Correction about 7 Jewish Children

To:
Rabbi@ehnt.org
Shalom, Jonathan!
I hope you're doing well and mazal tov on the success of your electronic outreach to so many. I appreciated the length and thoroughness of your questioning Roberta P. Seid. But I do want to offer one important clarification with respect to a completely misinterpreted event at our theater:
Theater J never "produced" Caryl Churchill's 10 minute play, SEVEN JEWISH CHILDREN (A PLAY FOR GAZA); we held a two-night "critical inquiry" about it, inviting panelists to hear the play and then discuss it; we invited Israeli and American artists to write their own response plays to it. And I, in a lengthy introduction, explained that the most effective way to both understand and criticize the play would be to hear it as it was intended to be heard; as a piece of theater recited by actors.
We never "produced" the play; it was read (in both Hebrew and English) -- it lasted 8 minutes -- it proved itself to be better than its detractors would have you believe, and we could come to understand what was unfair about it. The act of presenting it allowed us to demystify it. The act of being in dialogue with Carly Churchill herself allowed us to see her not as a flaming anti-Semite but as a dramatist who was moved out of twin sympathies and a sense of tragic historical irony that Jews once under siege were now laying siege. That's the aspect of her play to which most Jews are most angered; it suggests an implicit meaning that Jews who once suffered at the hands of the Nazis are now behaving like Nazis. That's not what the play says, or shows, but that's the trope that has inflamed discussion around it. As you know, there are many ways to interpret a line of text. Churchill's plays--and she's regarded as one of the finest playwrights in the world--are frequently open-ended and elusive. Her short text, SEVEN JEWISH CHILDREN, required an informed Jewish response from a theater that could both grapple with the theatrical challenge in presenting her words artfully, while still providing a Jewish context and frame through which to view her work coolly and rationally.

Our community and critics appreciated the effort to bring light to the subject. You can read the Washington Post's front page assessment of our handling of the situation here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/26/AR2009032603960.html
'Seven' Revels In Not Only Acting, but Interacting
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 27, 2009