A monodrama is a one-person play, and this year, the festival’s 28th, there are a record 12 of them.
By HELEN KAYE'Wadi Milach'(photo credit: GERARD ALON)
A highlight of Hol Hamoed Passover is the monodrama festival TheaterNetto – which takes place this year from April 1-4, mostly at the Jaffa and Simta theaters in Old Jaffa – and the spaces of the Crusader Fortress in Acre’s Old City.A monodrama is a one-person play, and this year, the festival’s 28th, there are a record 12 of them.They are mostly by Israelis and about the slings and arrows of our daily lives here. Among the rest, they will be competing for the Nissim Azikri Prize for Best Play.Remaining Alice by Dana Stendahl is based on Lisa Genova’s Still Alice, the story of a Harvard professor who fights to retain as much of herself as she can when bludgeoned with early-onset Alzheimers; Yahav Gal’s Lulka is a story of man’s hopes and dreams, based on a fable by the Besht. The Besht, as most know, was the 18th-century rabbi Israel Ben-Eliezer, a mystic and father of Hassidism; Once I Was Really Beautiful by Tahel Ran plunges us into the curse of opioid addiction in which addict Heli, down and out, battles her demons for her life; Wajdi Mouawad’s Splinter in the Heart tells of Wahab, a young Lebanese pursued by traumatic memories, who invents an imaginary and beautiful world to cope with the past; Mali’s Show by Sagit Segal tell the story of a homeless woman who finds courage and consolation in the stuff she collects; Wadi Milach tells the story (based on the book of the same name by Orna Akad) of how in 2020, accepting the Nobel Prize, a Palestinian poet’s thoughts race back to a troubled past; all that stands between us and happiness is life is the provocative premise How to Be Happy in 10 Steps by Ma’ayan Even.And on the plaza outside the Jaffa Theater, theater students from the Seminar Hakibbutzim of their take on the theme of “the last birthday” in a series of Performance Gigs.Last but not least: TheaterNetto was the brainchild of producer Yaakov Agmon, who still runs it. Now there are monodrama festivals all over, and in the port city of Kiel, Germany, their festival includes a TheaterNetto play.
Related TagsJaffa
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
