Scandal not only sell papers…It also can also make for cutting edge, contemporary theatre.
Prominent Israeli playwright Edna Mazya’s play on a scandal GAMES IN THE BACKYARD, based on the gang rape on a 14 year old girl that took place at Kibbutz Shomrat in the summer of 1988 and led to Supreme Court proceedings and convictions, has been playing on Israeli stages since 1993. As well, the play has been performed to critical acclaim in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Romania, Russia and at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Now producer Fiona Boidi has brought the play to Sydney for its Australian premiere production.
Mazya’s play poses the question, how is it possible that a group of Israeli 17 year old boys, all from good homes and from one of Israel’s leading educational kibbutz’s, could participate in a violent group rape of an under-age female colleague?!
The answer lies somewhere in the danger of that limbo land of adolescence, that fraught territory that exists between childhood and adulthood. When teenagers hang out together without anyone watching over them, and they’re in an adventurous, party mood, and there’s plenty of alcohol and drugs around, and they’re all trying to prove how tough and hip and sexually aware and confident they are, then games in the backyard can lead to something much more sinister.
The production by director Netta Yashchin, who originally trained as a performer in the early nineties at the Tel Aviv University Drama School, is tough and confronting. The action switches between the original scenes at the Kibbutz and later court room scenes, with the cast of five, doubling up in their roles.
Jessica Palyga gave striking, contrasting performances as the tomboyish Dvori and the strong willed, Crown Prosecutor. NIDA graduate Cari Batchelor was the pick of the male cast playing anxious, caring Shmulik , with a crush on Dvori, who finds himself swept up by the tide of male aggression, and a Defence Counsel.
Guy Vincent Fenech’s soundscape, using fragments of hard rock music as the bridge between scenes, contributed to communicating the edginess and dark overtones in the interactions between Mazya’s characters.
Recommended, Netta Yaschin, Fioni Boidi and ATYP Under the Wharf’s production of Edna Mazya’s GAMES IN THE BACKYARD, (translation by Hani Furstenberg and Naom Shmuel), opened at the ATYP Studio 1, The Wharf, Pier 4/5 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay on Wednesday 16th November and plays until Saturday evening December 3, 2011.
© David Kary
23rd November, 2011
Tags: SYDNEY PLAY OF THE WEEK, PLAY ON A SCANDAL, GAMES IN THE BACKYARD, Edna Mazya, Australian premiere, ATYP Studio 1, Hani Furstenberg, Naomi Shmuel, Netta Yashchin, Carl Batchelor, Jessica Palya, Fiona Boidi, Guy Vincent Fenech, Israeli drama.