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World Jewish News
Yiddish play spurs Austrian city to revisit WWII past
16.03.2009
A play dealing with the subject of the second and third generations of Holocaust survivors, premiered last week in the Austrian city of Linz. The play has presented an opportunity for Linz - designated by the European Union European as its Capital of Culture for 2009 - to come to terms with its past, as the city once planned to be the cultural capital of the Third Reich.
The play, "Purim Spiel," written by Joshua Sobol and directed by fringe-theater artist David Ma'ayan, is to be staged nightly through Saturday.
Ma'ayan's unique theatrical language comes to the fore through his use of real, historical sites and other elements in the play, which is performed in tunnels dug under the city of Linz during World War II by prisoners from the Mauthausen concentration camp.
This is a first collaboration for Israelis Ma'ayan and Sobol, who wrote the play in Yiddish to help create a connection to the German language. Jewish and Gypsy music written by the Gypsy singer Ida Kelarova accompanies the production.
The Israeli-Austrian-German cast and production team includes four Austrian actors who appeared in Ma'ayan's previous work, "Family Table." Angelika Kiser-Ma'ayan, Ma'ayan's Austrian-born wife, is the dramatist.
"Purim Spiel" is to some extent the sequel to "Arbeit Macht Frei" - Ma'ayan's unforgettable work, presented at the Acco Festival for Alternative Theater in 1991, which dealt with the second generation of the Holocaust.
"The intent is to arouse public discourse on issues that have been forgotten by the second and the third generation," Ma'ayan told Ha'aretz.
The subject of the third generation of survivors is also reflected in a play by Yael Ronen, "Third Generation," due to premier Friday in Berlin - a collaborative effort between the Habima Theater and Berlin's Schaubuhne Theater, considered one of the world's most important theaters.
Ronen and playwrights Amit Epstein and Irina Sudruk say they are attempting, together with a cast of actors including Israelis, Germans and Palestinians, to delve into "the deepest foundations of the three nations, focusing on the contemporary perspective of each of the participants." The play will also be staged in Berlin in April and May, and in October by Habima in Israel.
By Zipi Shohat
Источник: Haaretz
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