{"id":6246,"date":"2010-07-25T02:53:03","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T09:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=6246"},"modified":"2010-07-27T17:43:42","modified_gmt":"2010-07-28T00:43:42","slug":"haifa-theatre-every-good-boy-deserves-favor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=6246","title":{"rendered":"Haifa Theatre – Every Good Boy Deserves Favor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Norman Issa and Doron Tavory in Every Good Boy Deserves Favor\/Photo: Eyal Landesman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Take a bus, train, or bicycle, but find your way to the Haifa Theatre to experience Tom Stoppard\u2019s Every Good Boy Deserves Favor<\/strong><\/em> – because this rarely performed play, featuring Norman Issa, Doron Tavory and the Ra\u2019anana Symphony Orchestra, in a brilliant translation by Dori Parnes, has an all too short run. There is one more performance tomorrow night, July 26, and 4 more next month \u2013 August 23 \u2013 26th. If you really can\u2019t bear to leave Tel Aviv, there will be two performances at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center (TAPAC), September 2 & 3.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Norman Issa and Doron Tavory\/Photo: Eyal Landesman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Originally produced in 1977, the play is based in part on the experiences of Soviet political dissidents Viktor Fineberg and Vladimir Bukovsky, who was imprisoned for 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals. Bukovsky was among the first to expose the use of psychiatric hospitalization as a form of imprisonment for political prisoners in the Soviet Union. Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia to Jewish parents who managed to escape just before the Nazi invasion. Stoppard moved to England in 1945. The prolific writer, winner of an Academy award for Shakespeare in Love and 4 Tony awards, is known for his verbal wit and word play and his ability to engage with philosophical intellectual themes in a playful, entertaining manner. He became involved with human rights issues in the late 70s and those themes entered his work in plays such as \u2018Every Good Boy Deserves Favor\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Rock N\u2019 Roll\u2019<\/em> (2006). Another shared aspect of these plays is their involvement with music. \u2018Rock N\u2019 Roll\u2019<\/em> tells a political historical narrative through the story of the Czech rock band The Plastic People, while \u2018Every Good Boy Deserves Favor\u2019<\/em> was written in collaboration with Andr\u00e9 Previn.<\/p>\n

Producing this play is a daring endeavor, as it requires the presence and participation of an entire orchestra onstage throughout. While this imposes certain limits on direction \u2013 there is simply not that much room to move about \u2013 Moshe Naor has created a dynamic production that integrates music, movement and text beautifully, each element enhancing the others.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Norman Issa and the Ra'anana Symphony Orchestra\/Photo: Eyal Landesman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Norman Issa dances his way into the imagination and the heart, jumping up on the bed and cavorting on the stage as Alexander Ivanov, struggling with the unruly members of his imaginary orchestra and befriending his roomate, coincidentally also named Alexander Ivanov, played with restrained passion and conviction by Doron Tavory. The duet between these two actors is mesmerizing, as they travel through their personal journeys in parallel throughout the play, each in a sense responding to the music that he alone can hear. Michael Koresh is the well-intentioned yet not entirely professional doctor on the premises, who also has music on his mind, playing violin in an amateur orchestra.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Michael Koresh and Norman Issa\/Photo: Eyal Landesman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The doctor would like nothing more than to \u201ccure\u201d his patients, but each in his own way refuses to cooperate. The doctor tells Alexander (Issa) in an exasperated tone: \u201cWe won\u2019t progress until we agree that there is no orchestra.\u201d Alexander replies: \u201cOr that there is one\u2026\u201d The absurd humor of the situation is amplified by the presence of the Ra\u2019anana Symphony Orchestra onstage as a twist on the conventions of the theatre: we see them but we know that they are not \u201creally\u201d there.<\/p>\n

Yet at the heart of this struggle is Ivanov (Tavory) who is crazy enough to insist that he is sane.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Doron Tavory and Michael Koresh\/Photo: Eyal Landesman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Translator and musician Dori Parnes has created a translation that is almost a musical score in itself, with delightful word and sound play. Midnight East recommends that those readers who do not know Hebrew take some quick lessons to fully enjoy the experience.<\/p>\n

Every Good Boy Deserves Favor<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Tom Stoppard, translated in Hebrew by Dori Parnes
\nDirector: Moshe Naor, Producer: Haim Sela
\nPerformances:
\nHaifa Theatre, 50 Pevzner Street, Haifa
\nJuly 26 at 21:00, August 23 \u2013 26 at 21:00, Tickets: 04-8600500
\nTel Aviv Performing Arts Center, 19 Shaul Hamelech Blvd, Tel Aviv
\nSeptember 2 at 20:00, September 3 at 12:00, Tickets: 03-6927777
\nAYELET DEKEL<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a bus, train, or bicycle, but find your way to the Haifa Theatre to experience Tom Stoppard\u2019s Every Good Boy Deserves Favor – because this rarely performed play, featuring Norman Issa, Doron Tavory and the Ra\u2019anana Symphony Orchestra, in a brilliant translation by Dori Parnes, has an all too short run. There is one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6246","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=6246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}