IsraDrama is an annual event whose aim is to expose Israeli theatre to the international theatre community. Organised by the Institute of Israeli Drama and hosted by the Cameri Theatre, it is the brainchild of the Cameri’s charismatic Director General, Noam Semel. Its success is also due to his incredible staff and partners, including the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport.
Israeli theatre is certainly alive – rated by UNESCO as having one of the leading spectator numbers per capita. In Tel Aviv alone, with a population of only 350,000, there are at least 40 theatre performances at any one time and all well attended! Theatre is part of the culture, the fabric of the society. And it ranges from the well-made play to a strong independent scene, to political theatre consisting mainly of collaborations between Palestinian and Israeli artists.
As such, I felt honoured, as Tashmadada’s Artistic Director, to have been invited to attend as the Australian representative at the 2007 event. I was there alongside theatre practitioners, from countries as diverse as Kenya, Nigeria, Slovenia, Serbia, Germany, Poland, Costa Rico, Sweden, Hong Kong, England, and the USA. The hope is that these theatre directors, dramaturges, producers and festival directors will invite a full production; or produce a new production by an Israeli playwright in their own country; or collaborate on a new work with Israeli artists.
The program of the six-day IsraDrama was rigorous. It included days of full productions, play-readings and symposia. We were served a program of the cream of contemporary Israeli theatre, including the Cameri’s contemporary Hamlet in Hebrew, and Shmuel Hasfari’s Master of the House. There was an incredible variety of style, content, form – highlights and lowlights – creating much discussion between the participants.
For me, the highlights included the Cameri’s knockout production of Hanoch Levin’s Requiem. Hanoch Levin, who died in 1999, was Israel’s most prolific and important playwright. His work ranged from early political (sometimes banned) political satire, to tragedies, myths and comedies. He is Israel’s Beckett, its Chekhov, its Shakespeare. In Requiem, a fantastical magic-realist piece populated by extreme characters, Levin incorporates three Chekhov stories into one tale about death. Set in an unspecified village, two old people, husband and wife, fall ill and die. As they lament their lives, other strange characters appear, including a cart of cherubs who collect the souls of the dead. It is beautiful evocative theatre.
From this spectacular piece of theatre, to a more sober solo performance, In Spitting Distance, written by Taher Najib, performed by Khalifa Natour – both Palestinian – and directed by Israeli Ofira Henig. The piece is about a Palestinian/Israeli-passport holding actor who travels the world to perform. One such trip from Paris to Tel Aviv occurs on September 11, 2002. The actor has to go through police checks, which creates a series of grotesque and surreal situations. It is a poetic personal story about the ‘homeland’, questioning, according to the playwright “Who I am, and what I am”. In the discussion that followed, Israeli director, Ofira Henig stressed that “In the working process I had to pull back, to give space”. She doesn’t want the piece to be viewed as a work that represents “co-existence – Israelis and Palestinians working together”. She is angry about Israelis trying to tell the stories of the Palestinians.
But, it is one of the many ongoing artistic dialogues/works made by Palestinians and Israelis. These works deal with real people living parallel lives under threat. As one participant on a panel about Political Theatre said, “We see the people, not the political poster”. The venue for this particular session was The Arab-Hebrew Theatre of Jaffa. This theatre is a working testimony to this way of thinking.
Plonter (Tangle) was another strong piece that fitted this agenda. A performance piece created by Yael Ronen and the company of nine Jewish and Arab performers, it presents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspectives of both sides. Essentially it is a multi-media performance piece about the insane, complex and absurd life on either side of the roadblocks. The performance starts as the audience enter the space, where they are stopped by guards and asked to provide photo identification. I heard that people who refused to show their ID were actually refused entry into the theatre.
Tmuna Theatre, Tel Aviv’s ‘laboratory’ for development of interdisciplinary work, hosted the session Spotlight on Fringe Theatre. Footage of excerpts from five works were shown, all of which were explorations of practice and form. I felt as if I was in Sydney’s Performance Space! I had visited this theatre the previous night to see a solo performance by Smadar Yaaron – “a must see” I was told – both because it is a powerful virtuosic performance piece and because of claims that it had similarities to my own solo show Hungry, which I performed a number of years ago at the Adelaide Festival. As I watched Smadar battle with a gigantic Star of David, I was reminded of my own tango with a huge Star of David in Hungry. This highlighted for me the universality of the language of theatre – in this case relating to a Jewish woman’s relationship to the religion and tradition. I chatted with Smadar after the show and we decided to start the lines of communication for a possible collaboration.
Other sessions included Family and Society in Contemporary Israeli Drama. This three-hour session highlighted the work of the best playwrights in the country. Excerpts from productions were shown followed by brief discussions with the playwright. Highlights included Roni Pinkovitch’s Tea, Hador Galron’s Mikveh and Edna Mazya’s play about a gang rape of a young girl, Games in the Backyard.
When I started my company, Tashmadada, over a year ago, it was one of my aims to develop ongoing relationships between Australian and international artists. In addition to pre–existing relationships, IsraDrama has now opened the gates to a whole series of new collaborations. Tashmadada is working with acclaimed playwright Motti Lerner and director Micah Lewensohn to develop Lerner’s new piece. They will come to Australia in June 2008 to work with Australian theatre practitioners. If there were more space I’d share with you some of the other lines of communication that have opened up between Tashmadada and the worlds of Israeli theatre. The dialogue is ongoing, open and passionate – as you might expect from such a vibrant society where political and social questions are never far from the surface. Stay tuned for future developments.