Gaza Debate Whets Israeli Appetite for Theater

The play bounces the audience among the conflict's many stages, populated by characters that are recognizable types. There are earnest Israeli families and troubled soldiers, conflicted Palestinian parents and militant demagogues, cynical human rights workers and daft security guards. The tone alternates between satiric and somber.

The set, illuminated at times by impressionistic film footage, ranges from living rooms to gravesides to the interior of a public bus where a suspected suicide bomber has taken a seat among some very nervous passengers. The scene ends with the suspect, a swarthy Israeli, doing an angry striptease for the driver.

A constant fixture is Israel's separation barrier -- the wall it is building between Israel and the West Bank -- which in one scene cuts through a Palestinian house, leaving the family's kitchen and bathroom "inside Israel."

"Do you use them much?" the Israeli construction worker asks before installing a turnstile and checkpoint in their living room. "When you need to use them, just tell the soldier it's a humanitarian case."

The narrative is loosely structured around the killing of Khalil Barhoum, 11, by Israeli soldiers confronting a demonstration. Yoav and Yoni are part of an elite Israeli army unit, as well as being brothers-in-law. Yoni, in particular, is distraught over Khalil's death, but the two soldiers file a report that states there is no evidence Khalil died because of Israeli fire. Their commanding officer's only correction is to change "Palestinian child" to "Palestinian youth," the military's preferred terminology.

Yoni's mother, Tsippi Peleg, is a good-hearted, silly woman proud of her son's military career but yearning to understand Arabs better. One Friday, she "slices vegetables for peace" for hours after forcing her husband to invite an Arab couple to dinner. The evening ends in embarrassment when she wrestles a beer from her guest because alcohol is prohibited for Muslims. To her dismay, he is Christian.

Although some Israeli characters are portrayed as callow or cruel, the soldiers are plagued by conscience. Yoni, for instance, ends the play prone on his living room couch and unable to return to the army.

That, in part, is rooted in the actors' personal histories. Yoav Levy, a Jewish actor, drew on his time serving in the territories for a scene in which he brutally kicks a young Palestinian rock-thrower huddling on the ground.

One night some soldiers from his unit attended the show, leaving the theater without saying goodbye. Levy, who thought they left angry, found them waiting at the stage door. They embraced and wept.

Neither does the play spare the Palestinians, portrayed in most cases as hapless or vengeful. A gunman kills an Israeli settler's infant in response to Khalil's death. A group of children kicking a soccer ball form the "Football Martyrs" to plan a suicide bombing. A girl with a pink backpack wins the right to wear the explosives belt, which bulges at her waist. She says she'll tell anyone who asks that she's pregnant. "I'm a shahida, I'm a shahida," the girl chants, using the Arabic word for female martyr, as she skips across the stage.

As the separation wall fell back into place at the end of a recent performance, young theater students in the first few rows jumped to their feet in a standing ovation. Older audience members clapped energetically, but most remained seated.

"It brings the story from both sides, and the pain from both sides," said Yoav Younisyan, 18, a theater student from the town of Yehuda. "It was funny, too, in a dramatic way."

The cast emerged a few minutes later and fielded questions from about 50 people waiting for them -- a regular postproduction feature. Some of the 50 praised the work; others complained bitterly over what they called its pro-Palestinian slant. A group formed around the actors. Some audience members shouted about missing historical context; others wept in frustration.

Ronen smiled.

"This is a good thing," she said. "I don't want people to just leave the theater and go home to sleep."