Ramle, Sukkot and a week before the beginning of the Ramadan, 2003

 

 

 

Dear friends! 

 

The group “Nemashim” makes its first steps.  For two months have lived Re’ut and Oriya, and now also Radi, in Ramle, make theater and expand its work from day to day.  We worked more than a year at the preparations for this year in Ramle, met with many people in Ramle and in the entire country.  The flat-and-theater-partnership in Ramle is active in three directions:

 

On the one hand the three are active in cultural community work, in  the “Open House”, in the Ethiopian community center, in the Arabic community center and in other organizations.  On the other hand we work on short performances for streets theater and for closed places where we are invited, like schools and festivals.  To this purpose, we expanded the trio to a quartet, to which also Saber belongs.  He does not lives with the three in the flat, but shares the theater group with.  We hope that we can enlarge soon the theater group. 

 

And third we made already first samples for an evening abundance piece that we prepare for the end of this special theater year.  It is something special to make theater with people, who also live together.  Especially if Arabs and Jews live together.  But about that another time.

 

I would like to tell first a few about our “invisible theater”.  In the invisible theater the public does not know he is “public”, and that a play takes place.  The scene takes place at a public place, and perhaps you also shared already a “performance” without knowing, for also after the scene you don’t know about that, instead of here actually theater.  More about that:

 

For our piece, we selected a coffee in the city, where we came one after other.  In the scene, that we played, a young couple (an arab boy and a jewish girl) sat down, near a man who got nervous very soon (whom I played) and tried to inflame the others on this “mixed” couple and to develop a discussion about the legitimacy of such a couple. To my astonishment altogether defended the couple against me and hurled me, the racist, out of the place when the discussion got hot.

 

This first attempt has its positive and its negative side.  The positive side exists simply therein, that the entire place defended the young couple against the racist.  The negative side lies in the fact that this happened not for the right reasons.  The people, and all ahead the owner, wanted to prevent the furor, that we inflamed, ignoring what the reason of the tumult was.  As well the discussion, that raised during the entire scene, did not reach the roots of the racist fear of a Jewish-Arabic partnership.  Some of the commentaries the “public” were the following:

- Let it be, she (the Jewish woman in the partnership) will be the one, who will later cry.

 

- Why do you interfere yourself? 

 

- (a Jewish man:) so what, we fuck them too (the Arabic women)

 

- it’s a free country

 

To see a Jewish-Arabic couple, did obviously not surprise the people in the coffee.

 

The main reason that we did not reach our goal entirely, lies at missing practice.  For us, everyone, it was the first experience with “invisible theater”, and we pulled already the consequences so that the next time will be better, and deeper questions will rise.             

 

In any case I would like to emphasize that even as the first attempt it was rather clear, that the people in their first instinct want no wars.  If you don’t incite them, they want to live, want to love, to earn and to amuse.  And even if someone tries to incite them to an incorrect thing, they throw the inciter out of the place.

 

But what happens if the riot is desired and the situation requires resistance against injustice and oppression?

 

 

 

Next week we will have premiere with a new piece in the forum theater-style, a form, which we tested already in this year's activism-festival. 

 

We wish all our friends a pretty autumn and invite everyone most sincerely to write, to telephone or to visit us!

 

 

 

 

more about invisible theater:

 

http://www.junkriver.org/emergency/archive/e39/it.html

http://www.junkriver.org/anagnorisis/muse/m014.html

 

http://www.under21group.com/sfo.html

 

http://tcla.gseis.ucla.edu/rights/features/7/theater/interview.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

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