Theater Review: <I>In the Dead of Night</I>

Amram and Raz move from encounter to interdependence to nightmare in which purity and passion are demonically changed to lasciviousness and lust.

By HELEN KAYE
Israel Festival In the Dead of Night Conceived and performed by Renana Raz and Ofer Amram Ma'abada, Jerusalem June 3 The twisting black and gray shadows on the screen at the rear of the bare stage are revealed to be Leah's wedding gown and Hanan's silk kapota, or coat, transforming dancer Renana Raz and actor/director Ofer Amram into the tragic couple's unquiet shades from Ansky's classic The Dybbuk. Each inspires the other, evoking pain and pleasure, dread and longing, the desire for togetherness with revelation of the unspoken and ineffable - the last brilliantly rendered by animated Hebrew letters. Hanan/Amram and Leah/Raz move from encounter to interdependence to nightmare in which purity and passion are demonically changed to lasciviousness and lust. Even their identities metamorphose. The Hebrew title contains the word "ov," or sorcery, whose malign power reaches even to the spirit world and can only be contained by the redemptive power of love. Raz and Amram show all of this. Their work is precise, clean, clear and lyrical. They speak not a word, but Relly Margalit's cello and bass (Ehud Gehrlich) score and a couple of aptly chosen Yiddish ballads provide text. I wish they had the courage not only to cut the piece a little, but also to allow the compassion they feel for those sad ghosts to reach us a little more.