File spoon-archives/puptcrit.archive/puptcrit_2003/puptcrit.0310, message 166


Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:51:49 -0500
From: John Bell <john_bell-AT-emerson.edu>
Subject: PUPT: Canadian puppeteers in Israel/Palestine


Cf. the thread of wandering puppeteers, below is the second dispatch from 
Gabriel Levine, of Le Petit Theatre de l'Absolu, a puppet theater based in 
Montreal.  They are currently on tour in Palestine and Israel.  If anyone 
would like to see the first dispatch, please contact me.

john bell
great small works
*******
Hello to all of you,
This time, the setting is the genteel stone house of family friend
Brigitte Anor, high up on a hill in the German Colony, West Jerusalem.
All the culture shock that has managed to escape us throughout our West
Bank travels is now hitting home.  To be in a quiet place in a rich
neighbourhood, to see people eating in cafes and living (relatively)
secure and comfortable lives, to feel yourself on the side of the
security guards and soldiers, is a shock I hadn’t reckoned with.  There
is also a new kind of paranoia in the air: we are staying only a few
blocks from the Hillel café, site of a bomb attack several weeks ago.

Today Brigitte dropped Hermine and I at the Israel Museum for the
afternoon, our first free afternoon in two weeks.  We wandered through
the deserted sculpture garden and archeological halls, meeting only a
few bored school groups.  In one hallway was an exhibit of photographs
of Israeli pioneers, the bronzed settlers of the early century.  They
are the new Jews, the farmers, fishermen and labourers, ploughing the
desert valleys for the first time, working always under the same harsh
skies in an uncannily empty landscape.  With their rifles and machine
guns, who are they protecting us from?  The other is totally absent
from these images.  Despite it all, I was strangely touched by their
smiles and hopeful faces, the images of people working together, the
palpable sense of community spirit.  It’s a popular socialist realism,
staged and contrived, but still a far cry from the monolithic
post-communist feel of much of Israeli architecture.  There,
collectivism is nothing more than a myth, buttressed by the forced
community of this society’s core institution: the army.

The soldiers and border police have been in our faces lately, at
checkpoints and roadblocks, harassing our friends while they give us
white people friendly mock-salutes.  Crossing into Ramallah from
Jerusalem a few days ago gave us our first taste of the real checkpoint
routine: dust and chaos, long lines snaking around mazelike concrete
barriers, car horns blaring from vehicles backed up for hundreds of
yards, garbage and the ever-present barbed wire atop the surrounding
bluffs.  A man in front of us, a student at Bir Zeit university, was
refused entry on some technicality.  We shlepped our puppet boxes up to
the nearest soldier.  The young woman who informed us that because of
some special new intelligence, Ramallah was closed to anyone but
residents.  But, I replied, we are scheduled to do a puppet show in
Ramallah this afternoon.  The word “puppet” seems to have a magical
effect on Israeli authorities: they tend to burst into spontaneous
half-smiles and wave us through.  This time was no different.  “Be
careful,” she told us.  “Keep your eyes open.”  As usual, we are on
their side, no matter what our motives might be for coming to this
unbelievable place.

Ramallah seemed tense at first, but much of the tension we’ve been
feeling is the beginning of Ramadan.  Most Muslims are a bit cranky and
hungry, adjusting to the new rhythm of not eating or drinking until
sundown for a month.  During the day, we eat in back rooms and
upstairs, away from disapproving eyes on the street.  In Ramallah we
were lucky enough to have some of their renowned baladna ice cream,
gloriously viscous and slightly salty, with flavours that are delicious
yet impossible to identify.  My new theory is that eating ice cream in
a place is a good way to overcome feelings of discomfort. Will and
Lainie shared a banana split.  A baladna banana split in Ramallah—a
food experience equalled only by the also delicious Chinese food
prepared for us one night at the Ibdaa center restaurant in Dheisheh
camp.  The chef, a true professional, wanted to show us that refugees
could stir-fry chicken with the best of them.

Our hectic schedule continued all last week, two shows a day in the
Jerusalem and Bethlehem area.  On Sunday we drove to Azarya, a
dirt-poor town in Area C, Palestinian territory close to the green line
that may or may not be annexed by Israel, and will probably find itself
on the wrong side of the wall when it is completed.  Apparently 70 per
cent of Azarya residents hold Jerusalem ID and work in the city, which
has become unaffordable for many, given the catastrophic housing and
unemployment situation.  Across the dusty unpaved street we could see
the palm trees and boxy houses of Ma’ale Admonim, a walled Jewish
settlement where other Azaryans find work.  There seemed to be
thousands of students in Azarya’s coed primary school, all of them
razzing us playfully as we brought our boxes in.  Exhausted by the
desert heat, we told them that we could only do one show that day.  No
problem: a nice thing about the Middle East is that everything is
flexible.  We set up in record time, while children cleared paper and
streamers off the floor.  Then they started coming in the room, and
kept coming:  afterwards, we heard that there were 388 kids in a room
barely larger than a classroom, fire codes be damned.  They made quite
a racket, seemed to enjoy the show, as usual, and offered us some nice
interpretations at the end (encouraged by Nidal, our translator).
Kids get all kinds of things from the story, anything from “the king
was bad at the beginning, but then he got better,” to “the rooster
wasn’t cooked very well,” to “poor people and rich people are the
same.” Nidal told us that the story was good, because the King in our
show was very much like Arafat—“He has his hands in everything.”  This
cracked me up completely.  Not like Sharon, I asked?  No, Sharon is
different.  Every people, I think, is unlucky enough to have its own
king.  Maybe this is how the show will go over in Israel…

Speaking of Arafat, we drove to his mostly destroyed compound in
Ramallah for a quick photo.  “Do you want to meet him?” asked our cab
driver. “It’s easy.” No, we said, but we’d like to do our puppet show
for him.  “No problem,” said the driver.  Apparently he’d love it; he
must be rather bored in there.

Now it’s bedtime.  Tomorrow we have a free day at the Dead Sea, then
head to the north of the West Bank for shows in Nablus and Qalqilya.
This is a leap for us, impromptu shows arranged by Ziad (the director
of Ibdaa) and the Palestinian Counseling Center.  Ziad told us that we
were ready to go there, which sounds kind of ominous.  But I still have
yet to feel any real sense of threat from either side.  Wish us luck.
Lots of love,
Gabe  



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