CROSSING JERUSALEM. To 12 APRIL
London
CROSSING JERUSALEM
by Julia Pascal
Tricycle Theatre To 12 April 2003
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 4pm
Runs: 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7328 1000
Review: Ian Willox 19th March 2003
Political dynamite seen in all its human complexity.March 2002. At a restaurant in an Arab village outside Jerusalem a brittle Israeli family are celebrating the daughter-in-law’s thirtieth birthday. Their Palestinian waiter demands $5,000. Not for himself but as reparations for his father, who worked for the family many years ago as an illegal servant.
Crossing Jerusalem is full of intractable problems with roots far back into history. The Israeli family, who arrived as stateless refugees and who capitalised their business from German reparations, are confronted by a stateless Palestinian demanding reparations for the loss of his country and his father.
In turn each member of the drama reveals the corrosive insolubility of co-existence in Israel like a scorpion stinging itself: the son, frozen out from his wife by his army experiences in the territories. The mother, an estate agent who houses her own family in property taken from the Arabs, whilst proclaiming her right to a home in Israel. The Palestinian waiter trying to prevent his baby brother from becoming a casualty of the intifada.
These are all people who, for the best of reasons and motives, are perpetuating the cruel cycle of violence, injustice and hatred.
Julia Pascal’s play tries to make emotional sense of this Arab Israeli conflict and what it means to live in a city where the next bus ride across Jerusalem could be your last. There are no solutions. There are no villains. And there are no angels. Only people, with lives so entangled that any move is bound to hurt others, however unintentionally.
Yet in a way Pascal tells too much. Her characters spend a disproportionate amount of the production informing us of their past and their predicament. Even good actors suffer if every inference and nuance is spelt out in a line. And there are good actors in this production: Suzanne Bertish as the workaholic mother “with balls” and Miranda Pleasence as the promiscuous daughter to start with.
But the best performance of the night is undoubtedly Nabil Elouahabi as the Palestinian waiter. The intensity of his performance eclipses the others. And it is perhaps significant that he ends the play.
The final scene is the Hadassah Hospital. The Israeli family wait to hear if their son has survived a bus bombing. The Palestinian waiter arrives to identify the remains of his baby brother who was also on the bus. Perhaps the bomber of the bus.
The Israeli Palestinian divide grows deeper. The Israeli son dies. And the Palestinian tears his shirt, left and right. It’s called “tearing the Kria” – a custom among the very close family of the deceased. A Jewish custom.
Sharif: Daniel Ben-Zenou
Gideon: Adam Levy
Yael: Galit Hershkovitz
Varda: Suzanne Bertish
Serguei: Constantine Gregory
Lee: Miranda Pleasence
Sammy: Jack Raymond
Yusuf: Nabil Elouahabi
Director: Jack Gold
Designer: Pamela Howard
Lighting: Matthew Eagland
Sound: Crispian Covell (for Aura)
2003-03-21 01:46:12