English theater takes the stage in Jerusalem

April 16, 2011 - 9:08 PM by David

The Maccabee Queen is one of the attractions of the Stage One #2 festival.

English-language theater of the amateur variety is getting a big boost this Pessah, as the the Jerusalem cultural center Beit Avi Chai, in collaboration with Merkaz Hamagshimim Hadassah, is hosting Stage One #2 – three days English-language theater.

Claiming to offer a unique perspective on issues of identity and culture from both local and international perspectives, the lineup for the three days during Chol Hamoed (the intermediary days of Pessah) include plays, music and stand up comedy by local Anglo Jerusalemites.

Highlights include The Maccabee Queen, a feminist play set in the tumultuous period of the Hasmonean kingdom and S.Y. Agnon’s story The Fable of the Goat

The Maccabee Queen is a play, written in iambic pentameter by Jerusalem resident Lauri Donahue, telling the story of Queen Alexandra – aka Shlomtzion Hamalka – quite faithfully as reported by Josephus and mentioned in the Talmud.

She was reading Josephus, and said “wow, this reads like Shakespeare!” with civil war among brothers, fratricide, matricide. So the play reads like what Shakespeare would have done with Josephus.

The Fable of the Goat finds S.Y. Agnon, the Nobel Prize laureate and one of the founding fathers of modern Hebrew literature, using language to evoke pathos, humor and biblical narrative in a dramatic story. . Other plays include Jewtopia, a comedy about two friends who team up to teach each other how to woo the women of their choice, and Mikveh, a drama about a new mikveh attendant involved in intrigue and suspicion.

Jerusalem’s leading English improv group Hahafuch will lighten things up with their sketches about Jewish identity, Israel, aliyah, and religion in Israel, and local piano man Ben Draiman present From Within – by The Ben Draiman Music Project.

The English-speaking community in Jerusalem will be able to kvell in pride at this display of talent offered in Stage One #2.

Share with others