Arts in Brief: July 26

Woodstock revival returns to J’lem; Briza Festival celebrates 19 years; ‘Cherry Orchard’ opens Khan season.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Woodstock revival returns to J’lem
After last summer’s successful inauguration of an annual Woodstock revival show at Jerusalem’s Kraft Family Stadium, the next installment honoring the counterculture rock festival that took place 41 years ago is going down on August 5.
“The festival was such a success last year that everyone begged us to do it again,” remarked Steve Leibowitz, President of the AFI (American Football in Israel) and director of the Kraft stadium, which is hosting the six-hour show to benefit the football league.
This year’s line-up of artists playing Woodstock-era favorites includes Yael Dekelbaum from Habanot Nechama (daughter of late Taverners guitarist David Dekelbaum) paying tribute to Janis Joplin, Tree honoring The Who, Bob Dylan’s by Daniel Dor, Simon & Garfunkel’s favorites with Larry & Mindy Fogel, and Clare Diane, a recent new immigrant from California, and her band, Graffiti, rocking out with Led Zeppelin.
Last year’s standout performers, Lazer Lloyd and Yood, will return with their tribute to Jimi Hendrix (with or without a feedback-drenched “Hatikva”), and another favorite from last year, Chicago bluesman Mark Rashkow, will offer a medley of ’60s favorites, including Santana, The Rolling Stones and Joe Cocker.
Along with booths and activities for the whole family, the show will also feature the participation of Abigail Yasgur, Max Yasgur’s niece, who has recently co-authored a children’s book about the Woodstock story called Max said Yes! about how her uncle agreed to host Woodstock in 1969 on his farm in Bethel.
• David Brinn
Briza Festival celebrates 19 years
An all-star cast will be on hand to celebrate the 19th annual Briza Festival taking place August 23- 26 at the Ashkelon Amphitheater. Shlomo Artzi, Mosh Ben-Ari and Koby Peretz will lead the fourstage lineup of music and comedy stars, including Ishtar Alabina, Adir Miller, Useless ID, Yirmy Kaplan, and Eli and Mariano, and over a dozen other performers.
• David Brinn
‘Cherry Orchard’ opens Khan season
Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Khan artistic director Micki Gurevitz and with Liora Rivlin as the feckless Ranevskaya opens the 2010-11 season at the Jerusalem Khan. The last of Chekhov’s four great plays, Cherry Orchard tells the story of a provincial land-owning family whose extravagance and mismanagement force them to sell their property to cover their debts. It is also a powerful lovestory and even more, a metaphor for the passing of the old order.
The season’s other new productions are Shakespeare’s light-hearted XII Night (October 12); the very political Eating (November 3), by Ya’akov Shabtai, which retells the story of Naboth’s vineyard; Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney (May ’11), which asks what is sight; and either Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex or The Banquet, based on the famous dialogue by Plato – a play that will be written by director Gurevitz as he works with the cast.
• Helen Kaye