A body suddenly rocked and slithered forward as the lights dimmed, while the audience of about fifty shifted in their seats in preparation for the emotionally turbulent hour ahead.
In light of the ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip, "Gever/Shabab: Shadows of Israel-Palestine," the latest production at the Rites and Reason Theatre, is a particularly timely show. Written by Noam Dorr, RUE '09, the play commendably portrays the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the relationship between a captured Israeli soldier and a Palestinian man.
The production is especially memorable because of the Gever and the Shab, disembodied representations of the respective nations' voices.
The hisses and words exuded by the Gever and the Shab intersperse the conversations between Utzi, the Israeli soldier played by Himmat Randhawa '09, and Ismail, the Palestinian man played by Dominic Wu '12. Mica Fidler '12 - who played one of the two Gever - said these sounds were meant to evoke "a snake protecting its own."
The hisses came from the darkened right half of the stage, while action continued on the left. According to Fidler, this setup was a result of experimentation, much like the entire production. Dorr emphasizes that this play is "not a finished piece" - he hopes to fine tune it in the future, and will consider it a perpetual work in progress.
"Gever/Shabab" is Dorr's first effort as a playwright. The project started in fall 2007 when Dorr wrote the play as his final project for a Research to Performance Method class in the Africana Studies Department.
Regarding the subject matter, Dorr said, "I knew I wanted to write a play about where I come from." Dorr grew up in Israel and served in the Israeli army before coming to Brown, though the story is not inspired solely by his personal experiences. In putting together his script, Dorr did a great deal of research, reading several personal narratives of both Israelis and Palestinians who had been directly involved in combat or who had been affected by the violence in other ways.
"I've learned so much from the research I've done," Dorr said, "but sometimes it was difficult to hear in light of my own experience."
Fidler called Dorr a "master" at equitably representing both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. For Dorr, achieving this balance was one of the most difficult components of the show.
"The greatest challenge for me," Dorr said, "is representing both sides of the story."
The cast of 11 collaborated closely to produce the play since the beginning of the semester to create the drama ultimately seen on set.
"So much of what you see comes from the actors," said Dorr. "I gave away the script - it stopped being mine; this is not something I've done but just something I wrote."
Upon seeing the show, Aditi Pinto '12 said, "It was quite a beautiful play with a different sort of ending. Though the story was very simply told, the elements on the right (the shadows, the Gever, the Shab) made it all the more intense."
Dorr said he hoped the audience would leave with an understanding of the complexity of issues in the Middle East.
"It's not a simple black and white situation," he said.
"Gever/Shabab" is on stage at the Rites and Reason Theatre from Feb. 26th to March 1st, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.
