Two thumbs up

The “Cossacks” wore furry hats and executed their traditional amazing leaps with brio.

By HELEN KAYE
The Israel FestivalFingers TheaterJerusalem Theater, June 1
Oh, oh, oh, oh! What fun! What delight! What total professionalism enhanced by an overall sense of fun, delicacy and a delightful attention to detail. The “girls” dancing the Charleston in Chicago wear beaded dresses, the “lady” tangoist wears a rose in her hair and a lacy camisole, the Riverdance “Irish” wear tops of (what else?) emerald green, “Michael Jackson” is resplendent in leather and “Carmen” trails a Spanish train and carries a fan.
Why the quotation marks? Because the performers are fingers, mainly theindex and second finger, but sometimes the whole hand. The eight handsand 40 fingers belong to the four incredibly talented – unfortunatelyunnamed – performers of Georgia’s Fingers Theater, who, for an hour orso and with hardly a word, enchanted the audience with their magicdigits.
The fingers were the legs. Bare, encased in boots, shoes or sneakersthey performed a variety of dances from Georgian folk to Hava Nagila –yes! – four black-clad “hasidim” performed a spritely hora. The“Cossacks” wore furry hats and executed their traditional amazing leapswith brio. The tango dancers oozed sensuality. TheCarmen segment managed to be both menacing andtender. Michael Jackson strutted his stuff with all the panache of theoriginal and let’s not omit a very funny martial arts fight between twosamurai. The show ended with a rousing cancan for which the fingers allwore flounced skirts and finished with the traditional splits. Moreplease.