The Akko Fringe Theater Festival dares to reconstruct cherished beliefs - review

The sights were aplenty Sunday at Acre’s Knights Halls as the International Fringe Theater Festival got underway. Nineteen Shaolin Monks in gray robes walked by El-Jazzar Mosque on their way to offer a public demonstration of their Kung Fu skills, as director Shahar Marom admitted the first audience members for his production A House for Three, at the nearby Okshi Art Museum.

A House for Three is an audience-generated performance, with patrons asked to enter the space in groups of three. Each member is offered a color: red, green, or blue.

As the three progress, they encounter different stations in the life of Madame Levin, a Jewish girl orphaned during the Great War who must survive dangerous times. Each station has a contraption the viewers must activate together to create the scene.

At one station, a letter from Levin’s dead father is read by a group member as another shells the third whenever the word “Germans” is spoken. At another station, a passage across the Atlantic becomes a genteel party game. Because the serving table shakes during the stormy sea voyage, glasses placed on it must be caught by the three participants before they fall off it and break.

The House for Three in the title alludes to a love triangle which ends in tears as Levin murders the couple involved in this entanglement. In prison, she falls in love with a fellow-inmate who is later executed in an electric chair. One in the group of visitors will get to ride Old Sparky while this scene plays out.

Intriguing and lively, this production demands its viewers give it more than just attention. Audience members must read, follow instructions, operate machines, and surrender to a fictional life which is at times quite bizarre.

Due to the time this takes, patrons are admitted to the museum every 10 minutes; it is therefore crucial that ticket holders show up at the given time.

ACTOR AND playwright Ala Dakka offers a comedic approach to trauma in his Mangali Passport, a theatrical tight-rope walk he performs beautifully alongside Hanna Azoulay Hasfari. Hasfari plays the mother of an Arab man named Watan (homeland). Watan (Dakka) is selected to receive citizenship in the fictional state of Mangali.

Mangali is a pastiche of several ideas concerning what a better homeland might be like. It is a goldene medina because Watan will make more money there. It is a beautiful island. Its gibberish language sounds Nordic, linking it to the successful socialist models of the northern countries.

The catch is this, to get this coveted new life, Watan must kick his mother’s rear.

Dakka is not the first to employ this gimmick. Hanoch Levin used it in 1983 in a cabaret titled The Patriot. Levin’s Jewish protagonist is asked to spit on his mother to get a US immigration visa in order to avoid being killed in the next Arab-Israeli war.

Dakka’s Palestinian nebbish (ne’er do well) won’t be asked to defend the Jewish homeland. He feels he and his mother will be “the first to drown on this sinking ship.” Watan can accept what his mother is unable to. Their village of origin was blown up, covered in concrete, and turned into a parking lot. If the Palestinian dream is to undo the Zionist project by using the right of return or rebuild the Mughrabi Quarter where the Western Wall Plaza is now, Watan has already woken up from it.

The wonderful supporting cast includes Almog Rozano and Zev Shimshoni. They play Jewish-Israeli security guards hired by the state of Mangali to ensure Watan follows through and leaves. This performance is a strong contender in this year’s contest.

An outstanding cast on stage

BONIEL OFRI, wearing high heels and a pink suit, is a god-like diva in Or Lagoyim (Skin Unto the Gentiles, a play on ”light unto the nations” with the words for “skin” and “light” sounding the same). This uplifting spoken-word opera depicts the life of a child (Omer Perelman) with a foreskin too difficult to remove. Ofri shines as a Tel Aviv kindergarten teacher and her fantastic performance deserves high praise.

The entire cast of Or Lagoyim is outstanding. Sapir Rosenfeld and Roy Abramovich excel in their dynamics as parents of a surprising child – who are struggling to make ends meet. If the contest offered a laurel for composing, Ilil Lev Kenaan would wear one today. This stunningly irreverent production is by Habayit Theater.

A SHOT FIRED in the Valley is a court drama depicting the 1959 trial of David Ben-Harush. The Wadi Salib (Valley of the Cross) Haifa riots erupted due to the widespread feelings of many North African Jewish immigrants that they were being mistreated in comparison to new arrivals from Europe. Ben-Harush was seen as the person responsible for these riots.

The theatrical Ben-Harush, incarnated by Ori Sa’ada in a deeply moving performance, rages against this reality. He points out to his wife (Alexa Lerner) a new block of flats being built near their street.

“These apartments will be given to immigrants from Poland,” he spits out, “they will be able to give them to their children when they are gone, and you? What will you give your children?”

The play brings back names not spoken for quite some time. Among these are Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, ardent Zionist Rabbi Yitzhak Abihatzeira, and Hapoel Brigades – created by Mapai to police the streets against those who would challenge the party. These names now sound among us again, on stage, 70 years after their time.

Harush (Sa’ada) is meant to be a tragic hero but the play does not make him a martyr. He is often confronted by those who ask him: Is there really a system grinding you down – or are you mad at your own failings? His response “one person making it does not erase 1,000 men who do not,” is still valid today.

When Sa’ada exclaims that “we need to erase this idea they [European Jews] came here with, that they can rebuild Europe in this land” his words vibrate differently because they are pronounced inside a castle built by the Crusaders.

One should not paint too rosy a picture of Jewish life in North Africa. The original Abihatzeira was murdered by bandits in Morocco. Jewish life in Europe ought not to be reduced to a concentration camp either. Yet this spellbinding performance is an outstanding study of Israel’s deep traumas. Meir Tamam is fantastic in his supporting role. In a court scene, Tamam tells the judge how, as a child in Morocco, he fasted so that God would save the Jews of Europe from Hitler. This scene will move anyone lucky enough to see it.

VISITORS WOULD do well to return to the Okshi Art Museum and look at the paintings. Born to Yemenite Jewish parents, Avshalom Okshi was refused paint when he requested his kibbutz buy it for him. He sold kibbutz sheep to local Arabs and used the money to buy art supplies. Okshi was kicked out of the kibbutz – and eventually became an artist of note.

A House for Three, Wednesday, October 3, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Entrance is in groups of three every 10 minutes.

A Mangali Passport, Wednesday, October 3, at noon and 3:30 p.m.

A Shot Fired in the Valley, Wednesday, October 3, noon and 3:30 p.m.

The Shaolin Monks will display their skills in two, free, 15-minute outdoors performances on Wednesday, October 3, at 6:35 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets are sent via texts.

Open them before you go to the halls, reception is bad inside the castle walls. All shows are in Hebrew. Call *2207 to buy tickets or visit accofestival.co.il/