Return To Haifa at Theater J

Return To Haifa

Theater J
1529 Sixteenth Street, NW Washington

An extraordinary cross-cultural collaboration from the Israeli company that brought their kinetic Hamlet to DC in 2007, this heart-rending saga tells the story of Sa’id and Saffiyah, who return to the home they fled during Israel’s War of Independence and learn the fate of the baby they left behind. Now a young soldier in the IDF, Dov meets his birth parents while cleaving to Miriam and Ephraim, the Holocaust survivors who raised him, as he contemplates his identity and his country’s future.

Thru - Jan 30, 2011

Wednesdays: 7:30pm

Thursdays: 7:30pm

Saturdays: 8:00pm

Sundays: 3:00pm & 7:30pm

Price: $35-$55

Show Type: Drama

Box Office: 202-777-3210

Running Time: 1hr; 35 mins with no intermission

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Return To Haifa Reviews

Average Rating based on 7 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Highly Recommended

"...The drama by Israeli playwright Boaz Gaon, adapted from the book by Ghassan Kanafani - who was assassinated in a 1972 car bombing in Beirut - comes to Washington in a production of simmering emotionality by the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, one of Israel's premier companies. The cast of Jewish and Arab actors, guided by the intuitively gifted director Sinai Peter, embraces the combustible complexity of the story as if character and dialogue were elements meant to be inhaled."

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- Peter Marks

Washington Examiner - Highly Recommended

"... The cast of "Return to Haifa" is first-rate, as is its direction by Sinai Peter. Rada Adon plays Saffiyeh. She is excellent throughout, but particularly in the scene where she describes what it was like to be swept away from her home and her baby, herded by soldiers who wouldn't let her return. Sa'id is portrayed by Suheil Haddad as a man both furious and deeply saddened by the conditions of his life."

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- Barbara Mackay

Variety - Highly Recommended

"...Director Sinai Peter's perceptive staging emphasizes the play's many emotional peaks, especially the heartfelt detente reached by the two women, while also highlighting non-linear moments that help make this play so compelling. Under his stewardship, "Haifa" showcases live theater's unique ability to dissect and articulate explosive subjects like this one while filtering out the deafening rhetoric that so often prevails."

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- Paul Harris

WeLoveDC - Somewhat Recommended

"...I still don’t know what to think. As neither Jew nor Arab, these aren’t my narratives to try and untangle, not my wounds to try to heal. It would be presumptuous of me to cast judgement so quickly, on something created to start dialogue. So I encourage you to see it for yourself, regardless of your background, and be prepared to leave with more questions. For I do know, an easy response is the wrong response."

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- Jenn Larsen

Washington City Paper - Recommended

"...The show is performed in Hebrew and Arabic by the Cameri Theatre’s cast, and the subtitles seem to protect the story from the grandiosity to which it might otherwise be vulnerable. Being deprived of intelligible words focused my attention on the fine grain of the performances; it was impossible to see the characters as totems of their national or religious identities. Their discomfort in an awkward first encounter, sitting together and drinking the coffee Miriam has offered, all engaging in a shared act of determined politesse, is the same. So is their agony when a member of their family is lost to them. As one character says when removing the jacket of his Army uniform, “Don’t make a political thing out of it. I’m just hot.” By tracking closely the personal motives perpetuating an ancient conflict, Return to Haifa hits like a revelation."

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- Chris Klimek

Washington Jewish Week - Recommended

"...The work is profound not for its artistry, but for its bravery to confront demons that Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, will need to face if they are ever to move toward more peaceful coexistence. In the play, one man takes that step and his conciliatory gesture provides for the smallest inkling of hope."

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- Lisa Traiger

DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended

It may take a few minutes to settle comfortably into reading (the surtitles)and watching simultaneously, but the acoustic treasures of hearing six actors laugh, groan, yell, and sigh this dramatic landscape into being make for all the difference between looking out comfortably at a city through an airplane window and being made to walk its beautiful, broken streets with your own two feet.

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- Hunter Styles

Return To Haifa at Theater J

Return To Haifa

Return To Haifa Reviews

Washington Post - Highly Recommended

Washington Examiner - Highly Recommended

Variety - Highly Recommended

WeLoveDC - Somewhat Recommended

Washington City Paper - Recommended

Washington Jewish Week - Recommended

DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended

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