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| Brian Lipson and Gideon Orbazank. Photo: Sarah Walker |
Two Jews Walk into a Theatre….
Devised and performed by Brian Lipson and Gideon Obarzanek. Directed and choreographed by Lucy Guerin. Producer Michaela Coventry-Sage Arts. Lighting design. Bosco Shaw. Music. Oren Ambarchi. Odeon Theatre. Adlide Festival 2019. March 8 – 10.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Brian Lipson and Gideon Obarzanek Photo Sarah Walker |
Two Jews walk into a theatre.
They sit in the foyer waiting for a show to start and for the next hour they
converse about Time zone differences between Adelaide and the East Coast,
public transport, their sons who are performing, the Israeli/Palestine conflict
and Life. They converse on chairs for almost an hour. Is it theatre? Acclaimed
theatre director once said and I paraphrase: “ A man enters and crosses the
stage and theatre has taken place.”
What makes Two Jews Walk Into A Theatre…” an intriguing theatrical
conversation, ingeniously devised and performed by Brian Lipson and Gideon Obarzanek
is that it is much more than a mere duologue in front of a red curtain. Shades
of Ionesco emerge as we discover that the sons have the names of the two actors,
and the two actors describe their real life experiences as though they are
describing the lives of their sons, Brian Lipson, the experimental theatre
actor and Gideon Obarzanek, the dancer. It is a clever and tantalizing device
to reveal the real lives of the two actors as if they belong to their sons.
They then play out their own fathers and what emerges is a generational change
in experiences and attitudes.
The play becomes a rite of
reminiscence, an opening of old wounds, and the irreconcilable differences that
shape the character and experience of each generation.. We also learn of the lives of Lipson and
Obarzanek’s fathers, one whose family escaped the Russian pogroms and the other whose father fled Poland to
escape extermination in a concentration camp. And yet, in spite of similar
backgrounds the two irascible fathers, played by actors Lipson and Oberzanek
hold very different views on the Israel/Palestine conflict. The lives, lived by
the older Laurence Lipson and Senek Obarzanek, expose the continuing debates on
refugees and what it is to be a Jew.
Director Lucy Guerin cleverly
paces the conversation between the two men. A casual conversation can quickly
turn tense until a long pause releases the tension and convivial conversation
begins again. Then, as if out of nowhere, a careless word or a misinterpreted
comment brings the cantankerous fathers of the fathers and the grandfathers of
the performing sons into yet another
disagreement.
It is time for the performance to
begin. Lives have been revealed. Attitudes have been exposed. Fathers and sons
have been reconciled by old age or a daughter in law’s cooking And yet scars
remain for another generation to heal. Laurence Lipson leaves to exit behind
the curtain where his son’s experimental work is about to begin.. Senek follows
to see his son dance upon the stage. The curtain opens to reveal two men in
tableau. The performance begins, an hilariously funny parody of experimental
theatre and contemporary dance.
Almost two hundred stories exist
in the lives of the audience who sit in the Odeon Theatre to watch four stories
unfold. Two Jews Walk Into A Theatre
is no theatrical spectacle. There’s no
grandiose set, no exquisite costumes or dazzling lighting and visual effects.
Oren Ambarchi’s music subtly comes only at the end as Lipson and Obarzanek
perform their Dadaesque piece. Two men sit and talk and their stories come to
life. In our imaginations it becomes as funny as any hilarious comedy, as sad
as any drama, as captivating as any story told upon a larger stage. Theatre is
two excellent actors walking into a theatre, sitting in front of a curtain and
revealing to a fascinated audience the stories of their lives. After all, all
that it takes to create theatre is two actors, a plank and a passion, and
sometimes you can do without the plank.
