Gesher Theater celebrates new season

Probably the most exciting production of the Gesher Theater’s 2017/2018 season will be Shakespeare’s monumental King Lear (9/17), to be directed by Yevgeny Arye and starring Doron Tavori in the title role, the holy grail for any serious actor.

Also noteworthy is the roster of productions to celebrate Israel’s 70th birthday, which includes an adaptation of Theodor Herzl’s visionary Alteneuland (10/17) and Summer in Marienbad (5/17), based on the epistolary novel by Shalom Aleichem featuring letters home by wealthy Jews summering at the famous spa.

Jeanne d’Arc or St. Joan is one of history’s most appealing heroines. Bernard Shaw, Jean Anouilh and Maxwell Anderson wrote plays about her but the theater, according to its spokesperson, hasn’t yet decided which they’ll use. The director is the multi-gifted Yehezkel Lazarov.

Other plays in the lineup include Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (3/17) which is a collaboration with the Cameri, Gesher’s first such, Casanova which stars Sasha Demidov in the title role and, following the success of The Odyssey, a children’s play called Spirit of the Theater. There’s also Gesher’s International Theater Festival next spring with a Hamlet collage and Oedipus Rex.

The season’s first production is a political satire by resident playwright Ro’i Chen called In the Tunnel – indeed, one of those perilous places traversing the Israel/Gaza border – and points the finger at those so willing to use our backs to get what they want. Premieres February 5.