالم كله بيد واحدة

[Mohamed Salah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 مسرحيات
الاولي كانت تصريح باراء غالبا مالا تخرج منها بشئ مالم تكن مؤمن بافكارها
الثانيه من النوع اللي بفضله جدا من الفانتازيا و واحده من ابدع المسرحيات دلالة اللي قرتها ف فتره كبيره
الاخيره ببساطه صراع جيلين جيل يبتغي التغيير لمجرد التغيير و جيل المثل العليا المستمره ف التساقط

[Esraa · Rating 3 out of 5]

عاديون آمنون...
شجعان...

[Stuart Aken · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing that can be said with little fear of contradiction is that Doris Lessing's work is anything but simple and straightforward. She loves to wrap her characters and plots in multiple layers, through which the reader must pick his way, often with only minimal guidance as to direction and even, sometimes, intent.

Play With A Tiger was first performed at the Comedy Theatre, London, on 22nd March 1964 and is set in the city. Whilst it's very much a play of its time, it nevertheless carries some of its themes fairly well into the modern day. Attitudes to unmarried mothers have changed for many, political normality has become anything but, and extramarital affairs are now so commonplace as to be almost expected, but the war of the sexes continues, for some, at any rate.

As Anna and Dave reconstruct their pasts and possible futures, their dialogue exposes their sometimes opposing, sometimes similar stances. The descriptive passages that take them back in time explore their development as people and depict the lives of their parents and families in ways that explain, to some extent, the way they are now. But there is an underlying tone of self-absorption and mutual distrust that was, as I recall, a very common situation for men and women at the time. I'm not convinced it is any better now than it was then, but the development of family planning aids has definitely made things different for the single woman in search of love without the wish to raise a family. This aspect of the relationship between men and women is so different now that modern audiences may have difficulty understanding the dilemma facing maturing women back in those early days of burgeoning sexual freedom.

Dave is careless and unaware of the reality of the effect of his philandering on the women he seduces and uses as an excuse to bolster his ego. He's not a character I can find much sympathy for, with his utterly selfish concerns. Anna is singularly confused and seems unable to make up her own mind about much that troubles her in life. She yearns to be as free as she believes Dave to be, and it's easy to understand this desire when set against the strictures society places on her.

There are asides, set-based devices, and other interactions that illustrate the differences between the male and female views of life at the time, and I suspect these would have worked very well in performance. They don't translate well via the text alone, however. Would I go to see the play in performance? I wish I'd seen it at the time, when so much more was immediately relevant, but I don't think I'd watch it today, unless it was substantially re-written to accommodate what has changed. For all that, I enjoyed the read.

[Mohamed · Rating 2 out of 5]

عادية جدا .

[Koke · Rating 2 out of 5]

هذه الروائيه من افضل الكتاب بالنسبه لي ولكن هذا العمل ضعيف جدا علي كل الوجوه ولم اكمله
انصح لمن يريد ان يقرا لها بأن العجوز استطاعت بجزئيها
وايضا الطفل الخامس

[Mohamed Gamal · Rating 2 out of 5]

يعني هي فيها شوية تحليل نفسي حلو لكن في ملل برضو متوسطة