Theater in Israel (review)

Hebrew Studies 38 (1997) 203 Reviews THEATER IN ISRAEL. Linda Ben-Zvi, ed. Theater: Theoryrrext/ Performance. Pp. xxi + 450. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Cloth. Both as producers and consumers, Jews are remarkably well represented in the perfonnance arts of the last century. This is particularly true of "show business." No cultural history of American Jewry, for example, can ignore the flourishing Second Avenue Yiddish theater of the mass migration era, nor its subsequent influence on the motion picture industry. However, this enthusiastic diaspora participation can be dismissed as ultimately expressing an effort to assimilate to the larger society. What happens in Israel, where Jews constitute the majority? How effective is a theater language which derives both from biblical cadences and contemporary army slang? How are the sensibilities, moods, visions, and nightmares of its diverse, heterogeneous public reflected onstage? What unique themes and original strategies can Israeli theater claim? Professor Linda Ben-Zvi has assembled an impressive array of essays, articles, reports, and interviews which, with her own contributions, explore these questions and many other facets of Israel's theater world. As has long been apparent, whatever inhibitions remained stemming from ancient associations of the theater with Hellenism and hedonism have been overcome for the vast majority of Israelis. Theater in Israel is a very popular and significant feature of the cultural landscape. In proportion to its population, theater attendance is quite high and the socio-economic range of theater patrons is unusually broad. This seeming fervor for the stage may be due in part to the special context of theatrical activity in Israel. The reader learns that about 60% of the total is state-supported or municipally affiliated, and 70% of theater tickets are purchased at the workplace. Theater criticism figures notably in the reading habits and conversational topics of the cultural elite. The colorful background of Israel's present day theater is the first subject scrutinized. Its history and the unfolding of its dramatic traditions are traced from the earliest pre-state beginnings to the latest fringe theater components. In one professional sense, it has come full-circle, from the arrival of the Habima players schooled by Vakhtangov and Stanislavsky to the founding of the top-rated Gesher Theater, made up-like Habima in its day--of newcomers from Russia. Succeeding sections are devoted to characteristic trends in Israeli drama. Included are an examination of the image of the Arab in the country's plays Hebrew Studies 38 (1997) 204 Reviews and a symposium on independent Arab drama and theater. Important European influences interpreted by Israeli playwrights are analyzed as well as the persistent leiunotif materials of the Holocaust and the Akeda trauma, evoked directly or indirectly. For the most part, these sections are wellwritten and avoid the turgid prose and esoteric terminology of dramaturgical specialists. However, the prime feature of this book is its success in familiarizing the reader with Israel's best-known playwrights: Nissim Aloni, Hanoch Levin, and Yehoshua Sobol. The combined studies, comparative descriptions, and interviews highlight the messages inherent in their work and vividly clarify why their plays, as commentaries on the Israeli reality, provoke intense and painful controversy. Two shortcomings blunt the book's impact. One is easily corrected. Inadequate proofreading and copy editing left a trail of typos and inconsistent usages that confuse or jar the reader. The second involves content. As Ben-Zvi readily concedes, Israeli theater is strongly secular, leftist, and liberal. Yet it seems an excess of political correctness to deem specific Jewish attachment to the land "racist" whereas Arab attachment is depicted as romantic. The term "sexist" is reserved for the religious or conservative critic; the misogyny in Hanoch Levin's plays does not earn him this title. Thorough adoption of Arab perceptions in Arab-Israeli disputes is likened to recent Hollywood focus on the cause of the Native American. Butabsent any Native American threat to the continued existence of the United States-the parallel is certainly clumsy. Moreover, even a secularized Jewish culture would identify Hanukkah as an eight day holiday everywhere -not, as appendix 3 claims, "seven days in Israel." It would date Purim as the fourteenth of Adar rather than "the...