Oscar Wilde Described the Theatre As “The Greatest of All Art Forms, the Most
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T H E A T R E O F C ONFLICT , T H E A T R E O F C HANGE MIRIAM GARDIN AND SUE SEMAAN Oscar Wilde described the theatre as “the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being” (ThingExist.com). Theatre people know that theatre changes opinions, even changes lives. Most performance pieces deal with issues that, the artists hope, will affect those watching. Indeed, many theatre historians believe that performance comes from our most basic human need to connect to other human beings – to share stories, to imagine experiencing other people’s experiences, to learn from each other, to laugh and to cry together. The live enactment of a story helps audiences connect to the story directly. News media can oftentimes distance its audience – people tune out, or just ignore the stories. In live performance, those ideas and images become real people with real stories and the distance suddenly shortens. With this in mind, as theatre professionals, and students of and believers in the theatre, we set out to look at how theatre tells the stories of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and how audiences receive those stories. A Lebanese American, and an American who became Israeli, we came together to look at the subject. We focused on the East Coast to find out what theatre is being produced around the topic, what the mission of such work is, and how the audience is responding. We saw plays dealing with this topic and met with several members of the theatre community who work in this realm. Dr. Linda Ben-Zvi teaches feminist drama and documentary drama in the theatre department at Tel Aviv University. She spent a year on sabbatical in New York, giving a graduate course on documentary theatre at Hunter College and a seminar on the subject at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her book, Theatre in Israel, was published by University of Michigan Press, and she is an expert on the subject. Noa Baum, an Israeli storyteller, befriended a Palestinian woman while living in the United States. After years of building trust, they began to share their pasts with each other. She weaves together their memories and their mothers’ stories in her performance, A Land Twice Promised. She began working on the piece because she realized that images in her friend’s stories echoed her own memories of Jerusalem, and felt that the narratives complemented each other. Theatre of Conflict 2 Betty Shamieh is a Palestinian-American playwright, author, screenwriter, and actor. Her play, The Black Eyed had its New York premiere at New York Theatre Workshop in August 2007. In the piece, four Arab women meet in the afterlife: the Biblical Delilah, a victim of the Christian Crusades, a recent suicide bomber, and a secular Arab-American. Her newest play, Territories, also explores the complex origins of religious tensions in the Mid-East, and opens mid-January at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre. Mari Brown, director of community outreach, has a background in community dialogue and curates Urgent Conversations, the Masked Dialogue Series, following performances of Ilan Hatsor’s Masked. Currently playing at the DR2 Theatre in New York, Masked is a play about three Palestinian brothers during the first Intifada. Additionally, Brown shared the transcript of an interview with Hatsor. Iris Bahr, born and raised in the Bronx, moved to Israel with her family as a child. She is an actress and playwright now splitting her time between Los Angeles and New York. She wrote her solo performance, Dai (enough), out of a deep desire to give voice to what she views as the underrepresented Israeli perspectives. The play tells the stories of a variety of characters in a Tel Aviv café only minutes before a suicide bomber enters. The show is currently playing Off-Broadway through March 2008, at the 47th Street Theatre. M E S S A G E S A N D G OALS “I want my work to be read and produced long after the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been resolved, hopefully in a way that respects the humanity and human rights of both peoples.” – Betty Shamieh, author of The Black Eyed In our interviews, one of the first questions we asked was what message/s these artists are trying to convey and what their ideal outcomes would be. Many of the artists’ answers were similar. Betty Shamieh told us, “[G]reat The Black Eyed premiered at New York Theatre theatre illuminates the human experience in a way that Workshop in August 2007. has relevance long after the specific political issues … have been resolved.” She does not write with the intention of changing of people political views. Noa Baum approaches her work in a parallel manner; she believes that people will not change their Theatre of Conflict 3 views unless they are open to and ready for change. Instead of focusing on a change of mind, Baum aims for the audience to open their hearts and listen to the personal stories behind the headlines. Professor Ben-Zvi reiterated Shamieh and Baum’s sentiments. “As artists, we must do the work, even if we are not going to change people’s strong opinions.” Ilan Hatsor, like Baum, believes that the task of political theatre is not to make political declarations, but to show “the people behind the “I find that most … political ‘discussions’ are just shouting matches between people whose minds have already been made up, listening is non-existent, food is flung and historical facts are tossed about like ego-filled ‘I’m right!’ confetti.” – Iris Bahr, in “A Note from the Playwright” in Iris Bahr’s one-woman show, Dai (enough), is now the playbill for Dai playing in New York. politics … their motivation, the way they work and they way they act.” Likewise, in Dai (enough), Iris Bahr brings to life the people who make up the statistics. Her concern is that the audience should remember them as actual humans rather than political statements. T H E A UDIENCE Our next question had to do with who makes up the audiences. What are their backgrounds and why are they there? Masked audiences, Mari Brown explained, are like most New York audiences: predominantly older, Jewish patrons. She says that Arabs, Arab-Americans, Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans do attend, but less frequently. Baum also says it is harder to get Palestinians to come see her play when it is presented to the public, but she never expected it to be easy. She is, however, being hired more and more often by interfaith groups, which helps expand her audience base, bringing people to her work who might not normally attend. Shamieh, on the other hand, whose plays are broader in context, says her audience is incredibly diverse in terms of race, gender and religion. Generally speaking, though, for all these artists, their audiences are progressive and curious, and willing to consider these issues in a theatrical setting. Ilan Hatsor’s Masked is currently playing at DR2 Ilan Hatsor describes Masked as “a cry Theatre in New York. for sanity.” Theatre of Conflict 4 A UDIENCE RESPONSE In addition to who is in the audience, we wanted to know how they react to the pieces. While each setting and every performance is different, many reactions are visceral and passionate. Some of the people watching the performances are from the region themselves, and they have their own stories. They can be highly sensitive about the perceived slant of the piece. “Anyone who is emotionally involved,” Baum explains, “will always feel that their story is not being told enough.” First she felt bothered by cries that her piece is unbalanced. Then she began to realize that she cannot tell the story of Palestinian suffering, nor can she tell the story of Jewish or Israeli suffering, even if she is Jewish and Israeli; she can only tell her story. Betty Shamieh points out that “there is not ‘one’ Palestinian perspective, nor is there an Israeli ‘one.’ Both cultures are incredibly diverse and divided.” The artists may understand that it is impossible to have a perfect balance, but the audience members, themselves going through the theatrical experience, do not usually make that allowance. “People either ignore it Ben-Zvi saw Masked and noticed that people in the audience were or they’re open to it.” extremely touchy when they sensed that their beliefs were being – Dr. Linda Ben-Zvi, challenged or their people blamed. When we saw Masked, on professor of theatre October 28, one audience member felt that the play demonizes the Israelis, and pointed out no Israelis even ever appear onstage, but are merely discussed by the characters that are part of the action. Another countered that the Palestinian leaders are the ones being demonized by the play. Reactions were dramatic and included whispered cursing, huffing, labored sighing and one individual noisily stalked out. Mari Brown, who curates the post-show discussions series Urgent Conversations, is amazed by the audience response: “They are so engaged and so eager to talk.” It is clear how important the series is to the patrons because those performances that are followed by discussions always sell out first. Brown agrees that conversations do get heated and that she often must navigate away from less constructive or less topical political comments. Earlier in the series, a discussion might have become so impassioned so that it “At the play’s end, you are left feeling confused would end in chaos, but now she is and sobered; it’s an emotionally raw moment in much more careful to keep people focused on their reactions to the which to have a conversation.” – Mari Brown, curator of Urgent Conversations, the play.