Fatima Atfa (Abu Dhabi)
“The place that we love and live in, even for a short time, inhabits us as we inhabit it, and lives in our hearts and thoughts, and the Piccadilly Palace, the theater of Fayrouz and the brothers Assi and Mansour Rahbani, is not an ordinary theater, but it is the memory of Beirut and the memory of Lebanon in its most beautiful cultural stages.”
With these touching words, the novelist Wasini Al-Araj started his speech remotely in the dialogue session organized by the “Literary Forum” salon to discuss his novel “The Piccadilly Player”. The evenings of the Literary Forum Salon, a distinguished evening in which we complete our previous meeting with the great and creative writer and friend of the Forum, Dr. Wasini Al-Araj.
She added, explaining that the novel tells us regarding the brightest era of art in it, represented by the Piccadilly Theater, which witnessed the glory of culture, music and singing, and was a destination for all art lovers for decades. The novel begins with the story of the young journalist, Emma, who insists on bringing the Piccadilly back to life, especially since her mother, the artist Lina, is a master pianist who lost her luster with the fire that consumed the Piccadilly, and burned with it the memory of entire generations. Dr. Wassini restores our memory and the memory of Beirut, by collecting rubble, remnants, and stories of ordinary people, to show the strange beauty of Lebanon, its warm voice, and its warm winter nights in every page of the novel.
The writer returned to express with regret how the theater was burned in the year 2000 and he did not know the reason, adding that for two years he had been trying to enter it to see the effects of the fire from the inside until he completed his book regarding it, but he was not able to obtain entry permission except with the help of friends and girlfriends who are intellectuals and owners of publishing houses. . On the first page of the novel, a phrase quoted from the play “The Person” by the Rahbani brothers says: “Everyone has a story / And every story has a story / And life ends / And the story does not end.” The participants unanimously agreed on the importance of the novel, as if the writer was the son of Beirut, and the end was characterized by great hope that the theater would be restored, especially since the Art Department at the American University organized an artistic evening in Piccadilly while it was in its condition, and Lina played, regaining her old brilliance. The novel includes a beautiful love story that began thirty years ago between the photographer, Massy, and Lina, the pianist. They met one night, then parted without exchanging names, and finally met in the rain. Perhaps this meeting in the rain suggests the good news that the theater will be restored and life will return to its beauty.
