We have heard much about Israeli theatre culture, that it reflects the present as a kind of docudrama, that it dismantles form, that it is experimental. Perhaps this experimental nature is what attracted the event's organisers, even more so than the high quality for which Israeli productions are reputed. We are in agreement on as much as this: that it is better to watch an interesting, but mediocre production, that one which is mediocre from all points of view.
Dana Ruttenberg's NaBa (Na Baozen) was a piece of movement theatre with three female dancers and one male, like others we have seen before. But this piece was full of life, because it was not about dance but about what is like to be included. The audience is given headphones before the performance and can select music or text to listen to for each part of the piece. The audience themselves have the power to decide how they want to see the production.
Orna Katz played the title role in a production by the Herzliya Theatre, directed by Ofira Henig and based on Garcia Lorca's Yerma, a story about the desire to give birth. Male actors play the female roles in the performance, showing a patriarchal society.
The Hasimta Theatre brought The Jewish Dog, directed by Yonathan Esterkin, to the festival. The curiosity in this piece was not the form, but the play itself, which is basically Agnieszka Holland's Europa, Europa, but from the point of view of a dog.
Author: Bálint Kovács
