By HELEN KAYE
The 12th annual Short Play Festival takes place at Tzavta in Tel Aviv December 23-26 with seven plays each ranging from 15 to 30 minutes each.
Festival artistic director Shalom Shmuelov says that, contrary to his expectations, none of the pieces deals with security concerns, like terrorist violence, or the recent wars in Lebanon and Gaza, "yet each of the plays is set around some violent incident, [as if] the playwrights, perhaps even unintentionally, have chosen the confront the violence epidemic in our society today."
The seven plays were selected from among 130 submissions, and, as is frequent, some of them are first plays by authors whose profession is not theater. Among those are Yaldut (Childhood), by modern art historian Rachel Shalita, in which two actors play all the characters as they recall the little joys and tragedies of every day, as well as Haderech Lemata (The Way Down) by former attorney Alma Weich-Hoshen about what happens when a routine shoe inventory turns lethally nasty.
Other first plays include Maor Harush's There's Nothing Like Family, billed as a comedy about an alternative (read weird), family, and Socharim (Dealers) by Amit Erez on the various "banalities of evil" when a hapless drug-mule meets the cops.
The other plays are Harikat Shinayim (Gnashing Teeth) by Eden Seter about an interrogation, Jiljul (Metamorbosis), a satire on racism by Yoni Lahav based on Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, and Michal, by Michal Hazon, a musical fantasy about King David's first wife.
Each of the plays will be presented four times and there are three plays per performance. For information call (03) 695-0156/7.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store