Tmuna Theater festival 2024: Bold performances in Tel Aviv

Explore groundbreaking performances at Tmuna Theater Festival 2024, featuring innovative plays, international productions, and thought-provoking exhibitions in Tel Aviv this November.

By HAGAY HACOHEN NOVEMBER 18, 2024 00:53

‘DRIVE YOUR Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. (photo credit: Sali Eden Bar)

The Tmuna Theater will conclude the year with a reality-challenging, one-week festival that includes a surprising range of innovative productions. 

These include stage adaptations of well-known literary works like Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk and the classic play Eumenides (The Kindly Ones) by Aeschylus, as well as productions meant to respond to current events such as US President Donald Trump about to begin his second term in office.

The much-anticipated premiere of On the Royal Road (Am Königsweg) by Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek will reveal if the 2017 work, originally written during Trump’s first term in office, still holds up. 

The US leader is not mentioned by name; viewers encounter a blind seer (Lilian Ruth) who attempts to piece together some clue about what a selfish, immoral ruler might do.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones is a detective novel, narrated by fictional protagonist Janina Duszejko. 

TEL AVIV (credit: Courtesy Anna Krycer)

Alarmed by a series of murders that shake her small community, she sets off to solve them. As the novel progresses, we learn of her passion for astrology, animal rights, and the poetry of William Blake – all of which eventually lead to a surprise ending.

“The stage world I work with as a director in this production is the world Duszejko creates with her words,” Yotam Gotal, the director of Plough Over the Bones of the Dead, told The Jerusalem Post. “So, this stage-world is necessarily a depiction of how she understands reality. We all gave ourselves over to her particular perspective.”

This included inviting astrologer Yaron Livne to discuss astrology with the actors during rehearsals and casting Amit Breverman in multiple roles as he depicts all the town folks who meet an untimely end.

Gotal suggests that the work discusses animals in two important ways. 

Firstly, he pointed out, it lays out a fierce criticism of the meat industry. Secondly, it exposes a human-made mechanism of brutality.

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“This metaphoric level of discussing violence and viciousness, not to mention how industrial-size killing is possible, is very relevant for our own moment,” he added.

In The ‘Emigrants’ from Gaza, director Einat Weitzman brings to Tel Aviv a Gaza production of The Emigrants. Performed in Arabic by Theatre for Everybody, the 2021 adaptation of the Slawomir Mrozek play was meant to educate young viewers about the pains of being a migrant.

What is the work about? 

The work is about two men; one (Rami Salman) is a worker, and his roommate (Shahir Kabha) is an intellectual. Written by a playwright from socialist Poland while residing in France, the play explores the themes of alienation and being disconnected from one’s homeland.

“The Gaza cinema the play was performed at was destroyed during the war,” Weitzman told the Post. “So were museums, libraries, other movie houses, and any other cultural space.”

The original actors, Hossam Al Madhon and Jamal AlRozzi, left Gaza and now reside in Egypt. Salman and Kabha mimic every movement and tone the previous actors used three years ago.

“It was moving to get the [reconstructed] set, the exact chair, the very same wardrobe as those used in the original production,” Weitzman added. “It is an act of preservation against annihilation. Israel destroyed; we build.”

The Emigrants will be shown as part of the Memento series of documentary theater. Other productions in this line include One Less Gazelle by Oren Ailam, a funny, one-man show about the awful state of the postal service, and Gender Ideology Strikes Again by Lee Arnon and Zoya Bronshteyn, an energetic drag show to gladden the heart in trying times.

Before taking their seats, patrons can learn about the state of theater in Israel thanks to an exhibition created by The Independent Theater and Performance Art Creators Organization (EVE).

Academic scholars Tal Feder and Yeala Hazut Yanuka poured over a solid decade of theater data collected from 2013 to last year to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what might be improved.

Infographic designer Yael Shinkar translated these findings into easy-to-understand, eye-popping visuals shown at Tmuna.

Tmuna Theater Festival will open on Sunday, November 17, and end on Sunday, November 24. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead will premiere on Saturday, November 23, at 5 p.m. On the Royal Road will premiere on Friday, November 22, at 3 p.m. Eumenides will premiere on Wednesday, November 20, at 7 p.m. The Gaza Emigrants will premiere on Monday, November 18, at 8 p.m., as part of the Memento B series. One Less Gazelle and Gender Ideology Strikes Again will premiere on Sunday, November 17, at 8 p.m. as part of the Memento A series. Prices range from NIS 65 to NIS 90. 

All shows are in Hebrew except The Gaza Emigrants, which is in Arabic with Hebrew subtitles. Tmuna Theater, 8 Soncino St., Tel Aviv. Call (03) 5611211 to book.