It’s 1990 in the Middle East, and the first intifada (Palestinian uprising) against Israel rages on for a third year. In a small village in the West Bank, three Palestinian brothers meet in the back of the butcher’s shop where the youngest, Khalid, works. Suspicion and mistrust hang heavy. Elder sibling Daoud is rumoured to be collaborating with the Israelis. Middle brother Na’im, who lives in the mountains with a rebel group, has just one hour to find out the truth before the guerrillas come to wipe out informants.
‘Masked’ was written by Israeli Ilan Hatsor almost 20 years ago, when he was just 18 and a first-year theatre student at Tel Aviv University. The play had an immediate impact, winning the top prize at the country’s Acco fringe theatre festival, and has since been performed in over 100 cities across the world. In August, Masked made its debut in Argentina.
Director Lorenzo Quinteros and Alok Tewari – a US actor who plays the role of Daoud – meet me at Cafe Tortoni on Avenida de Mayo. The pair formed a friendship some 12 years ago, when Tewari studied acting under Quinteros while working for a bank in Buenos Aires. Although Tewari later returned to the US to complete a Master of Fine Arts in acting, he stayed in touch with his former teacher, and two years ago began sending scripts with the hope of being directed by Quinteros in an Argentine production.
Around the same time, Masked opened in New York. “The play seemed very appropriate for him [Alok] to come here to work,” says Quinteros. “It was a subject that I thought could resonate here, even though Argentina isn’t directly involved in the Middle East conflict.”
It may not be directly involved, but with Buenos Aires home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, were there concerns about how the dramatisation of such a sensitive topic would be received? “We thought about that, but I think the play is well-balanced,” says Quinteros. “[The actions of] both sides are equally damaging to the lives of the brothers.”
Modern Conflict, Ancient Themes
One of the play’s defining characteristics – and great strengths – is its objective portrayal of an emotionally charged conflict. Though set amid the Israeli-Palestine struggle, it studiously avoids making ideological or moral judgements. The destructive capacity of war is instead presented through the eyes of one family torn apart by incompatible principles, desperation, and the quest for survival.
The external battle, Quinteros tells me, is only relevant in so far as it drives a wedge between the brothers. “It’s not that the Middle Eastern conflict doesn’t interest me, but this isn’t the story I need to tell … what matters is what happens between them.”
In an author’s note written for the play’s New York debut two years ago, Hatsor himself explains how regional politics were never intended to be part of the story: “During the writing process I didn’t think of the characters as ‘Arabic’ or ‘Palestine’ … for me they were – and still are – three brothers … They could have been Irish, Bosnian or German.”
It is this universal theme of feuding brothers – taken from the heart of Greek tragedy – that keeps Masked feeling so fresh almost two decades after it was written. Quinteros was surprised at the reaction to the play of some local friends, who said it reminded them of 70s’ Argentina, and the dark days of military dictatorship. But he can see the connection. “Just imagine,” he says, “three Montoneros in the guerrilla movement to bring down the military government. Holed up, unable to go out for fear of persecution, perhaps one of them is suspected of leaking information to the army…”
Intense Viewing
Making viewers reflect and empathise with the characters is clearly Quinteros’ plan. It is no surprise, then, that everything about the production seems designed to ensure the audience is emotionally engaged with the feuding brothers, and not debating the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Palestine struggle. The butcher shop’s menacing meat cleavers and blood-stained walls are sufficient as a symbol of the brutal reality threatening to tear the family apart from the outside in.
Even the venue – a small, arty theatre above a bookshop – seems appropriately intimate, even mildly claustrophobic. Quinteros has the actors in each other’s faces the whole time, and is not afraid to leave the audience squirming in long, uncomfortable silences. There is no place to hide from the unbearable moral dilemmas that the brother’s must face in one, exhausting 80-minute act. Who is protecting the family and who is putting it at risk? Should their loyalties lie with each other or the cause? Who is to blame for Nidal, an unseen, younger fourth brother left paralysed after being shot at an illegal rally? Questions that are faced every day by those caught up in conflict, questions without answers.
Such a stripped-down production places great emphasis on the delivery of the actors, making Tewari’s performance in a foreign language all the more impressive. As a fellow non-native Spanish speaker, I wonder how he prepared for a play with such dense, gritty dialogue. “It’s difficult. I started studying the script [in Spanish] just over a month before coming here [in July], and when I arrived my accent was worse than now. I took classes to reduce my accent, and Lorenzo and another teacher helped me with certain words that I always have difficulty with. It was a challenge.”
“That doesn’t matter too much now,” interjects Quinteros, who remains very much the teacher to Tewari’s student. “The important thing is that he is fully engaged with the situation … when he is engaged, and knows where the character is going and what he wants to say, it doesn’t matter how the words come out.”
Masked can be seen (in Spanish) at Teatro Del Nudo, Av. Corrientes 1551, on Saturdays and Sundays through to 25th October. Shows start at 8:30pm; call 4373 9899 for box office ($40).