Writer: Selma El Dabbagh
Badged as a new musical play, Asmahan isn’t really a musical at all but a mini-play in which more than 30 minutes pass before performer Lena Chamamyan performs even a fragment of a song, followed by a second act concert of Asmahan’s music. Described as ‘pioneering’ as a theatrical concept, the life behind the songs is a familiar concept for starlets of the golden age of cinema, although less attention in UK theatre has been paid to performers from around the world. The concert element of the show appeals to the audience, yet the opening play by Selma El Dabbagh fails to bring the singer known as “the princess” to life.
Set in a dressing room in 1944 on the last night of her life, Asmahan is planning a celebratory concert of her most famous pieces in Cairo while being interviewed by an inquisitive journalist keen to learn more about the Syrian singer’s family and her arrival in Egypt. With concerns about her politics, the possibility of a secret world connection and spots of diva behaviour, this imagined final conversation blends into an hour-long concert that reminds audiences of her distinctive talent.
El Debbagh’s play is sadly a heavy-handed affair, a mix of biography recounted by The Journalist (Yazdan Qafouri), whose only role is exposition, while her brother (Ahmed Harfoush) heaps adoration on his sister. Meanwhile, “Friend” (Nathalie Alain) – who does not warrant a name – narrates events. But none of the characters are introduced or have any notable purchase in the drama. Running for about 45 minutes, the dialogue skitters between lots of topics – mentioning an argument with a sort of husband, an English friend called Mary and a European man who mysteriously leaves flowers, but these are all dead ends for drama. Unless you already know Asmahan’s story, little of this will make sense, and none of it takes the audience any closer to understanding who Asmahan was.
El Debbagh aims to recount and celebrate the singer’s life, but the show has no thesis, no point of view on its subject and as a result, this first half feels unstructured and rather dry. The restless audience feels it too, and with Chamamyan let down by Maariyah Sharjil’s costume which she has to continually adjust and a crackly microphone, the auditorium disturbances increase from widespread phone use and not so covert filming to scores of people arriving in the first 30 minutes increasing the distracted experience for everyone else as well.
Advertised as 105 minutes including an interval but running to two hours following a late start, the second act fares better with nine songs performed by Chamamyan as Asmahan, including a duet with her ‘brother’ sung by Harfoush, who also gets a solo. This part of the evening is illustrated with movie clips and photographs of Asmahan, which add greatly to the experience, but there is no conversation here to explain the songs or their meaning to the character – are they from the programme planned for the Cairo concert or just the author’s selection? The connection between the acts is lost, and with no director listed, the entire piece feels unwieldy.
Asmahan sounds like a fascinating subject for a musical, a women of great resources who had a very interesting life, but this new musical play needs to blend its two halves together to create a true musical experience, making the biographical excerpts part of the story of the concert or, like Pablo Larrain’s Maria, centring the journalist interview to properly frame and communicate Asmahan’s life and talent.
Reviewed on 17 June 2025
