(2012) Playwright Statement: Yussef El Guindi on The Mummy and the Revolution

The parentage of plays can be a little strange. Things that you wouldn't think go together come together and create a play you didn't quite expect. In July/ August of 2011 I was preoccupied with a couple of things: thinking about the Arab Spring, and considering the life of Moss Hart and the kind of plays he wrote (a strange combination, I know). It was while reading a Moss Hart bio that the setting and tone of "The Mummy and The Revolution" first came to me. I was so impressed by what Broadway could afford to do back in Moss Hart's day - in terms of cast size and lavish sets - that some weird synaptic connection was made in my mind between lavish set and the Egyptian revolution. Perhaps because the latter was such a spectacle that the idea of setting this play in a set that would be a spectacle in its own right occurred to me. And maybe just the anarchic and wonderful spirit of the revolution suggested the anarchic and kinetic energy of the farce genre. The entrances and exits, the blowing of doors open... So, should this piece ever get staged, this is one play where if I overhear an audience member say, "well, I loved the set", I wouldn't automatically think that they hated the play.