Thurs. Feb 24 -- helping to start the first Arab Playback company

Summary: Drive to Jaffa with Dorit, train ten actors, out for Arabic dinner and night in hotel
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Well, the day felt pretty strenuous to us “hot house flowers.” We often tease ourselves with that label, even in an average day back at home, reflecting with chagrin how little stimulus we can tolerate and how attached we are to our petty routines of comfort. Here, while we adore having the purpose and “common language” of Playback to connect us to local people, we suffer from the constant discomfort of knowing we are clueless. We’re blithely entering all these organizations with their history and interpersonal (Read more -- and photos)
politics and culture and we really know only the superficial surface of what’s going on and what our offerings mean to people. Well, today that uneasy embarrassed feeling was amplified ten-fold, as we did our thing for the Arab-Hebrew Theatre of Jaffa.

We were fulfilling a long-time dream of Dorit’s – to help spread Playback in the Arab community here. Why should there be dozens of thriving Playback groups among Jewish Israelis and not a single one in the Arabic or Palestinian communities? Maybe there could even develop a company of both Arabs and Jews that could do shows with both communities and help build bridges! So we Americans came along at the right time with the right skills to help this dream sprout. Apparently, Arab Israelis are more receptive to some outsiders teaching them than Jewish Israelis teaching them -- at least, that was Dorit’s feeing.

Dorit and her Arabic friend worked hard ahead of time arranging the workshop and personally calling many actors. Still, only ten showed up out of about twenty actors expected. Half hour schmoozing over coffee and sweets as people trickled in. Beautiful old building, nice big stage to work on, eager actors, mostly men, who seemed fully engaged throughout the three hours of teaching.

It still surprises me that Christopher and I have something to offer professional actors, and that we feel so at home with them – not intimidated or even overly impressed, just a feeling of being at home with people who are physical and playful and expressive. We can pretty clearly spot those who have good skills and temperament for Playback and those who don’t. Several actors seemed perfect for it – but it was very hard for us to read how the whole session was being taken. The stories offered for Playback stayed fairly light, not that emotionally moving. Translating into two and sometimes three languages was cumbersome. Could they sense Playback’s power? Would anyone want to continue? We weren’t sure. It was unsatisfying.

By 2:30 or so we were at a favorite local restaurant with Dorit and the theatre’s founder and its new manager, being treated to a belly-busting progression of Arabic dishes. The founder shared some of his heart-breaking efforts over 40 years to spread Arabic theater and about the financial crumbs they receive from the Israeli government compared to his Jewish colleagues.
By the time we settled into our “special gift” hotel room -- ugh! A pretentious, expensive, flavorless downtown hotel, such a waste of money for us who hate it! – we were exhausted of making friendly conversation across culture and language. We skipped dinner and stayed holed up in our room, turned in early.

Photos from the training: