All the world’s a therapist’s couch

One man, 18 characters, 75 minutes. How funny is comedian Jeremy Bracka?

By BARRY DAVIS
Jeremy Bracka (photo credit: EMMANUEL SANTOS)
Jeremy Bracka
(photo credit: EMMANUEL SANTOS)
Bedfellows may not be the most accurate epithet to attach to a pairing of Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres, Oslo Accords notwithstanding, but Jeremy Bracka has managed to get the two together for his solo show Arafat in Therapy. It will take place on April 6 at 8 pm. at the Nalagaat Center in Jaffa Port as part of this year’s Teatronetto Festival.
The three-day festival will take place at various venues around Jaffa from April 6 to 8. The Teatronetto program features plays from Romania, the United Kingdom, Poland, Ireland and Israel.
Truth be told, describing Arafat in Therapy as a one-man show is slightly misleading, as Arafat and Peres have plenty of company on stage because Australian-born Bracka flits among no fewer than 18 characters in 75 minutes flat.
This is not just a parody of the cultural, religious, ethnic and political machinations that continue to generate friction, color and no end of comedic material in this part of the world. And we are not talking about a satire produced by someone observing Middle Eastern maneuvering from afar, someone whose understanding of regional developments is based almost entirely on media reports on CNN, the BBC and the like.
The 36-year-old Bracka has definitively been there and done that.
“I spent some time working for various institutions of the Israeli government, including being part of the Israeli mission to the United Nations in New York,” he explains.
At this point, it may be useful to note that in addition to being a trained actor, playwright and satirist, Bracka earns his crust as a lawyer who specializes in human rights.
“I spent my first seven months in Israel working for the Peres Center for Peace. It was during that time, as well as being in New York and my time working for the Foreign Ministry, that [I got] the idea of Arafat and Shimon Peres in couples therapy. The whole concept, the whole sort of Western New Age paradigm of the peace process and the idea of people talking things out and getting to some miraculous resolution – I guess the farce of that always amused me, particularly having two obviously very different cultures being mediated by another culture, that struck me as a brilliant idea for comedy.”
Add to that the universality of the themes Bracka proffers, regional-centric anchor regardless, and it is not difficult to understand why audiences in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Hong Kong, New York and Jerusalem, thus far, have laughed raucously and been suitably moved by the performance.
In addition to his professional legal grounding, Bracka has also gained his thespian spurs, training at the National Theatre School of Performing Arts in Melbourne. Over the last decade, he has performed other original one-man comedies, such as Lox, Shmocks and Two Smoking Salmons and Enough About Me... Let’s Talk about Jew! to enthusiastic audiences in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the United States, and here too.
It doesn’t take a PhD – Bracka is currently working towards his – to guess that the funny stuff in Arafat in Therapy, which is directed by fellow Aussie Pip Mushin, tends towards the darker side of the humor divide.
“Any comedy that deals with conflict, by definition, has to be a bit black and dark, particularly this conflict,” Bracka notes. “This is a conflict that is so much waged, not just on the basis of territory but also on the basis of national identities and history and collective memories. I think there is something black and dark about people killing each other in the name of identity,” Bracka continues. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there’s a connection with my daytime profession, that I am heavily engaged in human rights.”
That sounds like that could be an emotionally exacting line of work and a highly emotive area to work in. Bracka says that adopting a tongue-in-cheek approach to the sphere can not only help to keep one on an even keel, but it can also help to bring the audience, and the public in general, on board.
“I think that satire or comedy is another vehicle or instrument of advocacy, of trying to persuade other people to see things from another perspective,” he says.
Presumably, poking fun can also help to make people with possibly differing political outlooks more amenable to a particular line of thought that may not be in sync with theirs.
“What I am more interested in doing is humanizing the conflict,” says Bracka, while pointing an accusatory finger at the aforementioned popular channels of information. “I think a lot of the information we get in the media and, to a large extent, our perceptions and experiences of politicians and diplomats in the peace process is very disconnected from realities on the ground.”
It appears there is more to Arafat in Therapy than meets the eye, ear or funny bone.
“In my humble opinion, ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, their voices, are being very much excluded from the very process that is most likely to change their lives and most likely to influence them,” Bracka adds. “This is an irony that I try to bring out in my show.”
Having a multicultural personal background can, naturally, help an artist to feed off all the requisite avenues of thought and commensurate modes of delivery when putting together such a multifaceted one-man show. Bracka’s father originates from Egypt, while his mother, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, grew up in Communist Poland. The five languages in which Bracka is fluent include Arabic.
Does Bracka harbor any hope, or even belief, that spending 75 minutes watching Arafat in Therapy will change a person’s approach to the Middle East conflict? “I think that one of the nice things about the show is that people do connect strongly with all the characters, independent of their nationalities,” he declares. “I think that’s no small feat, particularly when performing the show to very right-wing defensive Diaspora audiences in New York or Hong Kong.”
So, have there been any emotional outbursts while Bracka was in the throes of his performance? “I don’t think this about booing or cheering. I think it’s about engaging people in the different perspectives. These are characters that people are familiar with on one level, but it is exciting and interesting for audiences to see them represented theatrically,” he says.
Overall, Bracka would like his audiences to go home with a feel-good factor.
“There is a strong thread of hope that most of the characters experience, and I think that people probably leave the show feeling a little more optimistic on some level about the potential [of regional peace],” he suggests.
Dark humor notwithstanding, Bracka says that Arafat in Therapy is a positive work.
“I think this is mainly because the show is about the human experience,” he notes. “And the human experience is always optimistic.”
For tickets and more information about Teatronetto, call (09) 894-5957.