Kuwait city: Yesterday marked the ninth anniversary of the passing of the esteemed artist Abdulhussain Abdulredha. We don’t remember him simply as an artist who has left the scene, nor do we recall his works merely as shining milestones in the history of Kuwaiti drama and theater. Rather, we remember the many characters who lived among us, whom he left behind on screen and stage as witnesses to their time, their people, and the details of their lives.

According to National Iraqi News Agency, Abdulhussain Abdulredha, who passed away on August 11, 2017, was not an artist who merely sought to create characters that would make the audience laugh. Instead, he went into society itself, opened its doors, delved into its small details, and then presented us with characters we knew as if they were one of our own.

He presented the poor and the rich, the simple and the influential, the oppressed and the oppressor, the employee and the unemployed, the merchant and the shopkeeper, the father and the husband, the official and the citizen, the self-made and the opportunist. These characters were not merely roles he performed in front of the camera or on a stage, but rather human and social archetypes he gleaned from reality and presented to the public with a great deal of honesty and a keen understanding of society. Even when he portrayed the character of the addict in the television drama “The Decline,” it wasn’t simply a matter of presenting a character for a fleeting dramatic situation. Rather, he was presenting a human archetype with its own circumstances and contradictions, confronting the viewer with a social problem that could exist in a home, a street, or an environment they knew.

His characters were not detached from people. You could laugh at a character he portrayed, then realize you were laughing at a situation you had experienced, or at someone you knew, or at a social custom that had become so accustomed to it that it was now part of your life.

In most of his works, the artist Abdulhussain placed himself above the characters he portrayed, even living them in all their contradictions. Sometimes he was the simple man searching for his livelihood, sometimes the man who rose from the bottom to the top, sometimes the citizen confronted by reality, sometimes the powerful figure exposed by circumstances, and sometimes the person facing weakness, crisis, or deviance. These characters reflected the problems of society, hoping that we might find solutions. Herein lies the value of his experience; he didn’t laugh for the sake of laughter, but rather used laughter to reach a deeper place: humanity, its problems, and its contradictions. This remained his goal until his death, and this is why his passing brought tears to everyone’s eyes.

After nine years of absence, Abdulhussain Abdulredha doesn’t seem completely gone. The artist who lived among the people and drew his characters from their reality remains present as long as people remember themselves in his works. May God have mercy on you, Abu Adnan.