Comic Drama
Subject:
The Land of Israel
Humor
Parent-Child Relationship
Crisis

The Binding

A Hallucinatory evening between father and son, inspired by the myth of Isaac’s bond. A funny, moving and thought-provoking play about our life in Israel in the 21st century.

Plot summary

In a regional radio station, Yoel, a man in his 50’s, divorced, personal trainer, music lover, managing a radio program of stories and personal advice for listeners. During a broadcast, a surprising phone call from his eldest son Tomer, who enlisted to the army this week, turns his world upside down.

The hard dialogue between the two that takes place while Yoel’s trying to conduct his radio and reveals the fears and confusion of the two in the face of the challenges of the corona period, the age crisis and their different worldviews. Through the story we are exposed to the fundamental questions – how parents should accept their children, how the new generation should accept their parents and in general, how to accept those who are different from us especially in times of crisis.

Sara von Schwarze about the play:

The myth of the Binding has fascinated me all my life. As soon as we bring children into the world, we raise them according to our world view and thus impale them on the altar of our beliefs. its inevitable.

The play was written in the Corona period during the difficult first year in which we Theater people sat at home.

The idea for the play was born during a car drive with Nisso Kavia (one of the actors in the play) to a demonstration in Jerusalem.

The shared feelings that we have to deal, not only with the crisis we are going through, but also with the crisis of our children. The young generation’s dealings with the world falling apart before their eyes and on the other hand our desire to maintain some kind of commitment in them to frameworks such as: education and school, national service and the military, proffesion and higher studies, relationships, etc.

In the play, I tried to raise a question and not determine what the “correct” way to deal with the crisis is.

The question is, can any of us really give a definitive answer about how we should behave and what we should do in order to reach a state of inner peace and acceptance in our modern life?