When was the last time you played?
"This week, in the play 'Several Days' based on the book by Meir Shalev, edited and directed by Hanan Snir, who is a director from his youth onwards. I play the lead role and quite by chance the protagonist also lost his mother at a young age and is writing a book about it.
"I really like to play, from childhood. It's in my blood and I also feel responsible when I'm on stage - telling a story and conveying a world.
"Specifically, in this show I can really understand what that world is. Even in the game, in the end I'm looking for a family. To be a part, to belong. In my game, even if it's in other things like TV or cinema, I look for it. I do not come to work and there "
When was the last time you cried?
"In March, at my mother's memorial. At first I spoke without crying, because I am a veteran orphan, but when I told her 'it's a pity you did not get to see Jonathan,' my sister's baby, I had involuntary tears.
"I also cried in the festive show of 'Some Days.' "The 21st year of my mother's death, so I cried. It's one of the things that excites me most in the theater, when suddenly such magic happens and even though you know there is lighting, scenery and actors, truth happens. It was crying out of truth."
When was the last time you were surprised?
"This month, when I received a review from a reviewer of my poetry book 'The Orphan Gallows'. It surprised me a lot and was fun and exciting. The book contains a journey I went through over 20 years. It has songs from 20 years ago and songs from a year and a half ago. Can not explain what it is for me when quoting from a song I wrote.It's bigger than life.
"I published the book two days before the 21st anniversary of my mother's death, and one of the published songs is a song I wrote as a 12-year-old, one of the first songs I wrote, so there's a certain victory here. Losing someone close is a terrible thing, and victory is a place for mourning. The review saw a 12-year-old boy. That was also what was terribly surprising. "
When was the last time you talked to your mother?
"Even though she passed away 21 years ago, we talk all the time. I wrote a song about our last conversation, 'We did not end badly, we did not finish.' It is a song about me. I talk to her all the time and feel she is always here. There are five stages but following a loss, And the last step is to complete and understand that it will be okay.I accept that death is a part of life and I am not angry or depressed, but it takes time to get there.
"Today I talk to my mother through events. I'm not a mystical person, but yesterday I was informed that the first edition of the book was over - and it was a conversation with mother. I do not think it is accidental. She gave me so much love that remained and exists in me. Me for life and the minimum I want is to write about her.When I write about her she lives in the world, she exists.
"I was 12 when I lost my mother, who died of cancer a week before the age of 40. We were left with Dad, my sister and I. I get to stand on stage in the show and tell the audience 'I was 12 and an orphan' and I have to play with zero effort because I was really 12 and already an orphan. Know how to say it because I experienced it.
"When I was 14 I also lost my dad, from a heart attack. He was 44. I learn from experience of loss and it's something that scares people the most about having parents, so they consult with me because I got to this point and went through it. No timing to complete. You do not get up in the morning "One says to yourself, 'I'm done with this.' It's a process that happens because life suddenly goes on. My parents were very young when they died and today I play with people older than them, and we are colleagues."
When was the last time you felt like a stranger?
"A lot of times I find it hard to explain myself. I got the verbal ability only after my mother passed away, I was not verbal before. When people talk about family meals and their mom or dad I feel foreign, even when people talk about their grandparents.
"In the play, one of my fathers, played by Rami Baruch, is in a wheelchair and I dine with him. I told director Hanan Snir that for me this is my grandfather. I dined with my grandfather when I was 20, simply because there was no one else. I was not supposed to be there but Dad. Mine, but orphans have a lot of ripples to deal with.Even with Jonathan, my nephew who is only half a year old, I talk like other people and think what those who are not would say to him.
"I imagine I would like to be a father, but on the other hand I have concerns. I found out that my sister is a mother without a mother, and I may be afraid of being a father without a father. How will I be a father without my father here? "I need a father."
When was the last time you went out?
"A month ago I was at my cousin's engagement party. I do not have much family, so it was very exciting. I also really like going to shows and movies and also sitting in pubs, but I am not the last person left in the pub. Theater I see full and try to see from all shades. As a spectator I go by creators, they are what intrigues me.As a theater student you are taught to look critically at plays, but over the years I try to watch like a normal audience - and it works. Clean, without hearing the opinions of others before. "
When was the last time you cooked?
"This week. From a young age I'm an omelet wizard. I also cook simple things, pasta and rice and such, not a master chef. I miss fights with mom over food, waiting for her to ask me to eat something she and I know I do not like and we both know I do not eat."
When was the last time you wrote?
"I write all the time, on my mobile and computer. Since childhood I write and save. I have everything. I write plays and screenplays and move between writing stories that burn in me to tell to evoke something, and writing for roles that interest me to play.
"Poetry is a new thing for me and I have already laughed with the editor and publisher that I am writing this and going, that they will not build me an outline of poetry books, but now it actually seems to me that there will be a sequel.
I think the next book of poetry will be about my father, and there the story will be different, but you know, maybe I'll change my mind.
"I see what the book does and understand that it will not end in one. I thought it would be a one-time experience but it burns in me too much. I do not pretend to be Roni Somek, who sent me a postcard with a flower, but I understood it was a book that could touch and help more people. "I understood that someone published a song from my book after she lost a daughter to cancer, and I told myself I wanted to help people who are going to face death and fear it. When I wrote the songs I did not want anyone to read them, today I want them to come and talk to people."
When was the last time you discovered something new about yourself?
"I recently created a new project called 'Short Espresso.' But double four, meaning four solo performances that come up one after the other, we put on the project as part of 'Teatronto' and it's a great opportunity they gave me, which includes insane works.
"In terms of acting everything speaks to me, both a solo show and big plays, and I understand the power of one person wanting to say something to a group. In the end, a poet is a single thing. A person who sits alone and writes poetry. I like solo plays because there is also power to loneliness. "And a sense of belonging. It's one person in front of a group, he is alone on stage, but there are other people with him and in front of him."
When was the last time you said "I love you"?
"In memory of my mother I told my sister that I love her. This year a child was born to her and I admire her for it. In Israel it is harder to say this sentence naturally. I do not think there is a movie in Hollywood where these words are not said, but here it is harder to say it like that , Inside.
"In my solo show about my grandfather there is a moment when he remembers his mother and says 'I did not have time to tell her that I love her ...'. "I really love you."
When was the last time you brought a new friend to life?
"Every cast has a person that goes into your heart. Michal Bat Adam, for example, became an essential part of my life after I worked with her, and in the last show I also made a great and interesting friendship. Friends are a family balance, but you can not burden them with a role that is not theirs. That I came to her at a late age.
"At a young age I sculpted people who were not willing to be like family for me, but you have to understand that every person has their place and role, and that you gain a friend by not forcing him to be your mother or your psychologist. Parenting is unconditional love, but I came to this understanding husband Necessarily at a young age.I would not wish that on myself.
"Orphanhood is something that never ends. At my sister's wedding I put her in the canopy. How many people put their sister in the canopy? I was 30. As I get older I do not ask people if they have parents or not. When I meet new people some of them's parents died in a way Naturally, but when I was in high school there was one, only me, and in the army there was one who was orphaned by one parent, so I was always unusual and slowly I am no longer. I am often asked if I was angry. Anger is an individual stage and for me it was small.
"Today friends expect me to tell them what happens after a loss, but I learned what to tell and when. It's a kind of choice to talk about it, just like coming out of the closet. In the army I was a military comedian and I told friends in training. Understand what's up with this guy.
Even when people who knew me watched me, it was to come out of the closet and say 'it's me, it's exposed, and I feel it's important that I talk about orphanhood, because when I talk about it I give my parents a kind of life.
Today I understand that talking about them helps other people.
Gives power to their lives. "
When for the first time?
When did you first work?
"In 2000 I was a 'Festigal boy'. I was already in the fifth grade, the oldest of the children, most of whom were in grades 1-2. It all started when I saw an ad in the newspaper looking for children and auditions were taking place. I had to make two songs. My mother - with whom I went for Years for festivals - brought me to auditions, and after the performance director Hanoch Rosen told me I was accepted.
"We performed all over the country and as children we were not allowed to perform four times a day, so we were divided into two groups. I sang with artists like Michal Yanai and Zvika Hadar, and I had a great time. A year later, when my mother was ill, I performed again at the Festigal. What happens to me at home, because I shone on stage and had fun - Hanukkah, action and performances - but there was another world at home. My mother only saw me perform once, for the 2001 Festigal she no longer came because she was too weak. ".
Nir Strauss // 33 years old, single, resident of Tel Aviv. Actor, creator, playwright, entrepreneur and poet. Author of the poetry book "The Gallows of the Orphans" (published by Catharsis) and plays in the play "Some Days" at the Cameri Theater.
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