SEVEN JEWISH CHILDREN. To 21 February.

London.

SEVEN JEWISH CHILDREN
by Caryl Churchill.

Royal Court Theatre (Jerwood Theatre Downstairs) To 21 February 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30, mats Sat 3.30;
Runs 10 min No interval.
Review: Carole Woddis 19 February.

Seven children, ten minutes and a blazing commitment.
Yes, you read it right. 10 minutes; the length of Caryl Churchill’s `response’ to Gaza. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, `quick response’ could be applied as much to the Arts as to the emergency services. Now a quick theatrical response is rare. It evidently takes something traumatic to fire artists’ and writers’ imaginations these days. Gaza is clearly such a thing.

Churchill is to be applauded therefore for returning topical urgency to our theatre – though some might have wished she had held back. The play has attracted a firestorm of criticism from many in the British Jewish community. Clearly writing in heat, Churchill, typically, has found a new format - an arc that attempts to trace the recent history of the Jews, from the Holocaust, through the settling of Israel, and taking us up to Gaza.

Seven short scenes follow a similar pattern. A group of family relatives intone `Tell her’ to an unseen child, outlining what has passed over a span of roughly 70 years. At first their account elicits sympathy but gradually their views become more distasteful. At the end, an Israeli father delivers a speech of pure, cold-hearted callousness. We have come full circle. This, implies Churchill, is what has happened to the Jewish people, as Israelis. In the wake of the Holocaust, victims have turned perpetrators, the brutalised brutalisers.

It’s a shocking piece shot through with outrage and agony, not least for British Jews. Churchill seems to have gone out of her way to paint the Israelis in their darkest colours. There are no opposing voices, only Israeli ones becoming shriller by the minute. No wonder there has been such an outcry. No distinction has been made between Jew and Israeli – a crucial one that leads to constant misunderstanding.

Directed by Dominic Cooke with a predominantly Jewish cast, Seven Jewish Children was shown as a companion piece to Marius von Mayenburg’s The Stone. Although not planned as such, Churchill’s 10 minutes echo his themes of Time, occupation and the painful, shifting claims of settlers to `home’, with an uncompromising clarity, where Mayenburg was often cloudy.

Cast:
Ben Caplan, Jack Chissick, David Horovitch, Daisy Lewis, Ruth Posner, Samuel Roukin, Jennie Stoller, Susannah Wise, Alexis Zegerman

Director: Dominic Cooke
Lighting: Matt Drury
Sound: David McSeveney
Costume: Iona Kenrick
Assistant director: Natalie Ibu

The text of Seven Jewish Children is available to download from wwwroyalcourttheatre.com; wwwnickhernbooks.co.uk; www.casarotto.co.uk/page/sjc

2009-03-03 03:18:10