On 26 May 1909, for the very first time, the Théâtre Rossini saw Tunisian actors in a play entitled Sincere Fraternity as members of the Egyptian troupe Al Jawk Al Masri. This event, considered to mark the birth of Tunisian theatre, started a national theatre movement which would lay the foundations for a contemporary theatre rooted in its social context and in touch with its time.

Paradoxically, and although it was a Western-style practice that was being adopted, the interest of Tunisians in theatre expressed their desire to use it as a tool to make and defend their own identity. Although Egyptian and other eastern influences on the development of this theatre are well-established, the rich dramatic experiments carried out by French and Italian communities throughout the 19th century remained unknown to Tunisian society. The founding in 1911 of Al Adeb, the first Tunisian theatre association, then of a second association known as Al Chahama Al Arabia in 1912, confirmed this ‘eastern’ influence and consolidated the project of modernising Tunisian society through theatre.

The desire was to tie theatre to local culture in order to open a path towards modernising society. Moreover, the declared aim of the Tunisian avant-garde was...