Obituary: Abdelkader Alloula

Abdelkader Alloula, playwright and theatre director: born 1939; died Paris 14 March 1994.

ABDELKADER ALLOULA, the Algerian dramatist and director of the regional theatre of Oran, died in Paris four days after being transferred to hospital there from Oran, where, according to Algerian sources, he had been 'the victim of a terrorist shooting'.

Alloula was born in 1939. His career spanned Algeria's independence years, during which a new wave of popular theatre flourished. A handful of committed men formed regional amateur and professional theatre groups. Drawing on their national theatrical heritage, including shadow plays, as well as on Western drama, the founders of contemporary Algerian theatre wrote new works and translated international masterpieces. Alloula came to theatre first as an actor and diretor, and in the Seventies began to write his own plays, some of which were topical, extolling the new social reforms, particularly the Agrarian Revolution.

Alloula shunned didacticism, conveying his poignant message within a humorous framework. His play Al-Khobza ('Bread') is considered one of the masterpieces of modern Algerian drama. He also adapted others' works. His production of Gogol's Diary of a Madman became one of the highlights of the Algerian theatre of the Seventies.