While Arab theater sits at a crossroads amid questions about its path toward the future, another pillar of modern Arab theater exits the stage. Antoine Multaqa, 91, who passed away in his sleep on February 21, 2024, nurtured the development of experimental theater alongside his wife, fellow director and actor Latifa Multaqa (née Chamoun), during Beirut’s golden age of theater. In its current state, Arab theater stands a shadow of its former self, nowhere nearly as celebrated as it was during the 1960s and 1970s when Antoine Multaqa, Muneer Abou Debs, Raymond Jebara, and others ushered modernism to the Lebanese stage. Modern theater was the backbone of cultural life in Beirut. At a time when theater mainly depended on translated works, poets played active roles in writing and translating plays, bringing Western classics by Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Brecht to Arab audiences. Multaqa’s passing is a nostalgic reminder of Lebanon’s theatrical heyday and the dilemma it faces today, caught between modernity and postmodernity.