Theatre Without Boundaries!
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Theatre Without Boundaries!
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PRODUCTIONS — 2007-2008
Everyday Somewhere Here Letters From Palestine & Israel a work-in-progress
by Benji Rogers created/directed by Melody Brooks
January 26 – February 1, 2008
Production Designer (Set/Costumes/Projections) Meganne George
with Michael Pauley Brandon D’Augustine, Ziad Ghanem, Jenny Greeman, Keon Mohajeri
Stage Manager Shykia Fields
Sound Operator Nino Rekhviashvili DIRECTOR’S NOTE
In March of 2005 I was introduced to Benji Rogers. He was the friend of a theatre artist whose work we were developing and she had asked him to videotape her one-woman show. Benji had been to Palestine and Israel the summer before and was looking for a way to get the story of the people he had met out to a larger audience. I think someone had suggested that he create a play, or perhaps he had the idea himself. Its hard to remember because so much has happened to both of us in the three years that have passed— personally and professionally—and the journey to get this play on its feet has been a long one.
But once Benji was introduced to NPT, he brought us his emails and first tentative draft of how they might be crafted into a script. Our then Director of New Play Development gave me the draft to read, and although I rarely take on new scripts anymore (only for lack of time, not interest), I was so affected by this one that I agreed to work with Benji on it. In addition to the emails, Benji also had literally thousands of photographs and some short, but powerful videos (the dearth of video was due to confiscation by Israeli authorities—he had to film in short segments so as not to lose his camera, and then hid the tapes in his dirty laundry when leaving the country!)
The most amazing thing to me in reading about the trip was the fact that this area was so SMALL! I felt that if Benji could walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, then this was a region in which there might be some hope of making a difference. In so many of the troubled areas of the world, the problems seem so enormous that’s its difficult to conceive of how one person—or even a few people—could actually have an impact. But somehow—perhaps naively or too idealistically as has been pointed out to me during the process of developing this script—I believed that if we could get this story out to average Americans, and they could all become involved in demanding change, then this story might have a happy ending.
We have encountered incredible resistance to this project—shockingly so (did I mention I was naïve?) It never occurred to me, as a theatre artist in New York City, that it would be so difficult to cast it, to generate producer interest, and to give this play the visibility it deserves. We have been criticized for not telling a “balanced” story, and repeatedly heard that this same story could be told from the other side, with equal amounts of violence and suffering. My only answer to these critics is that the facts speak for themselves. This is a true story, told from Benji’s actual emails and recorded interviews with the people he met. It cannot be argued with or corrected. He lived it.
And this is another reason why I was so inspired by reading his emails. As Americans, we tend to take our news in small doses, from whatever source is easiest for us to swallow. But Benji actually got off his butt and went to see for himself. My sincere hope is that this piece will motivate many other Americans to do the same. If not to physically go there at least to find out more. If enough voices are raised—in knowledge and not in fear and ignorance, perhaps, just perhaps, “this could all be stopped.”
What a thought… Melody Brooks |
