{"id":9165,"date":"2010-12-28T10:26:01","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T17:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=9165"},"modified":"2011-05-28T23:16:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-29T06:16:55","slug":"gush-lekha-at-the-2010-short-theatre-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=9165","title":{"rendered":"Gush Lekha at the 2010 Short Theatre Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ori Orian, Yuval Stunis and Roni Hadar in Gush Lekha, Short Theatre Festival 2010\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Opening the Short Theatre Festival 2010 at Tzavta this past Wednesday was Gush Lekha – a hilarious parody of the ever-popular telenovela art form written by Roni Hadar and Ori Orian, directed by Rotem Keinan, and performed by Hadar, Orian and Yuval Stunis.<\/p>\n

A woman gives birth to four babies in rapid, surprising succession \u2013 each one suddenly emerging like a new message popping up in the in-box. Attended by the local priest and midwife, the first baby is still-born, but the mother has little time to grieve as her belly pops out again and she gives birth to a fine, healthy boy. Her belly pops out again and she gives birth to another son, then picking up the pace, she pops out another kid \u2013 but this one is ugly, so ugly that she orders the midwife to take the baby away. The priest warns her that she must not reject the baby, but the woman refuses to listen and as a result she and her children will be cursed: if one of the brothers marries, and the brothers meet at the wedding, they will both die.<\/p>\n

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Roni Hadar as Justine in Gush Lekha\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ridiculous? Of course, that\u2019s the point. Gush Lekha is utter nonsense, a madcap comedy executed with perfect timing, elaborate distortions of pseudo-elegant speech, shocking disclosures, live music and even a trap door! The woman, midwife, priest, Rodriguez the favorite son, Xavier the less favored son, Justine the fianc\u00e9, the nun, the sailor, the orphan, Justine\u2019s six sisters and possibly some other characters I\u2019ve forgotten, are all played by the three actors, maneuvering in and out of costumes and in, out and around the simple set in a 25 minute montage of deliciously comic moments.<\/p>\n

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Justine (Roni Hadar) and one of her sisters (Yuval Stunis)\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Making the most of the form, the very short play is studded with humor \u2013 visual and verbal. The gallant Rodriguez saves a deer from a fire and gives instructions to care for the animal by \u201claying it gently on a soft bed of potatoes and rosemary.\u201d When Rodriguez and his fianc\u00e9e Justine hear a crow, he reassures her, \u201cHave no fear, my little one, see how handsome I am!\u201d\u00a0 Not to mention Justine\u2019s many beautiful sisters, who give her very graphic and gruesome descriptions of all that awaits her on her wedding night.\u00a0 It all works, and works beautifully.<\/p>\n

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and another sister (Ori Orian)\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Justine's mother (Ori Orian) and sister (Yuval Stunis)\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And yet another sister (Yuval Stunis and Roni Hadar)\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gush Lekha by Roni Hadar and Ori Orian, directed by Rotem Keinan.
\nMusic: Ziv Kessel. Classical guitar: Yair Ferber.
\nPerformers: Ori Orian, Yuval Stunis, Roni Hadar.<\/p>\n

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

Opening the Short Theatre Festival 2010 at Tzavta this past Wednesday was Gush Lekha – a hilarious parody of the ever-popular telenovela art form written by Roni Hadar and Ori Orian, directed by Rotem Keinan, and performed by Hadar, Orian and Yuval Stunis. A woman gives birth to four babies in rapid, surprising succession \u2013 […]<\/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-9165","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\/9165","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=9165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}