Dirty Linen

After spending a week trucking to primary schools in the greater Bay Area, a troupe of Israeli and Palestinian musicians and actors hunkered down for a second week at the daring New Conservatory Theatre near San Francisco's Civic Center.

For the Sunday matinee in downtown San Francisco, there were as many teary-eyed adults as there were wonderstruck kids for this cultural exchange of Jews and Arabs telling each other folk tales. Rabeah Murkus, younger sister of budding Palestinian global diva Amal Murkus, put her background in movement and dance to captivating use as she played out the story of "The Ant, The Beetle, and The Dry Spring." Collecting variations on this traditional Palestinian folktale from various Arab villages and then filtering it through her own grandmother's version, Murkus had kids and adults alike hanging on every dramatic turn and tambourine beat. The story revolves around the tragic courtship of a lonely marriage-minded ant and the dapper, albeit momentarily careless beetle that comes a-courting. Accompanying Murkus' improvised characterizations and voicings were the DuoTones, namely Zehava Simon on piano and oud, and Shimon Abalovitch on violin and shtick. The DuoTones played stirring debkah folk dance and wedding tunes, as well as Arabic scale incidental music. Within her story, Murkus managed to teach the audience a few key Arabic words, suggest some deeper concepts, and bridge the dysfunctional family divide separating the Hebrew language and culture from her own. The wellsprings of compassion she tips on stage recall the critical praise that accompanied Murkus' film debut in the 1992 Film Festival favorite, Hanna Elias' Ha'Har/The Mountain, where the then-teenager played a young Palestinian woman taking control of her life in the face of village and external pressures.

Murkus and her Israeli storytelling counterpart Noam Meiri showed some flashy footwork as they prepared the stage for the second folktale while the DuoTones ranged from Middle Eastern melodies to barrelhouse blues off to stage right. When they were done, a three-story house stood downstage, complete with the crown of any Israeli roof – the twin protrusions of TV antenna and solar-heated water tank.

Meiri, a lithe Marcel Marceau with words, played out Israeli writer Leah Goldberg's widely circulated kids' parable, "Apartment for Rent." While heavily freighted with symbolism, pre-schoolers didn't fret over deconstructing the magical masks, puppetheads, and Velcro secured props that help tell this story of a top floor flat being shown to prospective renters by the building's current tenants: an egg-laying hen, a nutshell-spitting squirrel, a vampy cat, and an empty-nested mama cuckoo bird. Meiri gets inside each critter well enough to develop a familiarity that allows a playful bond to develop between his audience and his characters. Director Avishai Greenfield knows how to telegraph a sight gag or punchline through his actor/storytellers so that the kids participate in filling in the subtext. That's a nifty trick to work on kids; whether or not the grown-ups get it remains uncertain. Meiri and Murkus answered audience questions from young and old following the show, learning anew how kids can say the darndest things. — Mitch Ritter (Concord, CA)

This is an excerpt from Dirty Linen #83 (August/September '99)
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