The Cameri Theatre production of Suddenly, with its unconventional staging and innovative, interdisciplinary approach to theatre, infuses Etgar Keret’s edgy contemporary stories with a strikingly poignant human tenderness and vulnerability. Adapted to the stage by Zvi Sahar and Oded Littman from Etgar Keret’s short stories (primarily from Suddenly a Knock on the Door, English edition translated from the Hebrew by Miriam Shlesinger, Sondra Silverston, Nathan Englander; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York), the play is a provocative, fast-paced, and moving work of theatre. Seamless in its transitions from one tale to another, it functions as a whole work, with its own internal, consistent, logic, and ultimately intellectually satisfying, albeit less than optimistic denouement. Sahar and Litman have created an excellent adaptation, that works as a stand-alone play, eminently accessible to all audiences. In other words, one does not need to have previously read Keret’s work to enjoy the play, although it may inspire one to do so.
Directed by Zvi Sahar, the stories are presented in a poetic form Sahar has developed over the past several years, as seen in his previous works Salt of the Earth (created in collaboration with Littman) and Planet Egg: Puppet Cinema. As the name suggests, Sahar draws on puppetry and cinema, utilizing both in innovative ways to create exceptional works of theatre. Actors, puppets, puppeteers, video cameras and their operators, as well as minimal yet astonishingly creative found-object props all share the stage. It may sound odd and perhaps even a bit twee, especially to those unfamiliar with contemporary puppetry, but the effect is as far from cute as one can imagine. Think of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, with a touch of Avenue Q, but much farther along on the experimental spectrum. The video art is enormously effective, revealing a deep understanding of the medium and its salient qualities: the ability to create credible illusions, the sensation of motion, and the extreme impact of close-ups; which have all become an integral part of the way we, with our screen-focused sensibilities, view and experience the world. It’s a cutting-edge production that pierces the heart.
In its merging of the real and the surreal, traditional arts, technology, and experimental theatre, Sahar’s staging of Suddenly reflects the clever and complex perversion and manipulation of conventions in Keret’s stories, with due respect to Chekhov’s gun. A man named Keret (Asaf Solomon) sits on an empty box, amid low-standing floodlights, backed by a stack of empty frames, wooden hinged blinds, and other seemingly random objects. Suddenly, a man with a gun (Simcha Barbiro) enters, demanding: “Tell me a story.” It’s a ludicrous demand, as we all know, stories aren’t worth much. Who would kill for a story? Keret initially demurs, quite rationally, explaining that he does not “tell” stories, he writes them. There’s a difference. Yet confronted with a choice between telling a story and being shot at close range, his choice is clear. What follows is an and amusing elaboration on the use of the structure “suddenly a knock on the door” to initiate and shift action within a story, with Yuval Segal and Neta Plotnik coming into the absurd mix. The actors are audience, listening to the tale Solomon’s Keret spins, and as they are drawn in, they too become story-tellers. The action moves from conversations in a café to multiple parallel universes, evocations of fairy tales, documentary filmmaking, and childhood memories, with an ever-changing cast of characters. Yet there is an underlying sensibility that binds the narrative together, a sense of contemporary urban life and its overwhelming isolation and alienation, the relentless oppression of conformity and convention, the desperate yearning for connection and the contradictions inherent in this absurd existence.
Suddenly
Adapted for the stage: Zvi Sahar, Oded Littman; Director: Zvi Sahar
Music: Guy Sherf; Dramaturg: Oded Littman; Lighting Design: Ofer Laufer; Visual Process: Aya Zaiger; By the book of: Etgar Keret; Puppet Animation: Goni Paz; Actors: Simcha Barbiro, Yuval Segal, Neta Plotnik, Ayelet Golan, Dani Halifa, Liya Kreines, Asaf Solomon; Set and Costume Design: Aya Zaiger; Sound Effects: Kobe Shmueli; Puppet Design: Amira Pinkas, Yana Malishev, Gili Kozin Ulmar
Future performances dates: Cameri Theatre website
