The Tenth Show

I've been regularly reviewing the theatre for nearly a year now. If you think that's a fun job, you must be frequenting the theatres of another country, Narnia, for example. I don't think there's anywhere in the world where going to the theatre isn't risky business. The odds are similar everywhere: out of 10 shows, one will actually be wonderful.

Oh, but how amazing that one show is! Theatre may let us down most of the time, but when it doesn't, it changes our lives more potently than any other art could. I was fortunate enough to kick off my career as a critic with one such show. It was the Norwegian National theatre's extremely minimalist interpertation of "an Enemy of the People". Things went downhill from there, steeply.

To my surprise I discovered myself to be a rather harsh theatre critic, (some of the reviews can be found here) much harsher than I have been when writing reviewes of classical concerts. There, at least, the works performed are masterpieces to begin with. In Israeli theatre, the reverance paid to "original drama" ignores the fact that this culture produced a mere handful of great playwrights, perhaps only one.

Playwrights are a rare commodity. Italian culture, for all its glory, produced only two whose names are strongly imprinted in the world's cultural memory: Goldoni in the 18th centuri and Pirandello in the 20th. What makes us think that scores of worthwhile dramatists are surrently living in Gush Dan? What makes us think that they should all be permitted to direct their own plays? Allow the playwrite to direct her or his piece, and you have yourself a show longer by at least 20% than it should be.

Nor do we do such an outstanding job when adopting foreign plays. I had the dubious honor to be mean over theatrical interpertation with both the established repertory theatres (calling the Kameri's Yentel "a fiddler that fell off the roof") and the struggling fringe companies (recently writing of Nikolai Erdman's "The Suicide" at Herzlia ensamble, that spent the duration of the entire show wishing he would just hurry up and do it.) I'm a long-legged man and for a while wondered wheather it was lack of legroom and claustrophobia at the theatres that made me so bitter. I asked for seats with legroom and recieved them. No improvement was registered.

Still, I find that when friends who aren't frequent theatre goers join me for performances, they leave even more upset than I am. Those who are not used to the stage don't understand what a gamble it is. They go expecting to enjoy themselves and are shocked when they aren't. I have come to learn: most shows will be hard to bear or at least mediochre, it's the way of the world, and yet they are still all worth attending for that tenth one, that life-transforming one.

A few of my "tenth" shows of recent months are still playing: "The Great Magic" by Eduardo de Filippo and "Scapin's Deceits" by Moliere, both at Jerusalem's Khan theatre, and Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge" at Tel-Aviv's Beit Lessin theatre. One great young fringe production, Ronnie Brodezky's "For she is real" dealing with Kibbutz life, is returning to the stage. Phenomenal theatre of cruely explosion "Abu Ubbu at the butchers' market" by East Jerusalem's Al-Hakawati ensamble is still performed here and there.

The best show I've seen this year was the four-hour-long "Shukshin Stories" by Moscow's Nations theatre. It is also the source of this post's only image. The troup only visited Israel for a week, but if any of you are in or around Moscow, trust me, it's worth every ruble.

All of these are worth running to, and as you run, shed a tear for me who did the legwork for ya'll. Sometimes I nearly surrender and let myself drouse, often I looked more intently at the exit signs than at the stage, but I knew that I have to stay strong. the review must go on.

The Underground Art Scene

We left the region of Champagne yesterday and are gladly in Paris. Still, the journey was so fine and bubbly, that I must pay Champagne another tribute.

In other words - there's a place I must rave about: a castle with a pile of supermarket trollies in front of it.

The founder of the Maison de Pommery died in some obscure 19th century war, soon after beginning work on the winery's maze of cellars. His wife, Louise Pommery, was patron of the arts in the city of Reims and commissioned large scale works to be hung in the tunnels, some of which are cavernous, while others are cathedral-like in proportions. In 2002 the winery was bought from the Louis Vuitton conglomerate by a local champage mogul. He decided to fulfill Vauve Pommery's vision of an art palace and turn the fully functional production cellars into a contemporary art gallery.

Art welcomes you even when overground. The centerpiece in this photo of the winery's lobby was created by visiting Reims schoolchildren, once they emerged from the cellars.

Then begins the descent. The estate has 18 kilometers of underground tunnels. The first few are filled with art, with exhibitions that change yearly each June. The current one was curated by Fabrice Bousteau, the editor of Beaux Arts magazine. It features works from each member country of the EU and discusses the concept of European culture. First there's a sound installation. A line from a song by Gainsbourg plays as you descend the 160 stairs to the underground labyrinth.

Then there are tunnels over tunnels of contemporary European art to experience. Here's my absolute favorite: a work by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot which allows birds to play the electric guitar. Mandarin birds, seeds, amps and instruments were placed in a warmly lit tunnel for magical purposes. It works, they play beautifully.

Birds are not the only creatures in the cellars. The diagonal racks that allow champagne residue to sift into the necks of the bottles make perfect home for spiders as large as the palm of my hand.

You walk and walk, it's endless. Terike Haapoja's lightbulb throws shadows of nonexistant objects on the walls.

João Pedro Vale's sunken ship rests beneath an enormous wooden bas-relief comissioned by the Vauve Pommery.

I also liked works by Rada Boukova, Abigail Lazkoz, Katrina Neiburga, Adel Abidin, Su-Mei Tse, Anette-Mona Tchisa and Lucia Tkasova, but something has to be said for the art lying there in moldy bottles. The sharp flash of my camera gives it that extra conceptual element - making it look somewhat like a Beuys installation, though it most certainly won't taste like one.

An Evening with St. Pete

I cannot disclose the details nor show photos of my hitchhiking journey. They must remain an exclusive for the newspaper that will carry the article. I will tell you, though, that it went very well, too well, miraculously well. 48 hours (including two nights of sleep) after standing with my thumb up in Venice's Piazzola Roma, I was in a gas sation on the outskirts of Helsinki.

I ended up four days early for my Finnish appointements, and so decided to head on to Russia, arriving in St. Petersburg at night. It was a good decision. The lights on Nevsky Prospect were blinding and the sidewalks filled with elegantly dressed, beautiful women. I had a crepe with caviar on the street, then headed for a hostel to sleep.

The following day was cold.


The afternoon was colder, but the hostel supplied fine company: Piti, a landscape architect from Bangkok, fresh off the Trasn-Siberian railway.


We went into a canal-side dive for a drink and some food and met the local clientele. One guy was an art museum to rival the Hermitage.

His friend was a proper Nazi.

"We are getting out of here without a fist fight," I whispered on Piti's ear. The guys actually knew I'm Jewish (I never hide it), and my friend is obviously Asian, yet somehow it worked. We all made brilliant chums, shot down several rounds of vodka and beer and left with hugs.

Outside was dreary and getting drearier.

So we went to the Ballet.The Mariinsky company was presenting three works by George Balanchine, all set to non-narative musical scores. There was Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, the staple work of the New York Ballet. Piti almost fainted by how good it was.


There was Ravel's "la Valse"

and Bizet's symphony in C. "This is the best, most beautiful show I've seen in my life", said Piti.

Outside, the snow ceased and a random pretty girl handed us a baloon. A new night was ahead.

A is

A is for art

A pile of cobblestones on the floor of a museum, each imprinted with the words: "weapon of the proletariat".

B is for birds

A huge flock of geese forms the contour of a clipper ship in the evening sky above Jerusalem's Mouristan square. The fountain is working once more, kids kick a football against an old stone wall.

C is for cancer

My friend G. stands by his macchinetta, making both of us ridiculously strong coffee that is to keep me awake for much of the night. "Mann tracht on gott lacht," he says in Yiddish. "man plans and god laughs."

He has a long scar along his throat from the removal of his thyroid gland. At first I don't know how to relate to his experience, then I remember that I have gone through a divorce. "Not really comparable, but I guess we're both going through the things that make up life."

"Yeah, grown up stuff," he says.

D is for Downtown Lover

Back in my life? maybe yes, maybe no. The other day she was in a taxi, about to get off. The driver saw a guy hailing a cab by the corner and asked if she would mind him picking that guy up. She didn't mind, nor look to see who it was.

E is for eventide

"The night, it has a thousend eyes / the day has only one," quoth the poet. The sexy time of day is not a time of day, and it is crawling into the streets outside my window as I write.

F is for freedom

Walking up Ben-Yehuda St. after two days of hard work, bumping into an aquiantance and pulling him into the Mersend for a cuppa. The afternoon is vast. Roni rolls in on roller blades, posting posters for a poetry event. Kamer pops in, wearing one of his grandpa swaters. I want to interview him on radio Tuesday night, when I'll be studio commentator on the U.S. elections (late late on Galatz Radio). Omer appears with a copy of Haaretz and an easy smile. Obama this, Obama that, Then we all fly away to other places.

G is for gusts of wind

More of those are soon to come.

H is for Mitch Hedberg

"I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too."

I is for the Indigo Girls

Dorky though it is, I've had "Mystery", "Ghost" and "Galileo" playing in my head for a month now.

J is for Jewification of Jaffa

A major issue I have with the current mayor's policies (at least with his crew's), and especially now before the municipal elections. In Israel the term Jewification is considered legitimate. The idea: populating areas that have Arab majorities with as many Jews as possible, in order to "claim" them.

When looking for apartments in Jaffa you will often hear the agent saying: "currently there are many Arabs here, but we're working hard to Jewify the neighborhood and there have already been positive developements aplenty."

K is for kites

The Kite vendor at Charles Clore Park is tying a few samples of his merchendise to a metal railing. There's something both gloomy and hip about watching an elderly, disheveld man flying numerous jolly dragons at once.

L is for love

M is for McCain

Not a bad chap, it seems, but not the sharpest POW in the pencilbox either.

N is for new book project

Still confidential.

O is for Obama

I was there when it started: Democratic national convention, Boston 2004. The Illinois delegation, right by my booth, was going crazy. Obama gave the famous "thin boy with a funny name" speech. Only clinton spoke better.

P is for Park Slope

Where my Friend Erika is sitting and chatting with me right now, making me miss the world once again.

Q is for queers

For a while I knew no one in Tel Aviv who was gay. This is changing, to my delight. There's a sense of humor and an approach to the world that only gay people have. Lose sight of the their society and you lose more then one color in the day to day existance.

R is for Lou Reed

Who is in the city tonight, performing before luckier people that I.

S is for scarves

Girls in autumn look so lovely.

T is for Togo

I'm showing a group of Togolese visitors around the country these days. Took them to the "Jerusalem Hotel" in Sheikh Jarah, had coffee and a cigarette, listened to their chat, realized the Togolese are the cutest people in the world.

U is for Unicum

This liquor I brought from Hungary has to be the nastiest tasting thing on earth, yet I'm finishing the bottle at high speed. Things that taste like medicine are highly marketable early in the flu season.

V is for Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I've been told it's fantastic. If anyone wants to join me for it, let me know.

W is for bad memories

Such bad memories.

X is for xi

I miss scrabble. This Downtown Lover thing had better work out.

Y is for Yad Vashem

Walking out of the long corridor of the Jerusalem Holocaust Museum, I have to wait by the railing of a balcony, overlooking a cluster of forested hills, for a member of our party still inside. Consequently, I spend ten minutes looking at the faces of the people coming out. Each one of them has learned something new and it shows in their eyes. I can't help but admire the corridor and those responsible for filling it with life and with death.

They even kept the whole "everything's fine now that we have our own country" bit in the end distinctly subdued and minimal. It's there, but not so badly. I hate when the Holocaust is presented as nothing more than a sad prologue to the heroic Zionist story. Yad Vashem remains dignified.

Z is for ZZZZZZ

Gotta take a nap now. There's so much life going on, it's tiring, and the Unicum doesn't help perk me up (turns out it's no medicine). See y'all in morning light.

Not Going to McCa

My friend Ori spent 1000 sheqels last night, buying tickets for himself and his sister to the Paul McCartney concert. "I've always been a Paul guy", he told me.

Fourteen years of friendship that borders on a marriage were about to go down the drain. Ori? Mr. Stylish jacket? a fan of the Cheesy Beatle? "Maybe I'm amazed of the way you fell for the baby faced melodist", I told him, "and maybe I'm afraid of the way you just killed John a second time over. Maybe I'm amazed of the way you hand a billionaire 1000 sheqels to hear old 'Wings' songs, to see him stand there with his dyed hair and wave like the queen, maybe I'm amazed doubly because you're wearing a pink shirt today. What's wrong with you?"

Then today I was offered a ticket to myself. My Viennese friend Erika stood atypically in line at the gritty Hod passage, and made it possible for her friends here in Israel to catch the show.

I got to thinking, it's true that the magic of the Beatles was in the tension between John and Paul, neither of them could recreate it on his own. It's true that Paul is chewing his cud since the 70s, but it's pretty fine cud. He did write "Blackbird", "Golden Slumbers", and "Mull of Kintyre" to which I've dedicated a post on this very blog.

But I won't go. I gave my place up to someone else who wants it more. There's living art being created in the city at these very moments. The Art TLV events fill the city with art that is, above all, contemporary - and that's a great thing. at 6:30 tonight, on 4 ahad Ha'am St, I will be taking part in composing a joint poem with other writers. This event is created and coordinated by Liat Levy and Avia Ben-David, who breath such special life into Tel-Aviv's poetry. Later there's more art to see and parties to attend, I may whistle some oldie or another while walking among them.

Mi Alma

A night that began with slices of raw scallops in truffle oil and crushed pistachios, will inevitably end in a conversation about Alma Mahler.

Miryam, who owns a gallery in Vienna and another in Berlin, just spoke about the morbidity of current Viennese art. Now she's somehow moved on to Oskar Kokoschka, one of Mahler's esteemed lovers: "He was an ugly man, I am not surprised at all she left him. You know, when she left him, he didn't take it well at all. Do you know this story?"

"Bits."

"He went to a special workshop where they make the best dolls and asked for a big doll, a mannequin, that would be made to look exactly like her. He desrcibed the lips, the skin, everything about the shape of her body..."

"He wanted to be a Pygmalion," someone at the table interrupts.

"Yes, but when he came to pick it up, he was disappointed. It wasn't her. So he went home and painted for her instead, the "Bride of the Wind", but she was already far away."

"Went on to Franz Werfel," I contribute a piece of random knowledge.

"That's only eventually, after she left Gropius. You know, Werfel was even uglier than Kokoschka, and she effected his creative powers very interestingly. She was so independent for her time, very wild in a way. She didn't want men to come and sort things out for her. In my eyes she was herself a very special artist."

I lean back, taking one last precious swig of the Grand Castel. I would love to meet someone like that.

(Note: it would be sacriligious to put "Bride of the Wind" on a blog, so I'm posting what seems to be only its background. This Kokoschka Dalamite lanscape also looks very cool somehow next to my "Sri Lankan Rivers are Elephantine".)

West

I'm an East Jerusalem enthusiast. I grew up in a Jewish enclave in the east, and always looked at the west as the somewhat annoying haunt of spoiled, Politically ignorant, Jewish-American teenagers. When hitting town I rush towards massive Damascus gate and then through it, to eat Knafe at Jaffar's, lose myself among the market crowds, and discover an ancient, chapel-dotted, stone passageway or two.

Today, however, I'm heading west. There's a concert to attend, as well as an alternative arts festival. I even have a television appearence scheduled. I'm to speak about Macedonia on Israeli channel 1. But first I accompany my friend Baptiste from France to the very threshold of the east. There we meet his Quebecoise friend Roxanne who lives in Ramallah.

Having met, all three of us turn our back on the magic of the east. as if in support, the east stops looking magical almost at once. This picture of Jerusalem, taken a few steps from Damascus gate, has to be the least romantic ever shot. Of all the city's fabled sights, only the magnifiscent Dome of the Rock is there, popping over the open back of a truck.

The supposedly modernist, sprawly west, on the other hand, embraces us instantly in delightful pink stone and an air of antiquity, as we walk into the 19th century Russian compound.

We stop to chill at the garden of its old pilgrims hospice.

Turn of the century Nahalt Shiv'a neighborhood, right down the street, is positively gushing with charm. Here we were joined by Flashky, that unbeatable young chap, who took the van from Tel-Aviv spontanously to join in this little Odyssey.



Having caffinated ourselves we tread further and discover a fountain, clearly a gift of the city of Paris to its little middle eastern sister. Downtown lover, who dislaike Jerusalem and rarely joins me here, is mad about Paris. Alas, no such fountains can be found in her cherished Tel-Aviv environment.

We finally arrive at our first of the three destinations. A festival for alternative and socially involved creativity brought together small presses from around the country to a basketball court, somewhere in the labyrinthine Nachla'ot quarter. A lot of our friends from Tel-Aviv are here ,and there are also many new faces and a lot to learn. Certainly this fair is the most succesful alternative the "Week of the Hebrew Book" events, often criticised for being overly commercial.


Osnat!

This is where we bid farewell to Baptiste and Roxanne as they head up to her Ramallah home. They intend to make it past the roadblock before dark.

Flashky and I head on, walking to the edge of the Nachlaot and into the Mahne Yehuda market area.



We stop for a beer and a snack at the cheesiest drinking hole ever seen, a "club for members only" whose members are all elderly Iraqis. One wall is entirely covered by the decorative seal of some obscure German Brewery. The brew served to us is, curiously, Indian "Cobra" brand.

We made it to the studios of Israeli public television, but are not allowed to take photos inside. In defiance we pull out the camera out in the bathroom.

I was gorgeous on T.V.

We rush across the city to its center for the performing arts. On the plaza outside there's performance art taking place. Past colorful fabric, dotted with peeping holes, dancers are moving.



And on stage ,Jordi Savall's famed Hysperion XXI ensamble is performing songs from the Sepharadic diaspora. Legendary soprano Montserrat Figueras leads in Ladino. Yair Dalal is at the Oud and Savall himself plays the unique and beautiful Viol.

Time to go out.

First we hit Gilli's bar, which is good fun. Gilli pours us the butt of every coctail he makes. We get intoxicated enough that I forget to take a souvenir photo. Later at the Sira (possibly the city's finest nighthole), I do take one and immortalize Flashky's dancing joy. He's in an advanced flirt with the girl in a white tank top, a German from Cologne. Later on he ditches her, thinking that I am interested in returning to Tel-Aviv.

Now, I may be old, from Flashky's perspective - very much so. But I'm not letting go so easily of a city that looks like this at 2 AM


And like this at 3 AM



So we go to a place whos name I can't quite remember, tucked away down a passageway.

Than back to the Sira.


Where we learn how to balance pint glasses on top of one another and nearly get in a fight with an Everton supporter in his fourties. Flashky (a true Liverpool fan) does his best to calm the man down by pointing out their similar taste in music, but gets beer poured on his shirt. He stands up for himself, standing not two inches away from the aggressor's face and calling him a fascist. The Evertonian's friends, a group of truely sweet brits, calm him down and we bid farewell in good spirits.

No, in great spirits.