about to write an extremely niche post about a broadway show that barely has a fandom. sorry but i have to get this off my chest.
right, okay, so i love the band’s visit. it’s a great musical, the songs are gorgeous and the cast is excellent. also i love any show that expands the horizons of the kind of music that can be played in musical theater. having an oud on a broadway stage is fucking incredible and unprecedented.
here’s the thing though, i regret to inform you that i’m also israeli (against the occupation, anti-zionist, etc.) meaning that i was familiar with the movie the show is based on long before i saw the show. because of this and also because of the cultural knowledge i’ve acquired from living in this godforsaken place, i can point to some elements in the original film that were not present in the show, that completely transform the context and connotations of the show’s themes.
right so, the town of beit of hatikvah is fictional, but crucially, it is not generic. it is, in both the film and the play, clearly reminiscent of the average Israeli development town. development towns are “urban settlements built or significantly expanded by the israeli state, mainly during the 1950s, for the settlement of immigrants. the towns were mainly inhabited by mizrahi jews of low socioeconomic background” (quoting from a paper by oren yiftachel). these development towns, often referred to as the periphery of israel, were intentionally positioned in the then largely empty negev desert, because the ashkenazis in power in the 50′s and 60′s wanted to strengthen their borders (zionism gotta zionism) and they accomplished this by gathering a lot of mizrahi jews and basically placing them on the border. but of course not before stealing some of their kids and giving them to white people to “““civilize”””. so in addition to ethnically cleansing the arabs that were already here, israel also managed to thoroughly screw over a good half of our jewish population because they weren’t white.
now, this is information that the implied audience of the film—i.e., israelis—would be intimately familiar with. and although none of the beit hatikvah residents ever identify themselves as mizrahi jews in the film, the setting makes it clear that is what they are. not to mention that all of the actors in the movie that play beit hatikvah residents are mizrahi jews.
and the thing is, all of this context is essential to fully understand the themes of the film. this is not simply a story about two disparate groups attempting to communicate. it is, specifically, a narrative about the relationship between egyptians and mizrahi jews. so in the movie, when dina talks about how much she loved the egyptian films that were shown on tv every friday, it’s not just an expression of her appreciation of egyptian cinema. quoting from this article by ryan zohar (which i highly recommend reading, it’s a very good explanation of the historical context of the phenomenon of the friday night egyptian move): “during a period of israeli history when mizrahim were encouraged to become ‘good israelis’ by hating the arab-within and the arab-without, the weekly arab film served as a respite of sorts […] they could be arab for one hour each week from six o’clock to seven o’clock on friday evenings.” evidently, knowledge of the character’s background completely transforms how you’re going to read that scene.
which is why it’s kind of a travesty that in adapting the film, the writers made zero effort to communicate any of this to an american audience. and it’s not like they didn’t have an opportunity to do so. there are two different songs in the play, “waiting” and “welcome to nowhere” that serve to introduce the town to the audience. but neither one of these songs, which again, i cannot stress enough, are exposition songs, make any mention of the characters’ ethnic backgrounds. not to mention that, like i said, the beit hatikvah cast in the movie is comprised entirely of mizrahi jews. whereas, in the play, as far as i can tell almost non of the beit hatikvah cast is mizrahi. i mean i love katrina lenk as dina don’t get me wrong, but it’s kind of fucked up that this white lady (who isn’t even jewish lol) is playing a part that was originated by ronit elkabetz (z”l) a woman who wrote, directed and starred in a trilogy of films about her family’s experience as moroccan jews in israel (all of which are bangers btw, highly highly recommended).
the result of all this is that a story about the possibilities of connection based on a shared cultural background is lowkey depoliticized in favor of a far more generic why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along message. and i think that’s a shame.
