Comments on: Street Protest-Performance – Rabin Square, Tel Aviv

By: A controversial pro-Palestine play is performed in Hebrew in Tel Aviv - Middle East - Knowlogy Community Server

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:29:11 +0000

[...] This event was also covered by Israeli blogger Chen Alon, who attended the event. His post, which is illustrated with photographs taken by Israeli photojournalist Maxim Reider, presents a complex picture of Tel Aviv's leftist intellegentsia. Excerpt from his post, called Street Protest Performance in Tel Aviv: [...]

By: Maxim Reider

Maxim Reider — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:53:49 +0000

Now I really feel obliged to write my version of the story, after reading all these comments. Sorry, I was so busy with the routine work.

By: miriam farhi-rodrig

miriam farhi-rodrig — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:05:27 +0000

I am sorry I was out of the country and could not come to Rabbin square to watch the play and to be there. It is important to do things and be there as much as possible if this evil called fear from the other or the virus called the psychological checkpoints be treated so that there will be room in our minds and soul to ride the new wave generated by Obama. If we lose the momentum and fail riding the wave, we may all go down under the sea of darkness…

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:38:08 +0000

Andrew, certainly, there is a great political power to the quiet sharing that can happen in the theatre. But – this wasn’t in the theatre. This was done in Rabin Square, presumably in order to get the attention and interest of people who did not expect to be theatrical audiences that day. I went to a performance of Seven Jewish Children for an audience that came to a conventional theatre and expected this play – as you’d imagine, it was a fairly self-selecting group. The power and importance of this production comes from its public setting. And when that public is sealed on the other side of a bubble, much of the political power of this art-activism is sealed off with it.

By: Andrew Eglinton

Andrew Eglinton — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:30:01 +0000

@Josh, is it not possible that the contrary may also be true? That political impact can be achieved through small, intimate gatherings?

To me, concrete political engagement begins with individual awareness/consciousness. When the theatre screams at the world, it risks becoming a sermon – a monologue rather than a dialogue; whereas when the theatre whispers, audiences make a conscious effort to come closer but also to react.

Of course you have to be sure that the message is ethical and the arguments are contrasted and well researched, otherwise it is mere propaganda. I’d like to know whether the audience at this Tel Aviv production stayed around after the show, whether discussion ensued, whether connections were made?

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:53:37 +0000

To me, there’s something deeply sad about the bubble within a bubble – spectators forming a circle to hear the play and keep the noisy, intimacy-threatening world out. I don’t know how it can be done, but isn’t the point of political theatre to *engage* with and interrogate that world, not to protect against it as an “external obstacle”? That’s an extraordinary challenge, but it’s the one this group has set for itself.

Particularly in light of the literally hundreds of performances of Churchill’s play abroad, this may have been the play’s one chance to engage with the people it claims to portray. We have to find a way to let the noise in.

By: Andrew Eglinton

Andrew Eglinton — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:27:48 +0000

This was an interesting read. I’m intrigued by your notion of ‘bubble’ and ‘bubble within a bubble’ – is this specific to Tel Aviv or are there other places that feel this way?

I’m sorry to hear about your prison sentence. Have you already served time in prison? Also why do you choose to include the statement at the end of the article?