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PLAYSINTERNATIONAL & EUROPE
SUMMER 2016
UK, EUROPE,
CHINA,
NORTHAMERI
CA,
AUSTRALIA
REPORTS, PIC
TURES
& LISTINGS
PLUS
Vol 31 Nos 4 - 6 £8.90 / €12.90 / $15.90 ISSN 0268 2028
Thinking BeyondNational BordersIsraeli director Ofira Heniginterviewed by Doron Elia P52
Theatre in PalestineKarma Zoabi P56
The 2016 Europe TheatrePrize, a reportSergio Lo Gatto P36
The Pacific PlaywrightsFestivalRobert Cohen P72
UK Drama SchoolsJeremy Malies P10
PLAYS INTERNATIONAL & EUROPE
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Director Ofira Heniginterviewed by Doron EliaOfira Henig is one of Israel’s outstanding
directors, and yet she also has close ties to
Germany and other German-speaking
European countries,NewYork, and London.
Here she talks to a fellow Israeli artist to
explain how she switched from being the
darling of the establishment theatre to
becoming an independent director with
no financial or contractual ties to the
Israeli state.
Page 52
UK Drama Schools, a reportby JeremyMaliesWith applicant-to-place ratios of at least 7:1,
being accepted at a major drama school in
the UK is harder than winning a place at
Oxford or Cambridge Universities. Full
scholarships are rare, and after three years of
study graduates can be left in debt to the
tune of £40,000 as they struggle in a
notoriously competitive sector. Is formal
study worth the sacrifices? Howmuch
support do drama schools provide to
students during their first few years in the
industry?Who are the leading providers of
training for technical theatre-makers such as
lighting and set designers?
Page 10
4 London Preview Peter Roberts5 What’s On In London10 UK Drama Schools JeremyMalies
LONDON12 Neil Dowden at Shakespeare’s Globe14 Neil Dowden at The Threepenny
Opera16 Christine Eccles at Les Blancs;
People, Places & Things andBlue/Orange
18 John Russell Taylor at The Flickand The Suicide
20 John Russell Taylor at Dr Faustusand Stone Face
22 JeremyMalies at The Truth24 Peter Roberts at the English
National Opera
UK REGIONS26 Crysse Morrison in the Southwest28 JeremyMalies in the Southeast30 Basil Abbott in East Anglia32 Nick Ahad in the North34 Hugh Rorrison in Scotland
EUROPE36 The Europe Theatre Prize 2016
Sergio Lo Gatto38 Danielle Byrne in Dublin40 Barry Daniels in Paris44 Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin46 Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna48 Maggie Rose in Milan50 Sergio Lo Gatto in Rome
MIDDLE EASTISRAEL52 Thinking Beyond National Borders:
Ofira Henig interviewed by DoronElia
54 Michael Ajzenstadt in Jerusalem
PALESTINE56 Karma Zoabi in Palestine
CHINA58 Impressions of Guangzhou Opera
House - John Russell Taylor
AUSTRALIA60 Margaret Leask in Sydney
CANADA62 Jon Kaplan in Toronto64 Malcolm Page in Vancouver
USA66 Glenda Frank in New York68 Robert Schneider in Connecticut70 Lawrence Bommer in Chicago72 Robert Cohen in Los Angeles
FRONT COVER:
Photo by Oliver Rosser and The JamieLloyd Company of Kit Harington in acritically much maligned Doctor Faustus atthe Duke of York Theatre.Read the review on page 20.
C O N T E N T S
Ofira Henig.Photo:Gerrard Allon
Features
M I D D L E E A S T
52 | PLAYS INTERNATIONAL & EUROPE
Ofira Henig has had a longhistory as an Israeli theatredirector, but increasingly
she dedicates herself toelaborating transnational themesfor her performances and theatreprojects.This is particularly thecase in three of her most recenttheatre projects, Yes, Stand Out ofMy Sun (2012),Three Dog Night(2016), and a dramatic reading ofGotthold Ephraim Lessing’s NathantheWise (Nathan derWeise, 2016).
Yes, Stand Out of My Sun is aresearch-based performanceconceived by Henig that examineshow both historically andcontemporaneously artists areinfluenced by the politicalcircumstances of their era. Ittoured in Israel, Berlin and Badenin Germany, Liechtenstein, andZurich, Switzerland.Three DogNight opened in Israel andtravelled to Germany. It was atrilingual internationalcoproduction with the EuropeanCentre for the Arts HELLERAUDresden, in cooperation withBerlin’s Deutsches Theater,TelAviv’s Goethe Institute and Cameritheatre and Lilach The IsraelSociety to Live and Die withDignity.As the website of theHELLERAU theatre explains, theplay,which was written by Henigherself, deals with self-determination not only in life butalso in the choice of when andhow to die.The performancechallenges the spectator to askhow we can speak of a dignifieddeath when life itself lacks dignity.The three female charactersspeaking Hebrew,Arabic orGerman gather around a dyingman, and they ask how we candevelop our own personal attitudetowards death when it threatensus from all sides.
In Three Dog Night, threewomen from three differentcultures explore issuessurrounding self-determinationboth in life and in death.Originallyunremarkable, these womenchange when faced with extremesituations such as naturalcatastrophes and war.A deathlychill surrounds them.The dramaticimage is of a cold night when onlythe heat of three dogs and theiranimal presence can protect them.
The performance which I sawat the Arabic speaking theatre in
Haifa, Al-Midan,was rich withvisual images,mixed musicalgenres, and a babble of languages.As is Henig’s style, theperformance took place in asimple space,with a very clearborder between the show and theaudience.The productionaddressed how different politicalsystems deal with a personchoosing to end his life through ahunger strike.
But Ofira Henig was notalways so international in heroutlook. Born in 1960 on a Kibbutz,unlike most of Israel's youngdirectors she never worked infringe theatres but began hercareer in the country'sestablishment theatre in 1989. Shebecame recognized after directingtwo plays by French authors whichindirectly comment on the war inAlgeria and its impact on Frenchsociety The Return to the Desertby Jean-Marie Coltez atJerusalem’s Khan Theatre in 2001and Jean Genet’s The Screens atthe Habima National Theatre in2002. The Return to the Desertwon the 2001 Play of the Yearaward of the Israel Theatre Prizeand also earned Henig the title ofDirector of the Year.The Screenswas understandably controversial.At one point in the play,Hadijah,an old Arab woman called Hadijah(played by Liat Goren) speaks ofher hatred from the depths ofsuicidal despair. IN an emotionallymoving scene, she declares,“Myhatred is stronger than theirweapons.” I saw this productionand remember her speech eventoday.
About Ophira Henig’s work in2002, she told me,“A new spacewas established in Tel Aviv, and Iwas invited to create a piece. Istarted with The Screens and then,a year later I directed Alice. Itworked very well with The Screensbut much less with Alice- I guess Ilost the charm of the story....Thespace was a half circle and Iworked a lot with this- confrontingthe audience with our disturbingcrazy stuff. It was the period of theSecond Intifada, and I wanted toprovoke a confrontation. Peopledemonstrated against the fact thatthe productions were subsidizedby government money….Andwhen the scandal stopped, therewas silence and the shows were
kicked off the stage.”In 2002 Henig was appointed
to the prestigious position ofArtistic Director of drama anddance at the JerusalemInternational Festival. But becauseof her tendency to provoke sheaccepted to become the directorof The Laboratory, a newexperimental theatre in Jerusalem,in 2004. She made this a place forcollaboration betweenmulticultural authors.Her firstproduction was OscarWilde’sSalome, featuring an ethnicallymixed group of actors.
Today, she remembers theshape of her career in this way:“Ibegan as a young director at TelAviv’s Hebrew language nationaltheatre Habima. I worked for 25years in the big institutions in TelAviv and Jerusalem and was anArtistic Director of a few theatres. Iwas very successful and got all theimportant awards; I was a sort ofWunderkind. It was very good tohave those conditions, and Ilearned a lot and developed as anartist. But now, Israel has changed.We don’t have the same freedomwe used to have.The system is notpermitting us to have a longcreation period or to deal withdeep ideas. Everything has to bequick, simple, and clear. I can`twork like this, and I don`t want towork like this.The very right winggovernment is restricting ourfreedom of speech. So I chose toleave. I only work in independentcontexts. I don`t take money fromthe government; I do not want topartake in their ideas aboutcreativity. I don`t want to co-operate with the status quo. ..Ialways prefer … to keep theperspective which an artist needs.Only, the context has changed.”
Her independent work isincreasingly interdisciplinary andmulticultural. Some of her projectsdeal with social and political issuesrelevant to life in Israel.However,her outlook is humanistic anduniversal. As she told JamesWoodal in a 2010 interview,“I wasborn into the new state and calledmyself the new Jew. Of course wewere brought up to remembereverything, so we know the factsfrom the past. But at home I wastaught to reach a universalconclusion about human beingsand not just about the Jewish
issue.Genocide is terrible and ithappens all over the world, and wehave to care about the entireworld.That was what I was told athome.”
Ofira Henig’s decision tostage a reading of Nathan derWeise in February 2016 in Tel Aviv,Beersheba,Acco, and Jerusalem isnot surprising since Lessing’s play,published in 1779, condemnsreligious bigotry and propagatesideals of tolerance and humanism.The Nazis banned the play, andtoday it is one of the most popularplays on the German stage. Iattended a reading of Henig’sversion of Nathan derWeise atAcco’s Alternative Theatre locatedin the middle of the medievaltown.The actors came from threedifferent cultures and again spokethree mother tongues:Hebrew,Arabic, and German.They haddifferent religious affiliations.
When I asked why this playwas not given a full performance,Henig explained,“I don`t considerNathan derWeise to be dramaticenough for a full production. I wasinterested in doing a reading,because for me it is a celebrationof listening to the characters’clever but naive ideas.Whilelistening to the text,we thinkabout the reality.The play itself isnot interesting for theatricalproduction. I saw someproductions based on this text,and they always make it oriental or
Thinking Beyond National BordersOfira Henig interviewed by Doron Elia
Ofira Henig.Photo:Gerrard Allon
M I D D L E E A S T
SUMMER 2016 | 53
else stage it in a kind of colonialstyle. So I won`t direct it as a show.Moses Mendelssohn, thephilosopher who was theinspiration for the character ofNathan,was the basic education Igot at home.My beloved fatherwas also named Nathan, and thatmade it all the more important tome to make people listen to hisideas. For me, the reading is adedication to my father`s wisdom.”
In addition, the Lessing playconforms to her belief in thepower of language, even withinthe multi-sensorial space of thestage. She says,“I love text verymuch. I love to read, I love to dealwith and interpret complicatedand special ancient text. I needtext and words to start mycreation. For me, a word is a world.The text can be dramatic, ordocumentary - but it has to betext.The text, certainly, is not theonly way to deliver "the story".Even when I create my ownprojects and write by myself, Iwrite as a director and not as awriter. I write the performance; I donot write a play.When the text isprecise, not too many words, onlywhat needs to be said --it is sobeautiful: an actor, a word, emptyspace, sound and light: the powerand the wisdom of the humanbeing.”
The medieval space of Accowhere this particular dramaticreading was staged is a specialmulticultural Jewish and Arabictown.The unique geopoliticalsetting and Henig’s use of direct
multilingual text gave proof of thepossibility of a dialogue betweencultures, at least for thisproduction.Henig herself isquoted as saying that she and theactors “come from three differentcultures… and each time werehearsed it was an ongoingdialogue between us and the textitself.We experience a differentculture and a different languageenriching us,without having tounderstand completely.”
One of Henig’s favouriterecent productions was the playUlysses on Bottles (2012). She says,“Ulysses on Bottleswas written bya very good friend of mine,GiladEvron. I’ve directed three of hisplays, and he is the best Hebrew-speaking living playwright.Theplay is contemporary and speaksabout Gaza, but Gilad keeps hispoetic style and it is a beautifulshocking text. Also I had a greatactor for this piece, Khalifa Natour.He is a Palestinian actor living inIsrael. If he were to live in his owncountry, he would play Macbeth,King Lear,Hamlet, etc. But he is aPalestinian and he lives in Israel. Idirected this play for him. I am sohappy that he and Gilad wonawards for this production.”
Henig describes her presentwork in the following manner:“These last years, I mainly createprojects which are based onfragments and not on a complete,well-made play.Black Rainwas thefirst such performance in 2007. Itdealt with the story of Hiroshima,but I was exploring the issue of
remembrance. I didn’t try to tellthe story of the atom bomb.Thevictims tell it. As an artist I tried tounderstand the way the trauma isrecalled.How does culture dealwith a memory;what does it meanto our society? It links of course tothe way we, the Jewish people,remember our trauma and the waythe Palestinians remember their1948 exodus, the Nakba. I guessyou can say this project is "post-modern theatre". It is not onlyabout a mix of different forms oftext. It is also about mixingdifferent themes, different levels oflanguages, and lately in my lastprojects (Both upon a Time;Yes,Stand out of my Sun; Three DogNight) I also mix different spokenlanguages. I am very muchinterested in creating harmony inan empty space. I like to givedramatic life to my belief thatdifferent ideas and cultures,different narratives, can livetogether in one theatrical space.”
This is Henig’s special way ofexpressing the world of theatre ascollaboration between differentcultures and a diversity of livingspaces. She is presently passing onher knowledge:“I am nowteaching directing at theUniversity of Tel Aviv. I meettalented students who warmmyheart.Teaching those studentswith their wide-open eyes is anopportunity to influence.Thesestudents still have a thin skin; theycan be touched.”
Ophira Henig acknowledgesthat theatre is first and foremost
an art form,but still she believes itcan facilitate tolerance.Not onlyare audience members affected bywhat they witness, but also whenher actors work together, theydevelop close-knit friendships andacquire tolerance of each other’sculture. She told me,“I do notbelieve in changing reality withtheatre, but it can touch people. Itcan make them think and askquestions.They stop their routinefor a couple of hours. I don`texpect the theatre to be aninstrument; I see it as art. I neverchoose themes or cast only forpolitical reasons. I have to find anaesthetic reason as well. Butbecause I am a political person,because I work a lot withPalestinian and German actors, Iam obviously surrounded bymulti-cultural ideas, and I am verymuch motivated by this.The artiststhat I work with are also politicalpeople.We bring our interests intothe rehearsal room.So, even if Iwere to develop a show based ona simple love story it would bepolitical. It is difficult to diagnosewhat comes first: politicalconscience or aesthetic interest. Imust admit that even today afterabout 30 years of directing, I wakeup in the morning,watch the news,and think I’d do better service if Ibecame a doctor or a lawyer....ButI’ve achieved my first dream ofworking in theatre, and I have atalent for creating dramas, so thatis what I give back to society.”
Doron Elia can be contacted [email protected]
Scene from Three Dog Night. Photo:Gerard Allon.
