Theater and niggunim

After two and a half months in Israel, I have finally discovered Merkaz Hamagshimim. I've been on their mailing list for a while, but I never managed to get downtown for anything. I guess I'm making up for lost time now, since I'm in the middle of a "three events in a week and a half" spree.

My first trip to the Merkaz was last Thursday for Spontaneous Combustion, a 48-hour theater project for which Lynley was a writer/last-minute actress. I have to say, the plays were a mixed bag. Some were funny, some were a bit pathetic, but that's what you get when people have 48 hours to write and rehearse an 8-minute scene. There were a couple that were really impressive, though. There was one called "Grow Up," written and performed by Daphna Tadmor and Dayna Moses, which was done in monologues, each actress telling multiple girls' stories of childhood. Then there was one written by Anna Gerrard and performed by Micky adiv and Margalit Rosenschein, "Drink to Me," in which a woman meets with the girl she thinks her husband has been cheating with, only to find out that she was his very neglected daughter and she murdered her husband for nothing. Both of those were very well-done, and I can't believe they were produced in 48 hours! Lynley's scene was one of the humorous ones--an actress auditioning to be a teletubby. Okay, so it was very funny; I'm laughing just thinking about it.

I went back to the Merkaz last night for Erev Niggunim, a night of prayer-song-tunes co-sponsored by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. I almost didn't attend because of laundry issues, but I'm really glad I did. The niggunim that were taught were really beautiful, and the first few reminded me a lot of Nehirim's alternative prayer services. A couple of the niggunim were actually nigguns that we've done at Nehirim, which made me really nostalgic. It was really nice. I didn't learn any of the niggunim well enough to be able to repeat them by myself, but I could definitely join in if I heard them again. Also, I really hope the niggun Alanna Sklover wrote spreads; it was beautiful and very much deserves to be spread.

To conclude my spree, I'll be back at the Merkaz on Monday for The Children of Qassam Avenue, a play written and performed by high school students in Sderot. I really don't know much about what's going on there, so I really look forward to hearing their stories. I learned at AHA that plays of this sort can be very powerful, and I can't imagine this one being anything but.

Correction: I did not return to the Merkaz for The Children of Qassam, since the show ended up being by invitation only.