Theater Review: Cauliflower Kid, Nobody Nowhere

Both productions are a little raw, that’s true, but long live the Dimona Theater. It will get there.

By HELEN KAYE
THE CAULIFLOWER KID 390 (photo credit: Courtesy of Asher Svidanski)
THE CAULIFLOWER KID 390
(photo credit: Courtesy of Asher Svidanski)
Rakefet Levi’s amazing set for Cauliflower Kid, 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.
The empty chairs imply communion, possibility, loss, hope, all of which seem to be the themes of Cauliflower Kid, as well as the yearning for a simpler past when children “played hide and seek and tag... ”
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 is somewhat lacking, not least because of the near deplorable diction. However beautiful their mannerisms and movements (and they are), adults cannot sustain the illusion of childhood, and watching them fail 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 NobodyNowhere, written, directed and performed on basically an empty stage by the awesomely gifted Ofir Nahari, who provides the music, lyrics and animation for Kid. Nobody 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 knocks, 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.