East End Review

Tag: Crossing Jerusalem

  • Crossing Jerusalem: stage review – ‘We’re all the same stinking family!’

    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre
    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre. Photograph: Habie Schwarz

    “We’re all the same stinking family!” exclaims Sergei, attempting to diffuse an argument between an Arab and a Jew at a birthday party. In Julia Pascal’s 2002 play Crossing Jerusalem everybody is connected. Arabs, Jews and Christians hailing from countless corners of the world live cheek by jowl in one of the oldest cities in the world.

    Playing at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park until the end of August, Crossing Jerusalem is set in the Israeli capital during the second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, when buses and cafés were the frequent target of bombings. So the Kaufmann family is justifiably on edge.

    Head of the household is Varda, a headstrong, workaholic, Jewish mother, who deals in real estate. Trudy Weiss as the matriarch is almost manic with paranoia, absently flitting from thought to thought, briefly breaking her stream of consciousness to criticise her daughter’s dress sense and her own lack of a grandchild.

    Only when she is crossed do we feel the full intensity of her feeling. “This is our country. If it goes to hell then we’ll go with it,” she declares. All of the characters at some point make reference to how dire the situation is.

    Everybody seems to have a claim to the disputed territory, and nobody a solution. So trauma is passed down through the generations with no suggestion of peace in sight. The state of Israel being as young as it is, the provenance of the homes Varda sells is inevitably called into question. An Arab family lived in their home before them – a neat metaphor for the wider political context.

    The design by Claire Lyth and Ben Cowens is simple and effective, summoning the remorseless heat and intense sunlight on blinding, white stone. The play takes place over the course of 24 hours, highlighting a sense of the ephemeral. The citizens of Jerusalem are forced to live in the moment because tomorrow may never come.

    Although Pascal says she had to omit some of the ‘Jewish-isms’ in the play for fear they would not be understood, there is still much laughter of recognition in the audience and a handful of great punchlines too. In an inversion of the famous quote, Varda remarks that Israel’s problem is that it suffers from: “Too much history. Not enough geography”.

    There is strong support from the younger members of the cast too. Adi Lerer is full-blooded and live throughout, and Alistair Toovey is particularly impressive as the vengeful and naïve Sharif. Varda’s husband Sergei battles persistently to diffuse the tensions rife within his family. And if his jollity and bad jokes grate to begin with, they find their mark eventually, with Chris Spyrides showing us the tenderness behind the character’s apparently offhand remarks.

    Crossing Jerusalem is at the Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, N4 3JP until 29 August

  • Crossing Jerusalem – a conflict of interest

    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre
    Chris Spyrides in Crossing Jerusalem at Park Theatre

    Jerusalem is a city on the edge. One of the oldest urban civilisations in the world, and a holy site for three major religions, it has in recent times become characterised by conflict.

    Control of the city is one of the central issues in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which remains not just a dispute over territory, but one of identity.

    Set against this backdrop is Julia Pascal’s 2003 play, Crossing Jerusalem, which is being remounted this month at the Park Theatre.

    Directed by the writer herself, the play takes place over a 24-hour period, capitalising on the ephemeral atmosphere in the city.

    “There is a sort of low-level anxiety in Israel constantly,” she says. “Love, sex and death are raw and present there all the time.”

    Pascal is an atheist, attending a non-religious state school in Manchester and ‘marrying out’ of Jewish society. But she still considers herself Jewish in a cultural sense.

    She wrote the Crossing Jerusalem following the Second Intifada, the Palestinian revolt against Israel that lasted from 2000 to 2005.

    Her research saw Pascal masking her Jewish identity and venturing into the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, speaking French as a decoy to find out the truth of what life was like there.

    “Being a writer is like being a spy,” says Pascal. “As a ‘French person’ I was told things I never would have heard a as Jew.”

    This is where she discovered details of the relationships depicted in the piece.

    These include a Jewish woman’s love for her Arab servant, acts of horrific violence perpetrated by both sides, and unusual culture clashes such as the Christian Arab who will host anyone at his restaurant as long as they can afford to eat.

    It is these apparent inconsistencies and contradictions that Pascal always seeks to draw attention to in her writing. She tells me that the only Jewish plays in London are anti-Zionist and that the nature of the conflict in the Middle East is over-simplified, supporting an “easy political dogma”.

    Her considerable body of work declares a fearless appetite to challenge these received opinions and an eagerness to expose the complex and uncomfortable truth.

    And this play is no different. It is an insight into a strained and complex world of family ties, prejudice, religious obligation and above all humanity.

    As Pascal says: “The more we know about each other, the safer the world is.”

    Crossing Jerusalem
    4–29 August
    Park Theatre
    Clifton Terrace
    N4 3JP
    parktheatre.co.uk