Is it possible to return to a place
that was once home, and what is that home? Is ‘home’ a childhood
memory or a piece of property? Definition of identity or prison?
The main caracter of The Lane of White Chairs, Palestinian-Jordanian,
who was a child when his parents fled Jaffa, returns to what
was once his home, emphasising these questions.
Jaffa is an unsolved puzzle, destroyed and neglected, holding
on to a glorified dream of the past, and the real-estate realities
forming the future. This city is being built, destroyed and
hastily re-built, and is made up of layer upon layer, both
archeological and cultural. The Arabs, the oriental and occidental
Jews, the eccentrics and the honorable are living side by side.
This multi-existence forms the base of The
Lane of White Chairs.
Criminals, decent citizens, workers and artists, all sharing
each others lives – but alienation exists nevertheless – estrangement
of language and culture, the fear of each other and of anything
foreign.
The lane is where the tenants meet, and where the play takes
place attempting to examine the nature of this charged distance,
as a necessary beginning to a dialogue.
Residing in the historical museum of old Jaffa, an important Mediterranean
port from the second millenium B.C., the Arab-Hebrew Theatre is a home for
the joint creations of two theatre companies: the Arab Theatre A-Saraiya and
the Local Theatre, producing plays, both together and separately, in Hebrew
and in Arabic, with the participation of Jewish and Arab actors.
The Arab - Hebrew Theatre is unique among Israeli theatres,
both for its social and political mission and for its theatrical
language. In the Arab-Hebrew Theatre, multi culturalism is
not a mere phrase, but a fact of life and ideology. In a city
where Arabs and Jews live side by side, the theatre promotes
knowledge and understanding of the two cultures, not only through
its productions, but also through its work with the multi-ethnic
communities of Jaffa, and in particular, by providing a theatrical
structure for interaction for Arabs and Jews.
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