You are used to meeting the horror comedy genre on the big or small screen, but the "Working Group" ensemble decided to bring it to the theater stage as well.
This will happen in the play "Welcome", which will be staged at the Tamune festival that opens today, and within the framework of which 20 new works from Israel and the world will be staged in the fields of theater, dance, performance, music, literature and visual arts.
The artistic management of the festival is entrusted to Dr. Erez Mein Shalu and Nava Zuckerman.
The new work unfolds the events of a tough Jewish contractor who moves with his young wife to a villa he built in an Arab settlement, and despite the desire for good neighborliness - they receive a cold and even violent reception.
The work combines tension, horror and fantasy alongside a lot of black humor and absurdity, as is customary to create in an ensemble.
The play, written by Noam Gil, stars Sharon Alexander, Khalifa Natur, Batal Mashian, Minas Karouani and Atallah Tanos, and is directed by the person who has led the group since its inception, Yigal Zaks.
Yigal Zaks, photo: Simcha Barbiro
"It's a genre we know mostly in cinema or television, and in theater it's rarer, but from a stylistic point of view we take it to the place that theater allows, less realistic and more absurd. The mixing of humor and horror creates a horror comedy," explains Zaks.
You deal with materials that are drawn from our reality, usually from its less beautiful sides. I guess it happens here too.
"True, most of our plays are political, but not political. They don't come to present a position and defend it, but to present our very complex reality. We leave the decision to the audience to say who is right. In this play we are dealing with the gap between the difficult reality and our dealing with it by repression and escapism".
A mixed cast of Jews and Arabs and dealing with such explosive material in a tense period - to what extent is there dissonance between the stage and the backstage?
"Working with a mixed cast is a very interesting challenge. We are putting on a play about a conflict between Arabs and Jews, but the essence of the production is the complete opposite - we work in collaboration, and it's a group of people who are interested and enjoy working together. We talk about everything, deal with everything, It's impossible to avoid it. Each contains the other's point of view. There is something very comforting about it and gives hope that it is possible, that we can do things together, that we can be together."
The Tamune Festival will be held at the Tamune Theater in Tel Aviv on December 6-12.
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