A lacerated culture, a self-reflexive theatre: The case of israeli drama

The reflexive split structure of the play within the play is a fitting form for serious themes, philosophical as well as social. It is particularly suitable for the representation of a torn, split, wounded, or complex culture especially one conscious of itself as such. The chapter will discuss the complexity and numerous faces of Israeli reality, through its dramatic representation in three variations of the model of the play within the play. In the first play, Moshe Shamir s He Walked in the Fields, written in the heroic period of the establishment of the state of Israel, the reflexive structure of play within play exposes an ideological inner tension or contradiction. While the outer play represents the normative and consensual ideological stand of the Israeli collective, a subversive attitude arises from within the inner one and complicates their mutual relations. In the second play, Nissim Aloni s The American Princess, written in the early sixties, the structure of the play within the play is only one of the multiplied devices of redundancy and hybridity used by the author. A spiral form (a play within a play within a play) which dissolves time and space and enables a fluidness between different levels of play without one main axis, is deeply rooted in the here and now of the multicultural Israeli immigrant society of the fifties. In the third play finally, Hanoch Levin s Mouth Wide Open, the author s critical stand towards the political situation in Israel is detected through the way in which he manipulates the spectator s response. The blurred boundaries between the outer and inner plays arouse a sense of uneasiness, of perceptual dislocation and hesitation in the spectator. These effects challenge the spectator s usual modes of reception and lead to a new gaze on the fictional and actual reality presented in the drama.