israeli theatre controversy

[Don Rubin]

dear candrama list members:

over the last week  a major controversy has erupted in the theatre
department at haifa university in israel. a few days ago denis salter
posted some material about it;  then ric knowles added material; then
others.

because i was truly baffled by the contradictory statements i got in
touch with avraham oz, the faculty member involved in this war with his
dean over the fate of his israeli-arab university-based theatre troupe,
and asked for a clarification. (the dean's statements are already on
record.)

what follows is what oz says will be his final words on the controversy.
it b egins with a description of what is apparently the company's last
show. about halfway through he deals with the controversy. it's worth
reading. if you feel it worth commenting to him or his dean, please do
so. it does seem to me both bizarre and a real loss to multi-cultural
theatre in israel.

best

don rubin

Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:08:59 +0200
From: Avraham Oz <avitaloz at research.haifa.ac.il>

Dear friends,

An exciting event occurred last night at the Al-Midan Theatre at Haifa,
the Arab israeli Theatre. The Haifa University Theatre created yet
another precedent there: having produced a Palestinian play in Arabic
over a year ago, first of its kind in any Drama School or Department in
the country, last night, for the first time, a major Israeli play was
presented in Arabic, to an enthusiastic audience of  Arabs living in
Haifa and its surroundings. The play chosen was Hanoch Levin's LUGGAGE
PACKERS, a grim comedy with eight funerals, surveying the life of small
people in a small residential area, their little dreams of wedding or
apartment, their petty scales of success and failure, their
disappointments of life's promises failing to materialize, their
clinging to suitcases as a token of one constant dream of going
elsewhere - an imaginary Switzerland or America or London, and the
frequent visits of death which underline their transitory existence.

On stage was a young group of Arab actors, current students and recent
graduates of the Department of Theatre at the University of Haifa
established nine years ago. The auditorium of the rented Al-Midan
Theatre  was packed with excited spectators, most Arabs, some Jewish.
Some of them were veteran theatre practitioners of  the Arab sector in
Israel - some leading actors in the Israeli theatre. When graduated
from Drama Schools, the one option open to them to have a career in the
professional theatre was to act in Hebrew. Now here was a
representative group of another generation of young actors and
actresses who were given a chance to proudly play in their own
language. Hanoch Levin's play, whose translation into Arabic was
commissioned by the Haifa University Theatre from its ridiculously
scant budget, proved a universal piece of theatre: as translator Ala
Hlehel told the Arab cast in the first reading: it could happen in
Levin's imagined neighborhood at the outskirts of Tel Aviv as well as
in Wadi Nisnass in Haifa. Listening to those young Arab actors was to
watch two cultures reaching. Levin, a major symbol of the Israeli
culture in which Israeli Arabs partake for better or for worse, himself
a great believer in peaceful coexistence between the two nations
sharing this region, suddenly became theirs as he is "ours." Isn't this
another measure negotiating mutual understanding, reciprocal exchange
of cultural coins and gifts? We, the group of faculty members on the
Department of Theatre who tried, involving ourselves with much extra
voluntary work, to upgrade the production system of the Department of
Theatre in a mixed city from a mere production mechanism providing
tuition services to paying customers into a professional theatre of
young people with a major vision of political and social awareness and
a message of coexistence (without neglecting the creative and
pedagogical needs of our students), believe it is!

The Arab theatre practitioners present last night among the
enthusiastic audience applauding the show came to us in the reception
at the foyer almost with tears in their eyes. We may now retire, one of
them told me, knowing that our next generation can, if such a work is
continued, create a professional theatre in their own language. People
spoke of dignity, of hope, of pride in the impressive achievements of a
young generation of an ever-renewing culture, renegotiating its terms
in reciprocating with other cultural basics.

And also Dean Ben-Artzi was there, applauding the show, about two weeks
after proclaiming the Haifa University Theatre non-existent. He also
participated in the reception, the light refreshments of which he
refused to finance, and thus was bought from our private pockets, and
took place at the foyer of the Al-Midan venue, given us for free for
the entire last week when the faculty he heads refused to pay for the
days in which the Arabic version of the play was rehearsed. He probably
did not mention to the excited Arab theatre practitioners celebrating
the event how thoroughly I was questioned by the Professor of History
he appointed as Head of the Department of Theatre as to why did we need
to do this Arabic version of the production, since all the students of
the final year took part in the Hebrew version, whereas the Arabic
version had [non-tuition-paying] graduates in it. Nor, probably, did he
offer any explanation how come, against all known procedure, is a
Professor of Jewish History appointed by the Dean as Head of the
Department of Theatre, rather than one of the members of the
Department's faculty elected by her/his peers.

Over the last week, when the Dean was busy recruiting any person he
could to justify his arbitrary decision and cast doubts on anyone
objecting it, from fellow Deans to dependent Heads of Departments, I,
as some of you know, was busy with my friends working around the clock
and against any obstacle put by the faculty administration to make the
above little miracle happen. Last evening, at the foyer, I was offered
by many to publish statements countering the barrage of vilification I
am subject to since I dared protest against the powerful Dean, but I
turned them down. Instead, let me say my last word on the subject. and
then rest my case, whatever else may be said to promote Dean Ben-Artzi
to sainthood and present me as the devil, just to avoid discussing the
real issue: as of Sunday morning, after two more packed performances
tonight and tomorrow, the University Theatre will be officially closed,
in spite of all rhetorical manoeuvres and shifting insinuations
regarding its non-existent existence. From now on, the inevitable
productions required by the curriculum of the Department of Theatre
will be selected, produced and supervised by a historian who keeps
telling everyone he doesn't know anything about the theatre. This,
apart from canceling any special project like the current one, is
contrary to anything we teach in our classes about the profession and
discipline of the theatre (unless the teachers themselves be replaced
as well by such who preach the new Gospel of Theatre according to the
Dean).

Rather than giving any essential argument regarding his decision, the
Dean and his henchmen are busy, since my initial protest about the
closure of the theatre, spreading rumors and insinuations regarding the
project in the hope that personal discredits and intimidation will put
an end to the pressure he is in to give clear answers as for his
decision. The method is well known: most people tend to believe that
where there's smoke, there must be fire. Hints were spread of financial
irregularities: I myself do not know of any, but have to indicate the
following: as an artistic director of the (non-existent?) University
Theatre, I could not authorize as much as a cup of coffee: every single
expense of the Department was to be approved and authorized by Dean
Ben-Artzi's administrator (and indeed, I think it is a good
arrangement, and all credit for this should go to the Dean). Sometimes,
this long procedure was even so tedious and long, that when urgent
needs of production arose (say, a wig needed on stage by tomorrow), I
have paid for it from my own pocket and a quick check by the faculty
found out I was owed by the University at this moment around US $ 2000,
accrued this way.

One of the latest recruits in this campaign has written that a
committee was appointed because "it seems they were not even aware of
what was happening under their own roof." Here I must compliment Dean
Ben-Artzi for the second time in a row and defend him against his
defenders: rarely have I seen a Dean so much involved in the everyday
life of a Department as he was. He attended every show of the
University Theatre, sometimes twice; came to almost every monologues
competition we hold, any design exhibition or directing exercise; he
knew the names of every student actor or actress personally. To say of
Dean Ben-Artzi that he was not aware of what was happening under his
roof is an allegation I will be the first to disprove. Indeed, an
academic committee was established by Dean Ben-Artzi, last summer, to
review the curriculum and the structure of the Department. I welcome
such academic review committees, in several of which I have
participated myself in the past. If, however, such an academic
committee reaches a conclusion regarding problems in managing the
Department, let me remind everybody that over the last three years the
Department was managed not by me, but by Professor Orkin. Thus a very
strange narrative is presented here: since I complained about the
closure of the Theatre, the Dean, who was and is totally in charge of
the financial management, and the former Head of the Department, are
suddenly spreading insinuations that something was problematic in the
Department, elegantly forgetting to mention that I had no access to any
of these areas. I, like my colleagues, fully cooperate with the
committee appointed by the Dean, still busy studying the curriculum and
structure of the Department; I wonder whether the members of the
committee are all to happy about the Dean and his henchmen spreading
rumors as if they knew what their recommendations will be. If my memory
serves, I remember such blemishing and defamation methods from other
periods, other regions.

If I am to be blamed by any sin, it is the one mentioned above:
upgrading, in the open and with full transparency, the productions
system of the Department I have created nine years ago, without an
extra penny on overhead or management, to a University Theatre, where
devoted faculty and students maintain a model of professional theatre
for pedagogical and creative excellence. To this crime I fully confess,
and, moreover, am proud of it. Long ago I have told Dean Ben-Artzi I
was more than ready to participate in instituting the University
Theatre as an organ of the Faculty or the Senate of the University,  At
his request I have even prepared for him two papers as to how the
theatre should operate. To say, a year after such a paper was requested
and given him, that  suddenly he realized that the theatre was not
properly established sounds weird. However, since my sole dream is to
see this hopeful, unique project we started here go on; and if its
existence depends on my dismissal, since the Dean wouldn't have me
there for reasons I can only speculate about, I am ready to step down
immediately as the Theatre's artistic director, as long as my
colleagues, the members of the Department of Theatre themselves, will
elect another director from their midst, one who will lead that move we
started and keep up the dream, rather than the Dean, a respectable
geographer but no theatre person, appoint an external officer forced on
the Department and stifle its freedom to teach and to create.

The rest, at least as far as I am concerned, is silence.

For better days,

Avi Oz

Professor Avraham Oz
Department of Theatre
University of Haifa
1111 Eshkol Tower
Mount Carmel, 31905 Haifa, Israel
Office Tel  +972-4-8240672
Office Fax +972-4-8249714
Home Telefax +972-3-5609627
Email: avitaloz at research.haifa.ac.il