Despite the tense war situation, especially in the region, Samaria Theater – the first repertory theater in Judea and Samaria – had its first premiere on March 5, Mas’ei Ha’geula (“Journeys of Redemption”).
The play, written and directed by Roy Malka, was created in collaboration with the Andalusian orchestra Almograbia from Ma’alot Tarshiha, conducted by Orian Shukron. The show was presented at the Ariel Cultural Center.
In this interview for the Magazine, the theater’s artistic director, Nathan Ravitz, a musician and movie, theater, and television actor, said that he and general director, Hatuna Kipnis, came up with the idea of opening the theater three years ago. But now, he said, it’s even more needed to uplift the spirits. “Culture and safety are inseparable,” noted Ravitz.
About the future repertoire, he said: “The goal I have set is to combine creating accessible content that is consistent with the values of our rich culture and history with ensuring a professional level that does not compromise on artistic quality. We have 4,000 years of rich history behind us that are just waiting for a stage expression.”
The new theater aims to connect Judaism with theater – religion with the stage – and to create an incubator for local artists and creators in Judea and Samaria.
Samaria Theater is being launched at the initiative of the Samaria Regional Council. Alongside a professional repertory theater, it will house a diverse school for stage professions. Until it moves to its permanent location, the theater will operate from the Barkan Industrial Zone. “It will also perform in other cities in Israel,” Ravitz said.
The artistic director wants to reach all sorts of audiences, secular and religious, and to make the theater accessible to those who can’t travel to big cities due to traffic or security reasons.
The theater is being opened in the middle of the war, when IDF tanks are entering Samaria and Judea for the first time since 2002, so it’s hard not to treat this as a political act. The Magazine began by asking Ravitz about that.
I wish we could talk just about the repertoire of the Samaria Theater and avoid politics, but is opening a theater in Judea and Samaria at this time a political statement?
Maybe I can’t avoid the fact that it’s a political statement, but it wasn’t meant to be. I wanted to have a theater. The whole thing started when I and Hatuna Kipnis wanted to open a new theater. We worked together at Habima Theater; she worked for 20 years in marketing, and I was there as an actor. We shared the same idea about merging art with Judaism.
Unfortunately, the theaters in Israel, which are very good, tell very nice stories from all kinds of cultures and nations and playwrights from all over the world but don’t show ours so much.
I looked into 4,000 years of our history with wonderful dramas and comedies; heroes and villains and righteous people; love stories, betrayed and visionary people, like prophets and kings; wars, the Holocaust, and Zionism. As an artist living in Israel, very much connected to my Judaism, I wanted to show it all on a stage.
When did this idea originate?
We started working on it three years ago and created a nonprofit organization, not having localization in mind. But one day Hatuna gave a lecture in Samaria, and she called me afterward, saying “Listen, our theater is going to be in Samaria.” I told her that it was a brilliant idea because Samaria is a place that lacks theater; theater and culture hardly go to that area. People who live in Samaria have problems going to Tel Aviv or other cities to have a cultural experience; and because of security problems, artists and performers are afraid to go there. So it will be a house for creators who live in Judea and Samaria.
You knew the situation well from inside because you’ve been living in Samaria for some time.
Yes, my family moved here six years ago. It was a moment when we planned to change homes anyway, and I fell in love with Samaria while shooting the movie here In the Name of the Daughter [2019, directed by Liran Shitrit]. In this very intense film, I played a father whose daughter was killed in a terror attack…I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but there is an issue of prisoner exchange.
Regarding what you said about the actors being afraid of going to Samaria for security reasons, aren’t there some who refuse to perform there because of their political views?
Yes, some actors don’t want to come because of political reasons, but they’re a minority. The majority of the actors and creators are so full of joy. It’s another platform to perform. You give an artist a place to perform, and you can connect them to the area and you can have something mixed up.
Our theater doesn’t have a permanent place yet; it’s being built now, so we will perform all over the country, and we have actors from all kinds of theaters.
In the next phase, we want to build up an ensemble of actors from Judea and Samaria, [providing them] with a year of training. Then we can cast them in our productions. Samaria Theater will also travel around Israel and perform in different cities.
You’re starting with the original play: Mas’ei Ha’geula, written and directed by Roy Malka for Samaria Theater, in collaboration with the Andalusian orchestra Almograbia.
The orchestra returned to action after nearly a year and a half of downtime due to the war. The play focuses on the stories of the four spiritual giants whose writings and work are present in our lives to this day: Rabbi Yehuda Halevi; Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra; Rabbi Chaim Ben Atar; and Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira. They were separated by centuries, but in all of them burned the passion for Zion. This passion turned into songs, prayers, and liturgical poems.
Will you have only original plays or also others?
No Shakespeare, no Chekhov, no Ibsen. With all due respect, they’re very great, talented playwrights, but we have our own DNA and we’re connected to something that is bigger and more extreme than we understand. This whole process started 4,000 years ago, and it will continue long after us.
Will you do established plays by Jewish playwrights?
Yes. But we prefer original material. We already have a stock of so many beautiful plays lined up in our repertoire \ that I’m anxious to start and to go on.
The Samaria Theater is not an independent theater – it is under the Samaria Regional Council.
We would not be able to do it without the support of council head Yossi Dagan. He understands the need for culture here. Before opening the theater, he said, ‘The establishment of the Samaria Theater, the first repertory theater in Judea and Samaria, is huge news: For the first time, an authentic work with a local voice straight from the Samaria mountains. The establishment of the theater is a direct continuation of the establishment of the Samaria Film Foundation and the Samaria Film Festival, two huge artistic venues that have already proven themselves.’
Who do you think will be your audience?
It will be open to all kinds of audiences. It will allow the people of Shomron to feel more connected to the material because it will tell their part of the story.
Many Orthodox people live in Judea and Samaria, and they don’t attend performances for religious reasons and restrictions. Do you think they will come to your theater?
Yes, we have a theater for religious people, too. If haredim [ultra-Orthodox] want to come and see a play, there will be an option of separate seating.
That is an unusual thing to find in a theater. Will all the shows have such divisions?
No. We have many plays and shows in our plans!
It is uplifting to hear about opening a cultural institution during the ongoing war, with all the atrocities, hostages still held in Gaza, bombs on the buses in central Israel, and terror attacks on nearly a daily basis.
In every generation, we have enemies who are trying to kill us, and each time God saves us.
In each generation, we have Amalek.
We have Amalek now in front of our eyes.
Why is theater and culture in general important now?
It is important to understand that culture and security support each other. There is a story about Winston Churchill during World War II. Britain was in a very bad situation with the war with Germany; the treasury minister told Churchill that the army needed ammunition, so the government should cut the culture budget and give it to the security budget. Churchill replied, ‘If we don’t have culture, we won’t have anything to fight for.’
That’s a great answer to why you’re opening a theater amid the war.
The story of the Jewish people is against all logic, and it’s a miracle. No other nation in the world survived 2,000 years of exile, inquisitions, pogroms, and the Holocaust, and kept dreaming about the Land of Israel, the land that they never saw. After 2,000 years, after WW II, people who were broken (a third of the nation was wiped out) built up a country, with seven Arab countries against them trying to eliminate them, and in [nearly] 80 years they become a crazy empire that shows the world how to defend yourself [and is a leader in] medicine, healing, technology, agriculture.
There are so many of our stories to show on the stage.
Speaking of miracles in our history, we recently celebrated Purim, where Judaism and theater definitely meet, in the tradition of a Purim shpiel.
Yes, exactly! Thank you!