Germans

The first time I ever met a German, I slept with her, or rather - next to her. I had no choice. I was 18 years old and trapped on a chilly mountaintop on the island of Crete. With me was a Geordie chap my age named Alex, whom I met on the ferry over. We missed the last bus descending to the valley and ended up building a campfire not far from two blond girls who were putting up a tent.

Finally we amassed the courage, invited them to sit by our fire and in return received an invitation to sleep the night in their tent. The chill was intensifying as we entered, they saved our lives, no less. I lay by the chubby one, careful not to disrespect my hostess despite the narrow space. She giggled through the night in her sleep, as sweet a person as I've ever known.

Hitler came up the next morning, as we all descended into the gorge of Samaria. I think I brought him up. I've been bringing him up since when meeting Germans, an act that simultaneously breaks and forms the ice. Ultimately, young Germans and young Israelis are like-minded about history, although I did find a few of my German friends to be undereducated about it. I would use German terms such as "Einsatzgruppen" (SS death squads, responsible for systematic massacres) and notice a raised brow. My teachers taught it, theirs didn't.

Then again, you speak to young Israelis about the massacre of Kafar Qasem, inspired by the same Einsatzgruppen, and recieve a similar raised brow. We never like to look at our own faults, but we do like to look at the faults of others and in that Germany is an underprevilaged nation. While all of Europe is taking the case of the Palestinians and faces Israel with hard questions, the Germans are forced to go easy on us. No one likes to have "Look who's talking" thrown in their faces.

This isn't a new story, of course. I heard that journalists who get a job with "Bild", Europe's most succesful tabloid, published in Berlin, must sign a form stating they will never write anything critical of Israel. These days, as international media screams in joyful rage, Bild journalists must be tearing their hair out much of the time.

The Bild is unhelpful, but in general the German media's dillema is a good thing. Bereft of the mandate to be unreasonable, it must be mature in its treatment of Israel. Those who read my blog regularly know exactly how much I encourage criticism of Israel, but if it isn't fair it's not pragmatic. Germany is a country that can produce mature, helpful criticism at this time, and I hope it picks up the glove and does so.

Not only the press is influential. Last night I had an astounding theatrical experience. Frankfurt's Mousonturm theatre brought to Tel-Aviv it's production of "My First Sony", a theatrical interpertation of a Hebrew novel by Benny Barbash. The director, Stephane Bittoun, is German-Jewish. He staged a terrificaly subtle presentation of one Israeli family's decomposition, one that is so humorous and elegant one doesn't quite understand how come it moves us to tears. This is the greatness of German theatre since Brecht. It does not seek to emulate life, thus it is life.

All the family's misadventures are recorded by one of the children on a primitive tape recorder. The entire play is a record of things that have been, which is what our present is due to become. Bittoun's all German crew treat Israel's enormously complex present with a mix of courage and elegance. Everything is there, the settlements, the Einsatzgruppen, the emotionality of being Israeli.

Itka and I were standing outside the Kameri theatre, wiping tears from our eyes. "My First Sony" was a promise. There's a culture besides our own that shares our history and has the capacity to contribute to our future. It's endowed with the sensativity to see what's happening here and the responsibility to treat it tastefully, carefully, maturely. I wouldn't expect much from "Bild", but other Berliners can be true allies to all of us here, Israelis and Palestinians alike.

I take that promise seriously and am glad for it. Hence, I will be rooting for Germany on Sunday as it faces England at the world cup. Somewhere out there, my kind German host from that Cretan mountaintop will be cheering along.

(Image on top is of my dear friends in Berlin-Neukölln, twin city to Bat-Yam, Israel.)

Kadima!

When a bunch of Tel-Avivians, among them four journalists, one real estate agent, a cult folk musician, a single mother and a former Eurovision star, gather in an apartment in the city's Yemenite quarter, it can only mean one thing: that they are about to stage a play in Israel's largest sewege treatment plant.

"Kadima!" by Roy Chicky Arad (the guy in blue) was already staged twice in more concievable surroundings: Tzavta theatre and the Barzilai club. This Saturday night it participates in the first art event to take place among Tel-Aviv's filtering pools. It will be featured in "Redemption through the Gutters", a large scale artfest curated by the extra-talented Galya Yahav. (Here's the Facebook event, for all details.)

It may seem unethical for me, as a theatre critic, to function as an actor, so I'll hurry up and confirm: I would have given this show a dreadful review. It's a big anarchic mess, no one knows their lines (we're reading them off the page), most jokes are dreadfully juvenile, and the songs took thirty seconds to compose - I know this for a fact. I composed them.

But Kadima! (Hebrew for "onwards", but also the name of the Israel's major center-right party) does have one thing going for it: It makes one hell of a punishing political statement, and it does so in the rustic spirit of true satire.

The story is that of Tzvika Ofer (Yuval Segev), an IDF colonel whose negligance led to the breakout of the second Lebanese war. Ofer, scolded in Israel, escapes to Mexico and works there as military consultant for a dubius regieme. Then he meets a witch.

The witch tells him that she can send him back to one moment in his past. Ofer, cynical at first, finally decides to return to the days before the war's outbreak and prevent it. His wish is fulfilled, history is reversed. Elyakim Firstater (Moshe Ferster), the simpleton sodier who's abduction kicked off the war, is safe.

For lack of war, Ofer is discharged from the army and becomes CEO of the Trilanium weapons company, producers of a radium-spiked bomb called "The Smasher". Firstater himself gets a job there as a bomb-painter. sometimes fate just binds us with the wrong people.

Problem is, with no war in sight, the smasher has no market. The owners of Trilanium count on Ofer to produce one. When he learns of it, from the company's Chief Financial Officer, Benny Guetta (yours truly), he is in denial.

Ofer: but the IDF couldn't use the Smasher, the border is quiet.

Guetta: The folks at the Brussels office were hoping you could perk the IDF up.

Ofer: There was no war.

Guetta: This is solvable.

Ofer: Solvable?

Guetta: It's solvable, this lack of war, this endless wait for something to happen.

Ofer (loudly): They were expecting for me to arrange a war?

Guetta: There's no need to shout, let's speak softly.

Ofer: They wanted me to start a war? with whom?

Gueatta: Look, I am against wars, I hate wars. I was on the square where Rabin died, when they took him away from us. Then again, some situations are win-win. Let's imagine the "Smasher" were a success on the battlefield. It would have given it great promotion - advertisements on BBC, on AL-Jezirah... we could start a production line for the Smasher that could export abroad. People hear the word "war" and get startled, it's a real holy cow. But who could lose in such a war? If the Smasher works well, we may end up exporting it even to moderate Arab nations, like Morrocco or Jordan. It could improve our relationship with them and maybe even contribute to peace.

Ofer: The war?

Gueatta: Yes! War today isn't what you think, Tzvika, it's like peace, like peace - but with a dividend. Look at me, do I want war? Do I want battlefields? Do I want widdows and orphans? You know I'm left-leaning. No one wants war, but on the other hand, it's not a good idea to be stuck with marchendise.

At the end of the day, our bunch of clowns is a somber bunch. We've been through that war and we'll be through the next one, and the next one. Forever we shall be told that our security is the issue and that our army is the "Israeli Defence Forces", by those who pocket the dough. No dough for us, we play for nothing, just as we'll probably die for nothing sooner or later.

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.

Skirt Chasers

Lets face it, the holiday of Purim really has nothing to do with the its supposed biblical source. I have no doubt that it predates the book of Esther, and was probably adopted from the very Persians who are vilified in that text. Jews, like persians, need at least one day a year to break loose. Catholics need one too, and have thus invented carnival.

Both Carnival and purim allow grown ups full freedom to choose a diguise and fulfill a fantasy (much more so than Haloween, which is mostly identified with kids) It should come as no surprise that both holidays are heaven for anyone who's interested in playing with gender identity. I love doing that, so it's a big shame that I'll be away for business on the holiday this year.

Stuck as I am in my boring, bearded, male persona, the least I can do is give my readers a Purim gift, a "mishloach manot", if you will. Thus, I decided to honor this earth's true masters of disguises and pay homage to a handful of great female impersonators

When looking for "female impersonator" on wikepedia, one gets automatically directed to "drag queen". In my understanding, this isn't precise. Drag queens exaggarate female attire and behavior, creating in a sense a third, comical gender that can be used to express gay notions, humor and critical content. Female impersonators are about illusion. Their art is tromp l'eoil, and it's an ancient art. check our this poster from 1896.

Even this guy is rather pre-stonewall. In his day, Julian Eltinge was such a star that he gave a commend performance before the king of England. I read somewhere that in preparation for his act he used to go as far as shaving the backs of his fingers. Eltinge was probably straight, and acted in several films as a man.

Fernando Marcano is one of the most beautiful women in Venezuela and a sort of a national symbol, well, if you're gay in Caracas, I guess, or otherwise a drag addict.

And here is Germany's Chris Kolonko. I happen to have met him face to face here in Tel-Aviv just recently, so I can tell you the airbrushing of this photo was completely unneccesary, the man makes a great woman in real life.

I couldn't help but finish the tribute with the picture of a real woman. This photo of a drag king is by talented Canadian photographer Tanja Tiziana. Drag kings, like drag queens, tend to take the portrayal of the other gender to an extreme. They have less of a choice, though. Women in convincing drag tend to look young. Playing it rough prevents them from being mere "drag kids". This one pulls of a nice look, without painting on a moustache.

These people are the answer to the whiny Israeli children's song: "why doesn't Purim happen twice a week." why? because we don't let it. Those who made Purim their profession enjoy it often. If this is indeed a day in which we break societal conventions and bounderies, then these are some subversive personalities, role models for our opressive day and age. Keep that in mind when you choose a costume this year.

Chicken Soup for the Renegade Soul

It's raining and hailing outside and I'm here listening to old Lenny Bruce routines and sipping chicken soup. The house is very clean - tomorrow my subletter is moving in, then Saturday night Itka and I are going to take over her apartment in Paris for a month.

Paris has a liberating effect on my spirit and God only knows what will happen there. Right now liberty is on my mind, this Lenny Bruce guy, a man who was too free for his time so they had to keep handcuffing him, what a disaster.

I had an encounter with two other free spirits this week. The Berliner Ensabmle came to town with its production of the Threepenny Opera. Brecht was too free for his own good and too socially aware, so he teathered himself up in post war DDR. Weill wouldn't hear of it. Even before the war he split up from Brecht, saying he couldn't compose music to Communist manifestos. Still, while they were together, their work was truly free and balanced in its freedom. it was all about freedom: first and foremost - freedom from the most hidden prison walls that surround us, those of materialism and the bourgeois order.

"What's a thief's ladder next to a stock share?" asks Mack the Knife on the scaffold, "What's robbing a bank next to founding a bank?" We're leaving for Paris with nearly no money. The current crisis, bourne of greed, is hitting Israel and everywhere else quite hard. This is precisely the time to break loose, hitchhike a bit, eat a "demi-baguette", ramble around looking for adventure and grow intensely richer.

The Drama Bum

Yuval (languidly): Over the years I made various attempts at writing for the stage. One of them "The girls of Tuam" was produced by now disbanded New York theatre group Blank Slate, as part of a young playwrights workshop series, which means it was only performed once in full. Another play was considered for production by a serious Israeli theatre, but only considered. A third piece failed to be accepted to the 2000 Akko theatre festival. In short, I'm not exactly Tennessee Williams.

Banco: Why make another attempt, then?

Yuval: Mostly because it's so much fun. Playwrighting is the closest a writer comes to acting. You actually have to read each replica aloud and hear what it sounds like. (a scene I wrote today featured a debate on masturbation and hummus, held in a crumbling Jerusalem hotel. I hope my apartment isn't tapped by the mental health authorities). The mechanics of the medium are fascinating and lets face it, some stories can only be told this way. Besides, you can do your casting while writing, and aim as high as you wish.

The downside of writing a play is that it is an ambitious endeavor that will surely steal energy from my blog. After the most prolific spell ever, I may partially vanish for a wee while. Alas, the show must get on.

Before I depart as air, here's a gift for the last Jewish holiday of the season. It's the finale from the first portion of Mike Oldfield's epic "Tubular Bells". Oldfield wrote and recorded it, playing every single instrument, when he was 19 years old. He is seen on this BBC live reenctment wearing a colorful tanktop, alternating between the Bass and acoustic guitar. Is it the most impressive symphonic attempt of our time? is it the slightly awkward swan song of authentic progressive rock? I say it's 1973.

Is Akko Burning?

Which is the most beautiful word in the Bible? It may very well be one attirbuted to the Lord of Hosts in Genesis 18, 21. He declares there that the sinning ways of Sodomites and Gommorah-folk has become known to him, and that he now intends to decend into these cities and determine "haketza'akata".

Haketza'akata - literally: "is it as she yelled", figuratively: are the disturbing rumors founded. In the King James translation: "altogether according to the cry of it". In the new American Standard bible: "entirely according to its outcry". No translation brings out any of the poetry of this cumbersome, lush word. The darkness of the outcry is lost.

A very dark outcry rises this week from the city of St. Jean D'acre, also called Akka and Akko. The capital of the second crusader kingdom became the site of major turbulance. The Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli populations of the city clashed on the streets, houses were burned, vandalism performed, families evicted, and police presence hightened.

Four of us went north to see haketza'akata: Y the spy (not seen here as she is the photographer), Flashky, Renana and myself. We were joined by two Swiss tourists: Francesco and Sarah.

There was some smoke on the streets,

and indoors (somehow whenever I go there I end up with a photo like this one),

but altogether Akko was the very image of peace in the middle east. Haketza'akata? not exactly.

This should come as no surprise. Despite animosities in friction zones, the vendors of the old city's market are highly interested in the safety of visitors, as their livelyhood depends on tourism. This makes the cancallation of this year's Akko alternative theatre festival not only absurd but infuriating. It is an act that deeply hurts the old city's Arabic spaking population for no rational reason.

It was forseeable that this population would become the scapegoat of the current crisis. A simpleton driver, whose carelss Yom kippur trip to the ethnically mixed heart of town sparked the riots, was arrested despite not having broken any law. Arab families were evicted from the eastern neighborhoods after Jewish vandals burned houses there. How does that make sense?

It doesn't. Visiting Akko does. pack up an apetite for food and for salty air, hop on a fast train and come show solidarity. You may even catch some theatre: the festival is taking place in an underground, hushed way. Hang around the fortress gardens and you will catch word of performances or contact me for details. Bon voyage and peace be with you.

Once

I'll be 32 this Sunday, and am currently looking through my more peculiar achievements: those experiences that were experienced only once.

So in 32 years I skydived once
went snowshoeing once
got married once and divorced once
got stranded on a small island once (for about 30 hours)
got my heart broken once
got my jaw broken once
tried hard drugs once
got arrested once (while protesting environmental issues)
published poetry once
earned my accomodation by reciting poetry once
visited Lichtenstein once (I crossed it on foot!)
Visited Lebanon once (long story)
biked from Holland to Prague once
spent a night at a parking lot once
spent a night inside a window display trailer once
spent a night with a married woman once
met with overt antisemitism once
got spat on once (same occasion)
frenched a tree once (a dare in a truth or dare game)
saved a man's life once
broadcast a radio show once
revealed to a man that his girlfriend was pregnant with another man's child once (don't try this at home)
saw a beaver in the wild once
saw a rattlesnake in the wild once
saw an elephant in the wild once
saw a humpback whale in the wild once
visited a rubber plantation once
touched a dead man once
spoke to a head of state once (Rabin)
saw the pope once
got massaged at a Turkish hamam once
sat in a "smoke sauna" once
sat at the waiting room of a brothel once (didn't use their services)
ate jellyfish salad once
ate blood pudding in blood sauce once
ate "thousend years old eggs" once
ate alligator once and turtle once
drank authentic moonshine once
explored the underground drainage system of a city with a flashlight once
got mugged once
painted a "trial of Paris" once
pretended to be American once
pretended to be French once
pretended to be South African once
pretended to be Macedonian once (traveling the Middle East isn't easy for Israelis)
wore a bindy once
wore fake eyelashes once
had a letter exchange with the governemnt of Saudi Arabia once
shook hands with a Serbian mafia head once
saw actors performing a play I wrote once
lectured at Harvard university once
got paid a live duck for my work once

The nice thing about this list is how difficult it was to assemble. most of the things that came to my mind I had done more than once and so they didn't get a mention. Many of the things that were mentioned, I would love to do again. It's being a great life so far, perfect for reruns.

I Want to Drink Water

My sister Tamar is starring in a production of Lorca's "Yerma". On the surface, this is a play about an infertile woman's decline into insanity. Beneath the surface it portrays the moment in which our pain becomes who we are. Beyond that point we will accept neither condolences nor solutions. We must continue to suffer or we forsake our identity. The implications of this in the Israeli political sphere are boundless.

One replica from the play remains strongly in my mind since last night's performance. Yerma speaks to her husband Juan, trying to convey her plight to him. "I want to drink water," she says, softly and poignantly, "and I have neither glass nor water, I want to climb a mountain and I have no feet."

This line is the apex of the play, the moment of transition from the freedom granted by hope to the prison of ultimate self pity. On one hand is the metaphoric lack of water, but water and a glass can be found somehow. If you have no feet, well, that's a bit different. You're not going to climb that mountain. I want what I lack to always be water, even if I lose my feet. As long as we hope, we're fine.

The Gift of Hopelessness

"Make my Heart Tremble" is the last play by great Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin, published posthumously. It is now being produced by Tel-Aviv's Kameri theatre company, with Rami Baruch and Meirav Gruber both impressive in the starring roles.

Thing is, there's very little "starring" going on in Levin plays. The man is an expert on futility, defeat and embarrassment. His characters always wind up losing out completely, no matter what their aspiration. This is certainly the case in this play. The laughable Lamka spends his entire adult life futilely courting beautiful singer Lalalala (who grows less and less beautiful as the play progresses). He remains unloved till the last curtain. Meanwhile, Lamka's married friend, Pshoniak, isn't all that much happier in his married life with the dreadfully unsexy Caha Caha, whose name literally means: "so so", and who isn't at all happy with him.

There's a hint of optimism, though, or at least joie de vivre. "If I'm ever asked what was the essence of my life," Lamka says to Lalalala, "I will say it was standing below your window, with my heart a-tremble and no hope at all. There, right there, was life."

That's a Jewish line if there ever was one. As Jews, we await a messiah who is not allowed to arrive. As soon as we believe he's arrived, we cease to be Jewish. Levin brings this cult of disappointment to the modernist stage and the realm of romance in all its pathetic beauty. There, right there, is art.