Joy, by God at the Jerusalem Theater Festival

These days, we could all do with a generous helping of curative support. If your cultural tipple tends towards the theatrical side of the performing arts, the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio could be just the play for you when the Jerusalem Theater Festival takes place at the capital’s downtown campus December 20-23. And just to make the remedial intent absolutely clear the program slogan reads Theater, Healing, Repair.

And what could be more refreshing than a slew of first fruits from recent graduates of the celebrated acting school? The Larishona (First Time) category features works by young directors from the Studio’s Graduate Incubator, and the roster makes for intriguing reading.

The five-parter series starts at 7 p.m., both on December 20 and 21, with the eclectic theatrical offering taking in About a Girl and Death by Lia Kovo, about a young girl who refuses to accept her father’s death.

Sharon Bardali’s Pardon My French appears to feed straight off our current co mbat predicament as it tells the tale of three New Wave directors from France looking to make a movie here, against the backdrop of the war, when they encounter a young woman looking for her boyfriend who got caught up in the fighting. In One Body by Eliav Shaul, an excited yet apprehensive groom sees the happiest day in his life go belly up, while Itai Salhov opts for “an immersive detective” dramatic style in Aveidot VeMetziyot (Losses and Bargains). 

Eitan Tsvick’s 25-minute play Sawdust is based very much on his own recent experiences, and tackles the sticky business of the divide between Orthodox and secular Jewry, looking for a balance between the two that might be acceptable to all parties. That may sound a little somber and leaning towards the serious and heavy side of theatrical endeavor but the program description of the play as “when Shissel Met Hamilton – A Hassidic Rap Musical” allays any concerns over having to sit through a turgid production.

Characters, genre, and plot

The 25-year-old Nissan Nativ graduate hails from an Orthodox family with haredi roots. Tsvick, who recently got married, is currently hovering betwixt and between, looking for a lifestyle that sits well with him and his wife. “I come from a national religious home, and my grandparents are haredim,” Tsvick notes. “We were always talking about where we belong on the religious scale, between haredi and secular.”

That provides much of the Sawdust plot which centers on a restless, fun-loving haredi yeshiva student who secretly teaches himself to play the guitar. He soon lands in hot water and finds himself slung out on his rear end.

As he tries to make his way in the alien outside world he comes across a salsa music center to which, he feels, he was guided by divine intervention. Hence the musical anchor of the play which takes in “traditional nigunim and rap, Yiddishkeit and groove” as our hero – shock! horror! – mixes with dancers of both sexes and his soul cries out for freedom and a joyful place in the world.

ALL ART must, to some degree or other, have an autobiographical element to it.

Sawdust follows that memoir mindset and the budding playwright had a colorful larger-than-life inspirational character very close to home. “What inspired me to write this play was the story of my uncle, Eli,” Tsvick explains. “I remember him from dinners with my grandparents. On the one hand he looked like the archetypal secular Tel Aviv Jew.” But he sounded very different. “When he started singing, Shabbat nigunim and Bobover (hassidic) marches you could see he reached higher spiritual spheres. You felt the connection to more elevated planes.”

That got the youngster’s gray matter working overtime. “That always fascinated and intrigued me, the contrast. And the more I witnessed that it began to spark a sense of conflict in me. On the one hand, I love the religion, the tradition, the nigunim and the whole way of life. But, on the other hand, I had a lot of problems with it. There were all the constraints, the education and the way they relate to anyone who is different.” 

Art provided Tsvick with a cerebral and emotional outlet, and he began to articulate his dilemma in his burgeoning theatrical craft. “I thought let’s talk about this. And, in the last few years, I have been exposed to a lot of rap-style musicals, like [2015 American Tony and Grammy Award winning] Hamilton [An American Musical], and there’s an Israeli rap musical called Ha’ir Hazot (This Town).” Sawdust is clearly in good company. I caught the latter seductively entertaining work, at Jerusalem’s Beit Mazia, back in 2019.

Tsvick says he was taken with the verbal side of the genre, and decided to run with it along his own artistic and individual lines. “There was something about the idiom which really grabbed me. I love this style.”

Uncle Eli’s amazing Technicolored life story continued to fuel Tsvick’s nascent creative aspirations. He couldn’t have imagined a richer, more fantastic muse. Eli’s life followed an ever-increasingly bumpy road as he was ostracized by the Orthodox community, and subsequently by his wife and son. The world of the yeshiva and the hard and fast rules of the religious community were clearly not for him.

Much of that features in Sawdust as Tsvick follows suit, to a degree, in his own search for meaning and where he feels most comfortable. “The place is about someone who is looking for their place in the world. Can they live in the haredi world?” he muses. Is that about Uncle Eli or about Tsvick himself? Good question. “It is tough being in both worlds,” says the young writer as he continues to grapple with his religious allegiances, and where his path through life leads. “I would like to say I belong completely to the religious world but I can’t,” he declares.

For now, that appears to be on hold as 25-year-old Tsvick wends his way through the big existential questions. However that pans out, for now, we have a fun-looking production to enjoy over at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio this week with, no doubt, more creative endeavor to sample ahead.

For tickets and more information: (02) 672-1133 and https://www.nissan-nativ.org.il/he/pestival23