Short Arabic Plays: An Anthology Book

I've admired and enjoyed others of Salma Khadra Jayyusi's anthologies, and my rating of this one reflects my highly subjective reaction, not a judgment on the artistic merits of the short plays collected in this book. I'm glad to have read them, but am struck by the degree to which most of the plays (1) deploy their characters as metaphors or personifications of abstract concepts, rather than emotionally believable individuals; and (2) the extent to which the central problem of so many of the plays is resistance to colonialism/ imperialism, with the dominant mood bitter outrage, sometimes sardonic, sometimes horrified. There's nothing invalid about that theme or key, and there are good historical reasons for both to appeal to modern Arab writers. Still I'd have loved to read some plays that were about the characters themselves, and showed more interest in the way human nature mixes the bitter with the sweet.