Choreographer, dancer, actor and mother Renana Raz is fascinated with boredom, so much so that her new creation is entirely inspired by it. The Most Boring Show in the World will premiere next week as part of the Suzanne Dellal Center’s Tel Aviv Dance Festival. Based on Daniel Pitts and Rudolph Kerkhoven’s The Most Boring Book Ever Written: An Adventureless Choose-Your-Path Novella, the show is the fruits of an in-depth research into boredom, which Raz reveals, was thrilling.
“The book came out during the corona period, although it wasn’t written then. It really resonated in a strong way for me. ‘I’m bored’ is something we heard a lot during this period and it became something that grownups and kids had in common. The book really excited me. I bought it and read it and had the idea to translate it to the stage, like a three-dimensional expression,” explains Raz over the phone. “I knew I didn’t want to do a one-for-one interpretation. I couldn’t take a book about boredom and turn it directly into a show. It’s not Little Red Riding Hood. In the book, there’s a page that only has the letter A. So I asked myself, ‘What is A on stage? If I had to take this thing, this base, simple, primary thing, what is it on stage?’ It was really fun. These are really open questions that take you on an adventure. And the book is a guide, like going on a trip but it’s open, you don’t know who you will meet along the way.”
For Raz, working with children is not a side job or byproduct of her art – rather it is part of its core. She has created performances for young audiences in the past and is the founder of Boogie Woogie, a movement classes for kids, which are taught around the country.
Raz reached out to longtime collaborators Ofer Amram and Ilaya Shalit to go on the boredom journey with her.
“We started to work on it during the third lockdown. It was the first time in my career that I went into the studio with something that interests me without any idea what it would turn into. It was a really pleasant experience. We took our time but we also didn’t work too long on it. Corona really changed me. I don’t think I have the possibility to do things how I did them before,” she explains.
In their meetings, a show began to emerge. As one page follows the last, one section was joined by another and another. The piece remains true to the book in that there are no frills; no lights, music, costumes or characters, no props or pyrotechnics. The show’s promise is to give kids what they are not used to getting.
Though The Most Boring Show in the World is being categorized as a kid’s show, Raz resists the label.
“It’s not just for kids. You know how on a game it says ‘Ages 9 to 99’? That’s what it’s like. If we say ‘it’s for the whole family’ that means you have to come with family to enjoy and you don’t. There needs to be a different category. We prefer from six because I don’t know kids younger than six that say ‘I’m bored.’ Although my son said it to me yesterday and he’s five but he already saw the show.”
Renana Raz will present ‘The Most Boring Show in the World’ at the Suzanne Dellal Center on August 6 and 7. For more information, visit www.suzannedellal.org.il