A humorous, irreverent, fabulously acted, profane, provocative, equal-opportunity-offender play, Two Things You Shouldnt Talk about at Dinner, is playing at the Denver Center Theatre Company.
Set around a seder table, broadly defined to include every imaginable kind of bondage to be transcended, the play will surely resonate with those who fear old age, discrimination (for being Japanese, Chinese, Christian, Buddhist, immigrants, converts), eating too much (or too little), believing too much (or too little), etcetera etcetera.
But as the play evolves it eventually places one contemporary issue at its center: the Israel-Palestinian conflict. And here, while the humor stays strong, and the emotional climax is reached, much is said about Israel that reflects indeed, exacerbates the current climate of opinion that would put Israel on the defensive simply for existing.
To be sure, the play has its vehement defender of Israel, but in a telling way this only highlights the imbalance, as if there were two sides to the story of the right to exist. Make no mistake. It is more than the policies of Israel that come under attack here; it is Israels moral right to be, and to be successful.
At one point the actor defending the Palestinians, in a moment intended to be self-critical, to show vulnerability and fairness, says, to this effect: Dont you think that if one day the Palestinians do get the same power as the Israelis, the Palestinians will do the same [expletive]?
As to what is meant by this, forget the idea altogether that Israels creation and achievements are extraordinary. No, here the point is that Israel is terrible but, others, given the chance, might well be just as terrible. It is within this pervasive sense of denial of Israels achievements and humane outreach to peoples in trouble around the world, including Palestinians in need of everything from medical treatment to drip-irrigation farming techniques, that the individual lines in the play assume their bile.
Read Larry Hankin’s review of the play and Hillel Goldberg’s review of the accompanying study guide
We are told by the pro-Palestinian actor, for example, of a horrible picture of an Israeli soldier killing a child, but not told that this picture of the death of Mohammed Dura was proven to be a fake since that critical fact would cast Israel in an opposite, positive light. We are told, for another example, tear down the apartheid wall, but not told that this wall was intended to stop suicide bombers, and has done so since that critical fact would rob the Palestinian critic of the brutally effective, but false, image of Israeli apartheid. We are told, again by the pro-Palestinian actor, I saw children gassed during protests, but not told that the children were armed with potentially lethal weapons. Etcetera etcetera.
As if in a bookend to the comment on the potential abuse of future Palestinian power, the pro-Palestinian actor says, to this effect: Why do you list Israels achievements, such as Nobel Prizes. Whats the point? If the question needs to be asked, the potential for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue is dismal. The point, obviously, is to see the society one creates as a life-affirming effort. The point is: Why not stop fighting our right to be here, and accept that our presence in this land can benefit us all? But all the pro-Palestinian actor can see is: If Palestinians get the power, they will do the same [expletive]. That denial, that nihilism, that reductionist view of Israel, is the ultimate anti-Israel message here. Beware.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
