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"Revolutionary casting? Mia Landsman is everything Wendy should be" - Walla! culture

2021-12-01T21:36:18.602Z


The Cameri puts on a new adaptation of the classic story of Peter Pan and his adventures in a land of never-before-seen. On the occasion of the premiere, the stars of the show and the director explain why Wendy is actually braver than the flying boy


"Revolutionary casting? Mia Landsman is all Wendy should be"

Wendy is an orphan, racist and chauvinistic elements have been pushed out, and that's not all: the Cameri puts on a new and youthful adaptation of Peter Pan's classic story and his never-before-seen adventures.

On the occasion of the premiere, the stars of the show and the director explain why Wendy is actually braver than the flying boy, and why it is important to grow up

Sagi Ben Nun

02/12/2021

Thursday, 02 December 2021, 00:00

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There is no end to childhood.

From the play "Peter Pan" at the Cameri Theater (Photo: Molly Greenberg)

"My casting for Wendy's character was the thing that flattered me the most in the world. It felt like someone in love with me," says Mia Landsman about the role she received in the musical "Peter Pan," which aired Tuesday (Tuesday) at the Cameri Theater, in collaboration with Orna Porat Theater for Children and Youth.



The casting of the excellent actress for the role of Wendy aroused interest, and is even considered a breach of conventions in relation to the regular tapecast of the character. "On the one hand, it's really cool that the artistic director, Gilad Kimhi, made such a brave choice, on the other hand, it's absurd that it is considered a brave choice. I have a sweet princess inside me," Landsman tells Walla! culture.



Gilad Kimhi, the artistic director of the Cameri, explains that for him the casting was natural. "When I cast Mia my preoccupation was with her face," he says. "I think Mia is the most wonderful thing I've known in recent years. She's a very special actress. I think as soon as she's on stage or the screen lights up her heart goes out. I thought that should be Wendy, a big heart, a big and brave dreamer. "I did not give myself any credit at all for making a revolutionary casting here."



Landsman

: "It's because the greatest revolutionaries did not know they were like that."



"Speaking of Mia's casting, I think each of us has a picture in our head of what Wendy should look like - like Disney portrayed her in the movies, and that's wrong," says Ofri Bitterman, who plays Captain Hawk and Mrs. Hawkins in the play.

"What matters in the actress is the heart, the personality, and what this character brings with her, and it has nothing to do with anything. People made a face even when they heard I would play Captain Hawk. Because they thought the character should be played by someone older with a beard."



Kimchi

: "I generally think Captain Hawk could be Peter Pan. When I imagine that, Peter and Hawk can play each other."



Listen, this is a brilliant idea for a version of "Peter Pan" in which Peter and Hawk are the same person with a split personality.



"I imagine they are both enemies and very similar. It's my choice."

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May you stay young forever.

From "Peter Pan" (Photo: Molly Greenberg)

"Peter Pan" is the Cameri's first new children's show since "Otz Li Gutz Li," which aired 56 years ago and still ran. This is an adaptation created by Roi Segev and Shirili Desha for a classic by James Matthew Berry, with Kimchi in charge of directing and Amir Lekner in charge of the music. Along with Landsman and Bitterman, it also stars Yaeli Rosenblit as her replacement as Wendy, Alon Sandler as Peter Pan, Noam Brett as Tinkerbell, and Nadav Knights and Gilad Merhavi alternately as Biggie.



In the new adaptation, the classic theme of striving to stay young forever the play replaces the conflict between the desire of children for complete freedom and the desire for a warm family nest that cares for and protects you. In this adaptation, Wendy is in an orphanage waiting to be adopted, and then Peter Pan arrives and tells her it's not worth it - because a family that tells her what to do is the worst thing in the world - and invites her to a land-never-to-be. During her stay there she feels longing for a warm family, a mother who makes cookies and a father who puts the children on his shoulders, and she wants to go back.



This is not the only significant change in the new processing. "We dug into the plot of the original book and discovered that these were pretty violent stories," says Roi Segev. "How do the lost children never get to the land? By the fact that they fell off the stroller and the parents forgot about them. So we got off the lost children, and instead called it 'the most equal-hooks'." Gilad Kimhi adds that Desha and Segev "shook up the original story that has chauvinism and racism."



Another who has tried to bring a feminist take to the old story is director Ben Zeitlin, whose film "Wendy" recently came up. He said in an interview that Wendy in the book and movies is a completely passive character, and he wanted to turn her into "a strong little girl to be the protagonist instead of Peter."



Landsman

: "I think Shirley Desha and Roi Segev have taken on all sorts of elements that do not fit the new era, like the role of the woman in the story, where a girl becomes a woman, a mother, a primitive, worried and conservative housewife. I have not seen the movie 'Wendy' yet. Of Ofri (Bitterman, who also owns the Jaffa Cinema - S.B.) ".



Kimchi

: "Wendy is definitely a heroine, and sometimes even braver than Peter. In the end she came to save him. But that does not detract from Peter's power and uniqueness."



Mia, what connected you personally to Wendy's character?



Landsman

: "Wendy in the play is an orphaned girl. It's something I personally do not know from the bottom up. It's types of pain that are very interesting to dive into. On the other hand I know half orphans late, so I do know what it's like to grow up without a father. Girl".

Forever Young.

Under "Peter Pan" (Photo: Molly Greenberg)

The show for the whole family looks innovative and yet "low-tech". The actors do not fly with cables in the air but move on rollerblades and skateboards, and on stage a lot of colorful neons, a screen, a walking path that enters the audience and interactive participation of the children watching - in a way that quite excited the little ones in the show I watched. The play about the eternal child seems, therefore, to be a worthy - and even tossing - alternative to the commercial and controversial Hanukkah performances.



Gilad Kimhi, why hasn't the Cameri put on a new 56-year-old children's show until this week? Was there a fear of being perceived as too commercial?



"There are now so many wonderful theaters for children like the Orna Porat Theater, and the chamber has its uniqueness. Even so, the repertoire and mix we produce and produce a year is wide, large and touches on classics, modern plays and original. I'm at the beginning of my career as artistic director. Who have not put on a children's show over the years to build on what the chamber should be - an adult theater. "

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A sign that you are young.

From "Peter Pan" (Photo: Molly Greenberg)

Kimchi is well acquainted with the character of Peter Pan. He himself played the eternal child during his third year studies at Beit Zvi. "My love for the world of theater and the stage was born on the day I saw Uri Paster's 'Peter Pan' production in the Noga Theater, in which Hanoch Rosen played. I always dream that I'm flying.



What makes Peter Pan's story so timeless?



Bitterman

: "What makes this story eternal is that it is infinite. After all, Hawk is not really killed. There is no absolute end. I can see the sequel to that, you can see Wendy later in the story, and Peter Pan maybe with new kids. There are in this story "Something that is constantly in some kind of circle, which is why maybe more Peter Pan films come out all the time. And from every circle of his you learn something more."



Landsman

: "True, it's a timeless story. If you and your daughters are cuddling up to this thing."



Kimchi: "Just like in the original story, where Wendy is already a mother and she has a little girl, Jane, and then Peter comes to take her daughter to a land-never-to-be. Wendy is a little scared but liberating."



"The most basic and psychological thing - do not want to grow up," explains Alon Sandler, who plays Peter Pan in the play. "Want to hold on to childhood and are not ready to let go. This relinquishment of the inner child for the sake of family and career - it's always fascinating." Bitterman adds that "these days we actors perceive that we have grown up, as soon as all the kids are shouting 'We believe in fairies', and then we are all strangled in the throat. Because the kids do it with such devotion and naturalness. We are with tears behind the scenes when the kids shout it."



What other reactions after the first shows moved you?



Sandler

: "We were thrilled to see the adults come out of this show crying, too."



Kimchi

: "I heard a girl say: 'I have never loved the bad guys so much in my life. ' It was lovely to me. "



Landsman

: "The children really fly with us. After the show, when they come behind the scenes to see me they are a bit in the market because I behave like a normal person. Yael Bar Zohar came out of the show and said to me: 'It is unbelievable that you also play, sing, dance - and everything "Live. I look at her and say, 'Does she not believe me? She did so much. It raised my levels.'



You won a lot of exposure and praise after you conquered the screen in "Rehearsals" and "Headquarters", you were nominated at the Cannes Film Festival for your role in "Conflicting Girls", you starred in full plays.

And in the end you are most excited by Yael Bar Zohar's compliment

.



"Do you understand what it is? She is 17!"

She's an Icon!

It's crazy!".

This is my second childhood.

From "Peter Pan" (Photo: Molly Greenberg)

Where would you like to fly if you had the opportunity? What is your private "Never-Land"?



Kimchi

: "It may be banal and kitschy but I would like to fly to a place where there is harmony. This is the base I would like to produce in my environment at least."



Bitterman

: "I would like to fly as much as possible, to experience all kinds of cultures, other tastes, new destinations, this country is never mine."



Sandler

: "It seems to me that my 'land-never-never' is more internal. A place of peace, wholeness and acceptance of reality."



In the original version of the story, "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens," Peter feared, among other things, that he would grow a beard. What were you afraid of as a child?



Landsman

: "I was afraid of a lot of difficult things. I realized at a very young age that the world is big and how individual I am, and that scared me a lot. I was also very scared of the dark. And I was also scared of ghosts, which is something Wendy is also afraid of."



What do you miss most about your childhood?



Bitterman

: "In kindergarten I was always such a 'safety trustee'. Let's say they made canals, so a second before opening the water I was the first to check that it was safe. So I miss it, the danger, the frivolity, not thinking for a moment before I do something."



Sandler

: "As a kid, I always needed the most bombshell gadget. I had to bring the thing that all the kids would be in the market from. It's something I loved."



Landsman

: "Look, as a kid I always just wanted to be big. So I'm happy about where I am now and feel balanced with age. I was a grown girl, who wants to be big all the time, doing adult things, very adventurous. Wendy too. You see during the show you get into very extreme situations, and I can identify with that very much. "

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So tell the chick you do not need to grow.

From "Peter Pan" (Photo: Molly Greenberg)

Another two weeks will mark the 30th anniversary of the release of the movie "Hawk," in which Robin Williams played the older Peter Pan.

Which begs the question: Which actor or actress who played Peter over the years in Israel and around the world, in film or theater, did you like the most?



Landsman

: "Hanoch Rosen is an Icon."



Kimchi

: "For me it's all a child's experience. I fell in love with Robin Williams when I was in fourth grade. And I think both he and Jim Carrey are players who have Peter Pan in them. You can see them playing with toys even at 50."



Landsman

: "The truth is that every cast of this show has a full Peter face. Everyone suddenly looks like kids on stage too, even though we're 30 to 40 years old."



mealy

: "When I thought about what a country-never-does not look like for children today, I imagined a kind of huge gymboree full of trampolines and a ball pool. And when I see the actors on stage I notice that they use the trampoline not only as actors to do somersaults."



Bitterman

: "Because I play Hawk and not one of the kids from Land-Never-Never, I kept telling them - I also want to jump into the ball pool!"



And who in reality do you think is the Israeli Peter Pan?



Sandler

: "I'm Peter Pan, even in reality."



Bitterman

: "My father."



Landsman

: "My father too. And the handsome Ofer Schechter."



And let's take a look at one of my favorite quotes from the show: "Do not grow up. It's a trap."



Sandler

: "I once really believed in this sentence. Today I think it's important to grow up."



"It's important to grow up"? This is a scandalous statement.



"Although the prevailing opinion is 'be a child', it is also important to know how to grow up and know how to behave in this world of adults. You have to keep the child, who will burn in you, but know when he has a place - and when not."

  • culture

  • in what

  • theater

Tags

  • Peter Pan

  • Mia Landsman

  • Alon Sandler

  • Ofri Bitterman

  • Gilad Kimchi

  • The Cameri Theater

Source: walla

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