Theater Review: Third Generation

Theater Review Third Ge

By HELEN KAYE
Third Generation Written and directed by Yael Ronen Habima and the Schaubühne, Berlin Theaters October 27 A "work in progress," Yael Ronen and her co-creators (the actors) call this performance piece, and so it is, because the events and situations to which 3G relate are not static, and attitudes towards them necessarily fluctuate. 3G takes on the Holocaust, German Jewish relationships, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, interaction among Germans and Germans, Jews and Jews, Muslim and Christian Arabs, and each with the other of whatever nationality. It is accomplished with daring, wit, humor and skewers absolutely everything from political correctness to (gulp!) the Holocaust itself. Right, left and center, 3G takes on sacred perceptual cows and subjects them to scrutiny that becomes progressively less polite. 3G is at once high camp and a very serious attempt by the generation that is twice removed from the actual events "to comprehend the foundations upon which our personal identity is based within a particular national context," as the program notes put it. Such comprehension, the piece suggests, may be beyond reach precisely because of the particular national context. The Israeli, Arab and German cast is nothing less than superb, with particular plaudits due to Niels Bormann, Orit Nahmias and Ishay Golan. A great and challenging evening of theater.