The Terror of Barbarism and the Return to History: Between the Text and the Performance of Murder by Hanoch Levin

This essay argues that the two versions of the play, namely, the written text and its mise-en-scène do not communicate an identical message: to a large extent, the production resists the nihilistic world picture projected in the text. The play argues that the compulsive destructiveness of the Israeli occupier vitiates the occupied, drawing them into endless cycles of mutually inflicted suffering. While trying to remain as faithful as possible to the play, the conceptualization of the theatrical event was bound to take into consideration the Israeli spectators' political and emotional mindset vis-à-vis the occupation. The production thus treads a thin line between the play's dark vision of Israel irrevocably sliding into savagery and a humanistic-liberal perspective which attenuates the message by seeking a balanced representation of the conflict.