Lebanese playwright Sami Ghayat has died at the age of 79

Sami Kayad, a Lebanese director, writer and actor considered one of the pioneers of comedy in Lebanon, died on Wednesday at the age of 79. As confirmed by his daughter Sabine Ghayat to Agence France-Presse.

Kayad died Wednesday evening at Risk Hospital in Beirut, where he had been in intensive care for about a week due to complications from bone cancer, according to his daughter.

Born on December 2, 1943, Khayat has produced around 62 satirical works since 1960. Even during the harshest phases of the war Lebanon witnessed between 1975 and 1990, his almost annual works were displayed for months at a time.

Graduated in law and political science, with a degree in contemporary literature and linguistics, he is famous for using in his works, in which his wife Nyla represents a mixture of the French language and the Lebanese dialect with him. He called “Al-Branbani” and he published a book about him in 2023.

The late was sometimes content to speak only in French and attracted a wide range of francophones and intellectuals, and in 2020 he was awarded the French Medal of Arts and Letters with officer status in recognition of his work.

Known for his restless movement on stage, Gayath satirically deals with political and social conditions in his plays, followed by some political and media figures, and in his last play “Wala” in early 2022, he touched on health and economic crises.

The Actors’ Syndicate in Lebanon said, “Comedy theater has lost, with the death of Kayath, an essential pillar of its creation,” describing the deceased as “a special, educated person.”

Vice presidential candidate Michael Mowat wrote on his Twitter account, “With the departure of the creative Sami Ghayat, the Comic Theater loses its godfather. He planted joy in the most difficult Lebanese hearts. Circumstances.”

As for actor Wissam Sabak, he described the deceased as a “beautiful soul” and an “unrepeatable talent”.

Gayath was also active in the field of animal welfare, and in the seventies of the twentieth century he revived the Animal Welfare Society founded by his father, Albert Gayath.