Aaron Davidman – Jewcy

Rachel Corrie and Daniel Pearl?!

Aaron Davidman — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:47:24 +0000

The artistic process is a funny one. Sometimes a playwright begins to write one play and winds up with another. This is a good thing. As Ezra Pound said, “If you know what you’re going to write when you sit down at the typewriter, don’t bother.” Originally commissioned by Ari Roth, the visionary artistic director of Theater J in Washington D.C., I had set out to reflect on the public reaction to the deaths of Rachel Corrie and Daniel Pearl. Ari and I had pulled our hair out a bit together over the controversy surrounding the cancellation of the New York production of the play “My Name Is Rachel Corrie.” Ari thought it might be interesting to dive into the currents of American Jewish debate surrounding this play and beyond. Ari wondered if Daniel Pearl’s tragic story was somehow a counter-weight to the controversy over Corrie’s. So I began to research these two very different Americans. I immersed myself in each of their narratives. I won’t go into what I found, here, but I will say that many people, including Daniel Pearl’s father, Judea, found the implications of a comparison between the two figures deeply troubling. There is no moral equivalence, they said, and to imply that there is, is insulting at best. I forged ahead, with great care. Contemplating the implications of moral equivalence, I discovered profound differences and fascinating parallels between the two. Then I traveled to Israel and to Palestine and began interviewing people who brought their own stories forward. These individuals became powerful voices in my play. Voices that transcend singularity because of their complex and surprising points of view. I was getting beyond American-Jewish issues regarding Israel by hearing from Israelis and Palestinians whose daily lives are affected by the conflict. Corrie and Pearl had served as emblems for me to explore a question Ari posed: can we be big enough, as a people, to grieve for all who’ve perished in this tragic story? They stayed in the play for several public readings as I made significant rewrites. And while the idea of grieving for the “other” remains a vital theme in the play, the central story outgrew the pairing of these two icons. They became a limiting polarity, the very trap the work seeks to transcend. The play has developed into the story of a man trying to untangle the competing narratives of the current struggle in Israel and Palestine. Amidst tremendous noise, he’s trying to listen to his conscience. A conscience that was forged at a young age in a political awakening at progressive Jewish summer camp. Some of the material I threw out was good stuff! But I’ll have to leave it for another play. You can find out about upcoming readings and more information about “A Jerusalem Between Us,” at aarondavidman.wordpress.com.

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They Tried to Cancel My Play

Aaron Davidman — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:09:50 +0000

The plastic surgeon who specializes in breast implants had issues with my play. He intimidated the director of the theatre hosting the reading into canceling! In an email he wrote, “The last thing we want to do is offend the local Jewish community by showing some progressive lefty self-hating Jewish propaganda.” Only after 24 hours of intense lobbying by the artistic director of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, who has nurtured the play and was producing the reading, and a letter from me to the artistic director and board of the theatre did reason prevail. The reading was back on. Art: 1, Thought Police: 0. In e-mails the surgeon disparaged me, the author and professor who would lead the post-show discussion, and the artistic director of the Sundance Theatre Program. We were either “self-hating Jews,” “anti-Semites,” or just plain ‘ole “ignorant.” The plastic surgeon hadn’t even read or seen the play. But he did come to the reading. What were his issues once he saw the play? That while I presented both literary and visual images of the controversial separation barrier that divides the West Bank from Israel, I did not present gruesome images of children killed or injured by suicide bombers that the barrier is there to prevent. During the Q&A, he told me and the rest of the audience in the crowded theatre that, as a plastic surgeon, he’s worked on such victims in Israel and he offered to provide me with x-ray images of ball-bearings, screws and nails embedded inside the skulls of children, to add to the projected images in the play. I thanked him for his offer. And we heard from a number of other audience members who were not missing such imagery. Sad to say, while he came to the reading—and I do give him credit for that—the surgeon didn’t hear my play. He didn’t hear the very personal story of an American Jew who loves Israel deeply and fears for her survival. He didn’t hear the story of internal conflict that so many of us share as we try to untangle the competing interests of our allegiance to our tribe and our commitment to social justice. I do respect and honor his efforts to help Israeli victims of terror attacks. But there is no gruesome imagery in the play. None. To present such imagery would be to use violence as pornography. A few years ago I spent a day with a sweet and broken-hearted father of a ten year-old boy who was murdered in a bus bombing in Haifa. He would be as outraged that an x-ray of his son’s remains would be used for someone’s political agenda as he was outraged that Israeli politicians have used funerals of suicide bombing victims to make speeches to bolster support. That’s the theatre of politics, not political theatre. For more information on my play, “A Jerusalem Between Us” go to: http://aarondavidman.wordpress.com

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Why Write This Play?

Aaron Davidman — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:08:54 +0000

I am a playwright, director and actor, and the artistic director of Traveling Jewish Theatre, a 29 year-old experimental company based in San Francisco. I’ll be posting a weekly blog about the process of writing my new play “A Jerusalem Between Us.” I start with the question, why? Why write this play? The Sundance Institute Theatre Program is producing a reading in Los Angeles this coming Friday night. They sent out a flyer that reads:

"A Jerusalem Between Us" takes stock of some of the recent controversies that have divided Americans and American Jews. Davidman untangles the Rachel Corrie controversy, considers the word “apartheid”, reflects on the spirit of Jewish values and wonders what’s left of the Left. This solo play follows one man’s journey from America to the Middle East on a quest to answer some of the most provocative questions of our time.

The other day a gentleman sent an email to the artistic director of the LA theatre that has generously offered to host the reading. He offered to moderate. When the artistic director replied that Sundance had already chosen a moderator, the gentleman replied with the following:

If I'm not going to speak, I probably won't come. But I'd like to see a review of it…I don't want this guy sitting there spewing some anti-Semitic, self-hating Jewish crap. Can you find out something about it? I can't find any reviews online. It's important that we don't use the theater as a forum for any anti-Israel propaganda, right? The way the blurb is written about that horrible Rachel Corrie character gives good reason for concern that there might be a problem brewing….Please find out more. It's never too late to cancel an anti-Semite!

Why write this play? To bring forward a nuanced, complex and dynamic story about an American Jew and his relationship to Israel in the midst of a culture of fear, one-dimensional analysis and hysterical allegiance. This blog will cover the developments of the play. For more information you can also stay tuned to aarondavidman.wordpress.com.

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