Miriam Kainy: The Survivor Artist on the Establishment Stage

Babatha, Yosefa and Bianca are the female Jewish protagonists of three works by the Israeli playwright Miriam Kainy: Babatha, The End of the Dream Season and Bianca. I discuss these plays as a single text, presenting, from the playwright’s point of view, the Jewish survivor woman as she develops in sequence from one play to the next. These three women protagonists may be seen as “one body” expressing Kainy’s own feminist stance. I focus on two main aspects. The first is the characterization of this real flesh and blood woman: her appearance, thoughts and feelings; how she operates and is received by her social environment; and the tactics Kainy employs to reveal this woman. Second, I examine Kainy’s real woman, who took shape during the 1990s, as a source of empowerment for women in contemporary society, and this playwright’s contribution to the ongoing, controversial feminist discourse on the validity of realistic feminine writing within the mainstream/ establishment theater.