Review: GULLIVER at Hazira Ba-Bait

Let's examine the past:
The field of dance has changed completely over the past hundred years.
The field of movies has changed completely over the past hundred years.
The field of visual arts has changed completely over the past hundred years.
Only the theater stands still.

Almost nothing has changed. The convention remained the same convention. Human beings playing a human being for human beings. Nothing beyond. Well, maybe smart flashlights. "Nu, Shoyn".
The theater remains a place untouched by innovation, and if innovation does somehow find its way to the stage, it likely comes through by way of the text, or perhaps through the directing. But rarely by substantially altering the convention that is the theatre.

To see an innovative, special and courageous play is a rare commodity in Israel.

It costs a lot of money, no one is committed to the amount of audience, it requires a lot of repetition, and usually there is no one behind you - if you fall, you do not have a parachute.
The establishment theaters typically do not want to make a mistake, preferring to continue down the safe path. The older audiences, who do not tend to favor innovation but do love cheap comedies, will continue to arrive, and the establishment theater will continue to make money.

To my great joy, I discovered that there were still some brave and wise artists who remained in Israel, and are not afraid to create an innovative, challenging, special and fascinating work: Gulliver.


The talented creator of this play is Zvi Sahar, who also plays the lead role. Sahar creates with a method called PuppetCinema. Using a cinematographic aesthetic, a documentarian's eye, and the tropes of cinema verity, PuppetCinema productions shape the audience's focus with a strong and steady hand. The audience has the feeling that the show is being created right in front of their eyes!

The play is based on Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels. After sixteen years at sea, Lemuel Gulliver returns home. Isolated in his room, he refuses to meet anyone, and talks only with two horses that he bought on his last trip and brought back with him. He is repulsed by everything and wonders about the fate of the human species.
After five years of self-imposed isolation, he decides to tell his story for the first time to his wife.
Today, he invites you - and only you - to listen.

HaZira Performance Art Arena, a platform for new and innovative theatrical and performance arts, is unique in the local cultural landscape. HaZira's mandate is to promote interdisciplinary performance art, to initiate original productions, to encourage and nurture the unique vision of talented artists, to cultivate excellence in the disciplines it supports, and to be at the center of cultural and artistic discourse.

You would certainly expect me to describe how this method is expressed in the play. But there is no way to express it in words.
The show lasted about 50 minutes - 50 minutes of innovative art: new, biting, and brave.
Gulliver - run to see it! This is the new theater, and Zvi Sahar is the master of it.

Photo Cradit: Ilya Kreines.
For tickets and further information, visit Hazira Theatre.

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