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Photo – Stephan Kaegi

It is the soundtrack of the Middle East: the soaring wail of the muezzin, calling the Muslim faithful to their prayers. Once, muezzins used to climb to the top of narrow minarets to sing the call, then they progressed to belting it out via loudspeakers. Now there is an international touring show.

It’s Radio Muezzin, a show that brings genuine Cairo prayer-callers to the world, to tell their stories live on stage. It is just as intriguing and quaint as it sounds.

A host of creative forces, both Egyptian and European, appear to have been involved in putting the show together but the main brain behind it is Swiss-born Stefan Kaegi. A former journalist, Kaegi, with his Berlin-based creative troupe Rimini Protokoll, specialises in producing off-beat documentary theatre. He’s done a show about Indian call centres performed via phone from India and a show about Bulgarian cargo truck drivers performed in the back of a touring Bulgarian cargo truck. He developed Radio Muezzin in response to a contentious attempt by the Egyptian government to standardise the call to prayer via a radio transmission broadcasting a limited number of approved voices, thereby putting thousands of muezzins’ jobs at risk.

The show features three such muezzins, along with a radio technician who talks about the technological aspect of the reform. When it was first performed in 2009, the show also had a fifth cast member, a celebrity Quran reader whose voice was one of those approved for the radio broadcast, but apparently tensions with the other cast members saw him leave the show. Recordings of his performance are used to fill his place, along with some of his words read by an actor.

The presentation of Radio Muezzin is technically clever, incorporating video backdrops to great effect, the speakers are endearing and the subject is deeply interesting. It is not always an easy show to follow, however.

At first it’s actually a little unclear that you’re listening to real muezzins, not actors playing muezzins, an issue which is further confused by the theatrical stylings of the show, which is scripted, performed on a set and includes scenes between the muezzins which seem like re-enacted interviews. The pacing can lag in places and the subtitles have an unfortunate tendency to get out of sync with what the speakers are saying in Arabic, which makes some sections hard to keep up with. Nor does the current incarnation of the show more than lightly touch on the massive political changes in Egypt since the show’s inception or how these changes have affected the situation being addressed, which means that as a piece of documentary theatre it has lost some of its edge.

It is nonetheless a thought-provoking piece about the conflict of tradition and technology, delivered by a likeable cast, some of whom have overcome no little adversity to tell their story. As the first of Kaegi’s shows to make it to Australia, and possibly the first ever touring muezzin show, it is definitely something different.


2012 Sydney Festival
Radio Muezzin
Stefan Kaegi

Venue: Everest Theatre | Seymour Centre, Chippendale
Dates: January 16 – 21, 2012
Tickets: $45 – $40
Bookings: 1300 668 812