Week 18: Monday

A Humanitarian Crisis or Humanitarian Relief?

In the last couple of weeks, more than fifteen countries, including United States, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Finland, Japan and the European Union, have announced that they will be suspending their contributions to UNRWA after being made at least partly aware of the extent to which Hamas is embedded in the agency. These contributions represent about 60% of UNRWA’s funding.

The evidence has been hidden in plain sight for years: textbooks used in UNRWA schools (with their arithmetic exercises built on a narrative not of the number of apples Johnny has eaten, but the number of Israelis Mohammed has killed); videos of end-of-year plays staged by pupils in UNRWA schools, depicting terrorists murdering Israeli soldiers. It appears that the evidence Israel presented has compelled these governments to confront the truth: evidence of UNRWA staff in closed WhatsApp groups revelling in the news of the October 7 pogrom; evidence of a handful of UNRWA staff (including teachers in UNRWA schools) actively participating in the massacre.

There are many calls for these countries to reconsider. UNRWA, it is argued, represents the best agency for providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population. The evidence on the ground would suggest, rather, that UNRWA represents the agency by which Hamas ensures that little aid reaches the civilian population, thereby artificially stoking the humanitarian crisis and expropriating the bulk of the aid for its own use.

If UNRWA’s initially dismissive response to Israel’s accusations, and the evidence of arms caches and tunnel entrances located in UNRWA schools, and arms smuggled in UNRWA grain sacks, leads to a decision to cease funding UNRWA, perhaps UNHCR may be able to take over, and, finally, after 76 years and four generations, something may be done to alleviate the Palestinian refugee situation rather than perpetuating and nurturing it.

Iberian Reactions

Sadly, Spain has announced that it will continue to fund UNRWA and send an additional 3.5 million euros. The acting government of Portugal (Spain’s less wealthy neighbour) has similarly announced that it will send an additional one million euros.

Also last week, demonstrations in Porto against the rising housing costs included protestors waving banners and chanting slogans attacking the Jewish community of Porto. One sign read “Not Haifa and not Boavista, no to a Zionist capital”, referencing the Porto neighbourhood that houses a synagogue and a growing number of Jewish residents. Other signs called for “cleansing the world of Jews” and urged people “not to rent a house from Zionist murderers”.

Bernice and I are due to fly to Lisbon in another two weeks, to spend a month with the kids. It is certainly true that Penamacor is a very long way, geographically and geopolitiucally, from Porto, and I am confident that we will not encounter any unpleasantness on the streets. To be honest, outside of retailers, we don’t have much contact with the local population, beyond the occasional ‘Bom Dia’. However, this is yet another reminder of the way much of the world is going. (Or should that be ‘reverting’?)

The Theatre of the Absurd Part I: Pinter

On Saturday night, Bernice and I watched a National Theatre production of No Man’s Land, which is probably Harold Pinter’s lightest and least menacing play. We had never seen it before, although I was well aware that it premiered with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson playing the two lead characters. In the revival we watched, the two leads were Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. I can pay them no greater compliment than to say that I didn’t feel the absence of Gielgud and Richardson for a moment. These were spellbinding performances by two men, each of whom can command a stage without speaking.

Having seen Patrick Stewart as Henry IV in the 1970s, I have always felt that he ‘sold out’ when he boldly went where he didn’t oughter go, as Captain Picard in Star Trek. It was therefore a particular joy to see him on stage. I also suspect that his decades principally in front of the camera have made him less ‘theatrical’ in his delivery and stage presence, a characteristic that certainly lent itself here to a filmed performance of the stage play.

McKellen, it is fair to say, was more flamboyant, but this was certainly appropriate to the role he was playing. The balance between the two, and their generosity to each other on stage, was wonderful to watch.

At this point, I should probably make some apposite comments about the ‘meaning’ of the play. I am reluctant to admit that neither Bernice nor I has any clear idea what the play is about. Extraordinarily, the production was so polished, and all of the performances so riveting, that we didn’t actually mind being in the dark.

After we had discussed the play briefly, I googled some reviews, and was, to be honest, relieved to read Michael Billington, reviewing in The Guardian this production. He stressed how enigmatic the play is, and, after offering his own interpretation, concluded that “it is up to every spectator to make up their own mind.” Clearly (or perhaps less than clearly) it is a play about memory, about rivalry, about the threat of oblivion and the various strategies we use in our attempt to avoid it. It is also, let me say, a mesmerising piece of writing, elevated here by two bravura performances.

The Theatre of the Absurd Part II: Richard III and Oedipus

Here I pause, as I wonder just how to do this next extraordinary subject justice. Shakespeare Globe Theatre on London’s South Bank is staging a production of Richard III later this year. Richard is famously known for his deformity. (The recent discovery of what is now agreed beyond reasonable doubt to be his skeleton confirms that he suffered from curvature of the spine.)

Interestingly, the theatre’s artistic director has been cast to play the king, and this has caused an uproar, after a professionally trained actor with a disability, posted on X: “Why is an artistic director of any theatre hiring themselves to play the lead when it’s not their casting or lived experience? Before anyone says it doesn’t matter, every time this happens more harm than good is done to disabled communities through misrepresentation.”

Let me first attempt to put this statement in context. In recent years, at least two English theatre companies, and one Australian, have cast disabled actors as Richard. (Unfortunately, I do not know whether all three actors suffer from scoliosis – Richard’s specific condition – or other disabilities.) At the same time, at least two major productions have starred non-disabled actors.

I feel I should tread carefully here. Not being disabled, I am perhaps not really entitled to talk about this topic. However, it does seem to me that this is a slippery slope. If only disabled actors can play disabled roles, because only they have the requisite ‘lived experience’, then perhaps only blacks can play Othello, or, since Othello is a moor, perhaps only North Africans can play him. Or, given that Othello has risen to a commanding position in the Venetian army, perhaps only Colin Powell can play him. Can only Jews play Shylock? Can only gay actors play gay parts?

And, if this is so, then presumably only straight actors can play straight parts, and only white actors can play white parts. It is usually at this point that the second purpose of this campaign is articulated. The disabled acting community is under-represented onstage. Disabled roles should be reserved for disabled actors as a form of positive discrimination, to redress an unjust imbalance. In the same way, black roles should be reserved for black actors.

Oedipus, of course, poses a particularly tricky challenge, since he blinds himself midway through Sophocles’ tragedy. Perhaps he needs to be played by a sighted actor before the blinding, and a blind actor afterwards.

You may have detected a certain tetchiness in my tone over the last paragraphs. This is brought on by my clearly unfashionable belief that the essence of acting is the ability to imagine an experience that is not one’s own lived experience. This is the magic, the alchemy, of acting. Rock Hudon convinced us that he was sexually attracted to Doris Day just as successfully as Anthony Hopkins convinced us that he enjoyed eating human flesh. John Hurt in Elephant Man, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man…

Oh, this is ridiculous! Almost any actor you have ever seen, playing any part you have ever seen them playing, convinces by imagination and empathy, not by identical experience. Through that remarkable alchemy, a successful performance allows the audience to feel the emotion, and share the lived experience, as well. Somewhere in there is, perhaps, as good a definition as any of art.

The logical consequence of believing that only a disabled actor can portray a disabled character, because only a disabled actor has the lived experience, is that only a disabled theatregoer can identify with a disabled character, because only a disabled theatregoer has the lived experience. Theatre is, in that case, both unnecessary and ineffective. (I happen to believe that isn’t the case.)

Not the least absurd part of this whole argument about the Globe’s casting is that scoliosis is arguably not the only, and possibly not even the most blatant, of the casting director’s perceived inappropriatenesses to play the role. This particular casting director is not, I have it on good authority, a murderer of inconvenient nephews, nor is she, as it happens, a man. However, in modern Britain, nobody argues (at least not aloud) that Michelle Terry does not have the ‘lived experience’ to play a man.

Having watched Tamsin Greig play Malvolio in Twelfth Night, I can say that I find no compelling reason why a woman cannot play a part written for a man. I certainly enjoyed her performance, and the production. In a different way, the casting of black actor Lucian Msamati as Salieri in Amadeus made immediately apparent how isolated and out of place the Italian composer was in the cosy, German-speaking, Viennese court.

Inevitably, casting against the obvious externals of the part sets the audience thinking about any significance. I am not certain how far an audience (let me rephrase that: I am not certain how far I) can be colour-, gender-, height-, physical-attribute-blind. Perhaps, if the current practice continues of casting with no regard to these externals, we will all become blind to these externals. I can only hope to be watching theatre long enough to find out.

Photo Note: As I explained last week, I won’t be posting any more photos of the grandkids on this very public platform. However, a few of you have expressed a desire to continue seeing photos. I thought I might create a quiet WhatsApp group and send out photos every couple of weeks. If you’d like to be included, please WhatsApp me (+972-052-8651-591). Please mention your name, so that I know I’m confining the group to bona fide followers. Please don’t feel awkward if you feel no desire to see more photos of my grandchildren. I have no real desire to see photos of yours, so I quite understand.