Hit Israeli play to make Canadian stage debut in Toronto

Director Liza Balkan, centre, works with actors Brittany Kay and Alice Snaden. (Maria Ricossa photo)

On the afternoon of March 6, 2016, in a gallery area at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, eight women performed a dramatic reading of Mikveh, a controversial Israeli play about Orthodox women in Jerusalem. Tickets were free and the room was packed. Even though the play was written in 2004, and won the top prize as production of the year at Israel’s Theatre Academy Awards that same year, it has seen pushback by some in the global Orthodox community – including in Canada.

After the 2016 performance in Toronto, the organizers stayed for an audience Q-and-A, and an Orthodox woman from the audience stood up. She wasn’t happy. These things didn’t happen in her world, she argued. Why would this play portray their community in such a negative way?

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From there, things escalated into what Liza Balkan, one of the actresses in the play, recalls as “the most electric, thrilling, argumentative, controversial, engaged talkback that any of us had ever experienced.”

Now, two years after that afternoon and 14 years removed from its debut, the show is finally receiving its Canadian debut. The Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, which staged the dramatic reading in 2016, is presenting the show at the Toronto Centre for the Arts’ Greenwin Theatre from April 14 to May 6.

The show has been produced in Mexico City, Bratislava and beyond, and tells the story of eight women whose secrets of abuse and repression unfold at a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath), commonly used by Orthodox women after menstruation and birth.

The environment of the mikveh lends itself to a story of emerging feminism and openness, which are themes playwright Hadar Galron wanted to express – not a diatribe against Orthodoxy, but a celebration of female empowerment and solidarity.

“Woman’s status in Jewish law is something that demands a change,” Galron said in a 2010 interview with DC Theatre Scene, “and I believe that only women can make that change – first of all by understanding that they deserve more.”

After the Toronto reading in 2016, Harold Green co-artistic directors David Eisner and Avery Saltzman decided to include it in their 2018 season. They asked Balkan if she’d reprise her role, but she declined. “I’m too old,” she told them. “What I really want to do is direct this piece.”

Eisner and Saltzman took her up on the offer. Balkan injects her feminism and Jewish heritage into the script, bringing its spirit and emotion to the fore.

“As a woman, any time you engage in a text or you offer a story that is about women coming together and sharing their power – and owning their power – that’s an extraordinary thing,” she says.

Director Liza Balkan, left, and actor Rosa Laborde in rehearsals. (Maria Ricossa photo)

But Balkan is not Orthodox, and some of the actresses aren’t even Jewish. To ensure the show’s authenticity, she enlisted the help of Shira Schwartz, a member of Toronto’s Orthodox community and theatre scholar at York University.

Capturing the nuance was important for Balkan. “You have a group of Orthodox women who love being Jewish and are bumping up against questions and decisions and choices that don’t allow them to fully own their voices,” she says.

While Balkan will not be reprising her role from the 2016 reading, three other actresses will be: Rosa Laborde, Maria Ricossa and Theresa Tova. Rounding out the cast are Jessica Greenberg, Brittany Kay, Niki Landau, Sadie Seaton and Alice Snaden.

The show is part of the fourth annual Spotlight on Israeli Culture, a three-month celebration of Israeli film, music, food and art, which comprises events around Toronto from March until the end of May.

“David and Avery wanted to honour the country by offering an empowering truth,” Balkan says. “This play is about change and love and taking steps forward.”

Tickets to Mikveh start at $15. To purchase, contact the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company at 1-855-985-2787 ,or visit hgjewishtheatre.com.

SPOTLIGHT ON JEWISH CULTURE

Mikveh is just one part of this year’s Spotlight on Israeli Culture. Here are a few other events you can check out around Toronto:

  • Cookbook author Bonnie Stern will host a presentation of her most recent trip to Israel at the Barbara Frum Library on May 9.
  • An Israeli film series will take place at Cineplex Cinemas Vaughan during the weekend of April 21.
  • Israeli Faces of Toronto, a photography exhibit, will be displayed at the Miles Nadal JCC gallery until April 26.
  • The National Ballet School of Canada will host a triple bill of contemporary dance choreographed by Jerusalem-born Avinoam Silverman on May 30.