{"id":4250,"date":"2010-04-06T14:33:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T21:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=4250"},"modified":"2010-04-06T14:33:51","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T21:33:51","slug":"spring-awakening-to-premiere-at-beit-lessin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=4250","title":{"rendered":"Spring Awakening to Premiere at Beit Lessin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ninet Tayeb and Ido Bartal in Spring Awakening\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beit Lessin will premiere Spring Awakening<\/em>, a musical directed by Gilad Kimhi and starring Ninet Tayeb, on April 22. The Hebrew version of the award winning musical, with music by Duncan Sheik, book and lyrics by Steven Sater and translated by Daniel Efrat, will have a run of only 50 performances. Exploring teenage sexuality in a repressive society, the musical is based on the German play of the same title, written by Frank Wedekind in 1891, which was banned from the stage for almost a century for its explicit treatment of sex, masturbation, abortion, violence\u00a0and suicide.<\/p>\n

The musical follows the relationships of the handsome, popular and intelligent Melchior, whose logic can\u2019t save him from the anguish of love, or the backlash of society, his friend Moritz, whose inability to fit in leads to a bitter end, and Wendla, whose love for Melchior is doomed by her extreme innocence and ignorance.<\/p>\n

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Ido Bartal as Melchior\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ido Rosenberg as Moritz\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ninet Tayeb as Wendla\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0Tayeb, the first winner of Kochav Nolad (the Israeli version of Pop Idol) is not only a popular singer and actress but a role model for the many teenagers who aspire to \u201cbe like Ninet\u201d. At a presentation of the musical, which took place in the rehearsal room at the Beit Lessin Theatre, she was mobbed by the media and graciously responded to all questions.<\/p>\n

Of her experience in performing the role of Wendla, she told Midnight East, \u201cDuring the first days of rehearsal I couldn\u2019t stop crying. I felt Wendla in my entire body. I told Gilad I don\u2019t know if I can do this. This role is in my heart. I am so happy with my decision to do it; the process itself has been an intense experience.\u201d\u00a0 Regarding the subject matter of the musical, Tayeb says, \u201cIt is a play everyone can identify with, not only teenagers. It\u2019s important to face the truth, even if it isn\u2019t always pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel Efrat, a member of Beit Lessin\u2019s ensemble of young actors performing in Spring Awakening<\/em>, translated the musical into Hebrew. Efrat says that Spring Awakening<\/em> is unusual in its structure. \u201cThe songs stop the action,\u201d says Efrat, \u201crather than advance the plot, as they typically do in musicals. In most musicals there is usually a song or two that stops the action, but the rest serve to advance the plot as the characters sing the dialogue. Here, when a character begins to sing, the action stops, and the style changes. The songs take us into the inner world of the characters, and the language becomes more poetic, abstract and full of images, creating a unique atmosphere.\u201d This stylistic shift is something that Efrat expressed in the translation as well \u2013 the dialogue is in contemporary Hebrew, employing slang and everyday speech, while the words of the songs are in a more poetic, literary Hebrew.<\/p>\n

The first performance will take place on April 22, at 20:30, with additional performances thru April 28, in the Beit Lessin Theatre, 101 Dizengoff Street, Tel Aviv. Tickets: 03-7255300<\/p>\n

More photos from the presentation on Midnight East’s flickr page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AYELET DEKEL<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beit Lessin will premiere Spring Awakening, a musical directed by Gilad Kimhi and starring Ninet Tayeb, on April 22. The Hebrew version of the award winning musical, with music by Duncan Sheik, book and lyrics by Steven Sater and translated by Daniel Efrat, will have a run of only 50 performances. Exploring teenage sexuality in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}