With touching words, the stars of Lebanese art took to social media to offer condolences on the death of the Lebanese director and writer Sami Khayyat, one of the most prominent faces of the comic theater in Lebanon.
At the age of 79, Khayat died, on Wednesday evening, in a hospital in Beirut, a week after he was in intensive care, due to complications from bone cancer, according to his daughter.
And the Actors Syndicate in Lebanon considered that “the comedy theater has lost, with the death of Khayyat, an essential pillar of its formation,” describing the deceased as “the owner of a special, educated personality.”
Actor Wissam Sabbagh tweeted, describing the deceased as a “beautiful soul” and “a talent that will not be repeated.”
The artist, Elissa, tweeted, saying: “A great intellectual, comic, and artistic value that Lebanon has lost today with the loss of the creative artist, Sami Khayyat. He was an educated and uplifting laugh, and a continuous theater with great giving. May God have mercy on him and give patience to his family.”
And under the “hashtag”: “Goodbye Sami Khayat,” actress Carmen Lebbos invited him, in addition to Cyrine Abdel Nour, who tweeted: “May your soul have peace.”
“A great artistic loss.” With these words, the artist Yara offered her condolences to the family of the late, while the Lebanese journalist Zahi Wehbe bid farewell to him with an impressive tweet, saying: “A sweet laugh withered in the time of frowning and frowning… Lebanon misses a cheerful and pleasant face.”
Khayyat was also active in the field of animal defense, and in the seventies of the twentieth century he revived the Animal Welfare Association, which was founded by his father, Albert Khayyat.
Khayyat has presented about 62 satirical works since 1960. His almost annual works were shown for months, even during the harshest stages of the war that Lebanon witnessed between 1975 and 1990.
The late holder of a degree in law and political science, and another in contemporary literature and linguistics, was famous for using in his works, in which his wife, Nayla, represented alongside him a mixture of the French language and the Lebanese dialect, which he called “Al-Franbani”. He published a book about him in 2023.
The late was sometimes content with French alone, attracted a wide range of Francophones and intellectuals in general, and awarded the year 2020 the French Medal of Arts and Letters, with the rank of officer, in appreciation of his work.
Khayyat, who is known for his restless movement on the stage, used to deal with the political and social conditions in his plays in a satirical way, and to imitate some political and media figures, and in his last work in early 2022 entitled “Wala” he touched on the health and economic crises.
