By his constant experimentation and the volume of his output, its wide range and bewildering variety, al-Hakim overshadowed his contemporaries and immediate successors, who were content to write plays which are less experimental and more traditional in form. The most interesting of these, who will be discussed in this chapter, are Maḥmūd Taymūr, who belonged to the same generation as al-Hakim, and two younger dramatists: Bākathīr and Fatḥī Raḍwān. Mahmud Taymur and Bakathir started their careers as playwrights in the 1940s, while Radwan's plays began to appear a decade later, after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. However, his work will be discussed here and not in the following chapter because, as will be shown, it betrays the strong influence of al-Hakim's early plays particularly his drama of ideas. Moreover, despite Radwan's political message, his work is not as strongly marked by the fervour, enthusiasm and experimentation which characterize the plays of the younger generation of Egyptian post-Revolution dramatists.

MAḤMŪD TAYMŪR

It is generally felt that, unlike al-Hakim, Maḥmūd Taymūr (1894–1973) is primarily an author of narrative fiction, short stories and novels, rather than a dramatist. Nevertheless, he wrote a dozen or so full-length plays and a handful of one-act dramas, many of which were performed on the stage in Egypt as well as in other Arab countries. What is remarkable is that he turned to play-writing relatively late in life, his first plays being written in 1941.