The Cauliflower Boy, No(se)onenowhere

Theater Review: Rakefet Levi’s amazing set for Cauliflower Boy complemented is what sticks in the mind.

By HELEN KAYE
‘The Cauliflower Boy’ 390 (photo credit: Asher Svidanski)
‘The Cauliflower Boy’ 390
(photo credit: Asher Svidanski)
Rakefet Levi’s amazing set for Cauliflower Boy complemented by Ya’akov Salib’s artful lighting is what sticks in the mind. Levi has constructed a huge tree.
Scores of chairs form the canopy and trunk, hung from the flybars and on the floor of the stage. Empty chairs that imply communion, possibility, loss, hope, all of which seem to be the themes of Cauliflower Boy, as well as nostalgia for a simpler past when children “played hide-and-seek and tag…” Except that this view of childhood is from an adult perspective – visions of The Little Prince keep coming to mind. The actors come on stage – the women in heels, the men in jackets. They shed heels and jackets and revert to childhood, or rather, the cusp between child and teen, to revisit that vision of the past, a past that encompasses both innocence, evil and what lies between.
The idea is viable. The execution lacks, not least because of the near deplorable diction. However beautifully they reproduce their mannerisms and movements – and this young and talented cast do just that – adults cannot sustain as children, and watching that failure is painful.
Director Raban-Knoller and the cast created the play but forgot to provide an editor.
There is much charm but not enough discipline.
The same is true of No(se)onenowhere, written, directed and performed on basically an empty stage by the awesomely gifted Ofir Nahari, who provides the music, lyrics and animation for Cauliflower Boy.
No(se)onenowhere is a classic clown show that illustrates in mime and gibberish Nahari’s apparent disillusion with the world that crowds in on and deafens him. The various episodes show the Clown confronting that world. One in particular charms. There is a little lopsided door, about 50 cm. high, at which a stream of people knock, some singly, some in crowds. Nahari’s responses are delicious and draw deserved laughter.
Both productions are a little raw, that’s true, but long live the Dimona Theater. It will get there.