A short evening of theater

The plays average 15 to 20 minutes, and most take a light-hearted view of life, complexities included at no extra charge.

By HELEN KAYE
Tzavta Tel Aviv is holding its 11th Short Play Festival from December 17 to 20, with all seven plays presented each night and twice on Friday and Saturday. This will be no hardship, because the plays average 15 to 20 minutes, and most take a light-hearted view of life, complexities included at no extra charge. The seven, chosen from 120 submissions, are Waiting for Ninette, Midnight Train, Latecomer, Premiere, Clowns, The "V" Sign and Gamers. Festival artistic director Shalom Shmuelov points out that some of this year's playwrights are established screenwriters, such as Omer Tadmor, one of the writers of TV's It's All Honey. His Premiere concerns minding a bag on the beach and the ever-expanding circles of responsibility. Benzi Idissis's Midnight Train is about a girl who is going to leap onto the railroad tracks and the man who seeks to stop her. In Ninette by Yaron Fried, we learn that if you're not a current celeb, you occupy a black hole. Efrat Aravot's set will serve all four, to be presented in Tzavta 1. Tzavta 3 is host to Assaf Tzafor's Gamers that probes the transition from childhood to the adult world; V by Michal Aharoni, asks "now what?" when she and her lover meet after he's been elected prime minister; and Maor Gillerman's Clowns directed by the inimitable, and wonderful Julian Chagrin, attempts to interpret life's absurdities. For these, the set designer is Michal Jacoby.