"Pieces" director showing pre-seder Israel-Palestine short play
Just off the Boston showing of Peices, Suzana Berger now directs A State of Innocence by Naomi Wallace, showing twice this weekend at the Women Center Stage’s First Annual Short Plays Fest in Manhattan.
For those who missed Pieces‘ Boston showing, Zohar Tirosh plays herself as an 18-year-old Israeli American who joins the IDF just in time for the rise and fall of the Rabin/Olso/Second Intifada era. For American audiences, this play helps us understand what it’s like to feel the pressure to join, the resistance to authority, the scares of friends fighting in the armed forces, and ultimately the hope and disappointment of the then-peace process. Now in her 30s, Zohar (with Berger’s direction)Â pitches the play to recapture some of the lost hope of that time, and convincingly so. Especially powerful since it played alternating nights with the Rachel Corrie play.
Berger’s next short play, A State of Innocence, takes place “in the ruins of the Rafah zoo, where a Palestinian mother, an Israeli soldier, and an architect enter a world where the usual rules do not apply.” I would encourage those with a flair for theater and no chametz to clean up before the first seder, to check out this play.
Full play list after the jump.
Women Center Stage’s First Annual Short Plays Fest
April 19 at 2pm and 5pm
Presented at The Puffin Room, 435 Broome Street at Broadway
A State of Innocence by Naomi Wallace
In the ruins of the Rafah zoo, a Palestinian mother, an Israeli soldier, and an architect enter a world where the usual rules do not apply.
Directed by Suzana Berger; Featuring Harold Kennedy German, Gina Ojile, and Moti Margolin
The State of the Art by David Stallings
A chilling foretelling of a future dictated by genetic redistribution, this short play presents the bleak reality of a society that has lost touch with its humanity, and one doctor’s attempts to bring back an artist from the past.
Directed by Cristina Alicea; Featuring Katy Quinn, Scott Nath, and Richard Flight
Mwena by Nick Mwaluko
The courageous retelling of one African man’s search for identity that spans genders and continents.
Directed by Alicia Dhyana House; Featuring Zainab Jah, Percussion by Yukio Tsuji
Released by Laura Jacqmin
Natascha was held captive for eight and a half years. This is her first interview.
Directed by Colette Robert; Featuring Julia Ahumada Grob and Abe Koogler
Order tickets online at www.CultureProject.org or over the phone at 212.925.1806
they’re still putting on “MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE”?
zzzzzzzzzz…..
Oh yeah, all over the place. Pieces ran in Boston because there was another play about the Netanyahu family’s youngest martyr, but the Netanyahu clan pulled it from showing.
I’ve not seen the Corrie play, but I know her parents and it seems like all the other “controversial” Israel media volcanoes out there: mildly provocative but most people don’t bother to see it before blurting out purported bias.
On a related but tangential note, Dotan Greenvald of Breaking the Silence interviewed the co-worker of the bulldozer operator. The guy said he was surprised it took them so long to accidentally run somebody over. Uh, beg pardon?
1. I’ve seen it. Politics aside, it sorta sucks.
2. I think the bulldozer operator probably meant “with all these ISM fools breaching military cordons and jumping in front of our equipment all the time, this was unfortunately bound to happen at some point…”