A stage for life

In more ways than one, Teatron Hamartef provides youth at risk with an opportunity to express themselves.

By BARRY DAVIS
Teatron Hamartef performs ‘Creon.’ (photo credit: Courtesy)
Teatron Hamartef performs ‘Creon.’
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Shakespeare may have believed that all the world’s a stage, but Vered Poleshchuk-Kat believes that thespian endeavor can also offer powerful therapeutic rewards for those who tread the boards. As manager of Teatron Hamartef (The Basement Theater) in the German Colony, Poleshchuk-Kat is clearly in the right job. In addition to her managerial role, which she assumed a year ago, she has been teaching at the theater for five years.
As well as offering quality theatrical entertainment, Hamartef has set its stall in various areas that are designed to provide society with some added value.
The institution’s website spells out two primary objectives, the first of which reads: “To provide a professional framework for studying the art of acting, which can be used as a means for achieving personal empowerment.” Hot on its heels, we find that the company also aims “To create intimate quality theater that meets artistic and professional values of the highest standard.”
Judging by the performance of Creon I saw last week, starring veteran actor Yitzhak Peker in the title role, alongside theater students Bar Binyamin and Haim Sofer, the second of those goals is duly being achieved.
Teatron Hamartef came into being in 2006 in an old Templer building on the corner of Patterson and Emek Refaim streets. The shows take place in a subterranean space – hence, the company’s name. The youngsters who study and perform at Teatron Hamartef all bring some heavy personal baggage with them. They are initially defined as “at risk youth who are gifted in the field of performing arts.”
The Creon credit roster also features Yefim Rinenberg, who filled the costume designer berth, together with Irit Bahem.
He also directed the play and was there nine years ago when the theater company sprang to life.
“It really was almost like draining the swamps,” notes Rinenberg with a chuckle.
“The deck we’re sitting on, if you use a flight of fantasy, could have been called ‘a garden,’ but it was really a pile of mud,” he recalls. “There was only one small opening into the basement, and the place was really neglected.”
The principal founding father of the venture was Hagai Nachmani, who started out with modest resources and big dreams.
“He had a budget for two months and grand ideas,” says Rinenberg.
“Before that, Hagai worked at Beit Hatzabarit, which is a hostel for at-risk girls aged 17 to 24 who don’t live with their parents for all sorts of reasons,” explains Poleshchuk-Kat. “Hagai worked with one girl, using theater as a means of therapy.”
As it happens, the hostel occupies the top floor of the building in Patterson Street.
“Hagai looked for a venue for the girl to perform,” she continues. There was a door on the ground level of the building that had been shut for as long as anyone could remember. They opened the door and discovered the basement. I think that was the initial spark for the theater. Together with Amutat Enav, which runs the hostel, and with the Jerusalem Foundation – other partners joined in later – they started the theater.”
The description of the theater’s inchoate endeavor sounds akin to something from the annals of Zionist pioneering.
“In those first weeks, the electricity supply was unreliable at best. We didn’t really have a proper door. When we arrived in the morning, a bunch of cats would spring out, and sometimes a bunch of homeless characters would come out too,” says Rinenberg.
The swamp-draining metaphor is once again pressed into service.
“In the winter we’d have a pool of water in the basement one meter deep, and we gradually began to make the place habitable. The students helped, and their parents, too, as well as all sorts of good souls. We got hold of some chairs, and then we made a stage, someone donated some lighting and, bit by bit, we got up and running,” he recounts.
The first group comprised 16 youngsters brought in by Nachmani from places around Jerusalem where young people, especially those with serious domestic and other challenges, hung out.
“He’d go to Zion Square at two in the morning and talk to the gang there,” Rinenberg continues. “He also contacted school counselors, psychology professionals, social workers and that sort of thing,” adds Poleshchuk-Kat.
Rinenberg believes that art in general, and theater in particular, are perfectly suited to the human hinterland to which the company caters.
“Hagai’s basic premise with regard to Teatron Hamartef was that theatrical talent is to be found in the realms of risk. That’s where you find theatrical talent in this age group. So that’s where we want to go, to accommodate people who have no other channel for expressing and developing their talents. We’ll give them the place and possibility to do that here,” he says.
Poleshchuk-Kat also notes that the company provides youngsters who have been rejected by their natural support group – the family – with a supportive framework that can help to cultivate their natural talents and enhance their self-esteem.
“These youngsters, who are looking for a way of expressing themselves, for something to associate with and have a passion for theater and are looking for a place that is ready to accept them for what they are, found that Hamartef was a good option,” she says.
Rinenberg points out that the youngsters who join the company don’t exactly get an easy ride, either.
“Theater is a very demanding business. It requires you to be connected to yourself and to your body, have mastery of your physical abilities and emotions, have the ability to communicate with others, handle pressure, discipline, the ability to perform in front of an audience, cooperate within a group, have responsibility and independence… You have to learn all that. Even if you ultimately decide not to work in theater, it provides you with a strong foundation for life,” he says.
Binyamin certainly goes along with that line of thought. She says she has been through some challenging roles to date. “Taking on a new part is difficult, like experiencing a birth,” she says. “There are gestation and labor pains, but in the end the baby comes out. The baby continues to grow and develop and to feed and change.”
The 24-year-old knows what she’s talking about and has become quite the seasoned professional.
“I have been with Hamartef for seven years,” she says. “When I got here, I was a lost soul and had no confidence. When I was on the stage, I felt freer than I’d ever felt in my life. The stage was a safer place for me and somewhere I could express myself.”
That was evident in last week’s production of Creon. The Binyamin I saw on the basement stage displayed absolutely no lack of confidence and put in a highly convincing performance.
Prior to treading the boards professionally, Binyamin completed the full three-year course at the Hamartef school and has been a fullblown actress for the last four years. There are currently 20 students at the school.
Gil Cohen, who acts in one of the other three current Hamartef productions – The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother, based on the book of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez – concurs with Binyamin’s take on the company’s toughening-up process.
“It is not an easy thing to do, act in theater. But as scary and difficult as it is, it is so rewarding. We can get angry and often there are tears, but this is the greatest fun you can have,” states Cohen. “But I don’t think there is anything I have done here that hasn’t challenged me, and I am so thankful for that.”
For more information about Teatron Hamartef: 563-9975 and www.martef.org.il