Fri. & Sat. July 26-27 at 8pm, Sunday July 28 at 4pm
fool'sFURY
Written and performed by DEBÓRAH ELIEZER Directed by BEN YALOM Video Design: KEDAR LAWRENCE Lighting Design: SABRINA HAMILTON
In (dis)Place[d], foolsFURY Co-Artistic Director Debórah Eliezer cracks open the assumptions of her own identity through the story of her father, Edward Ben-Eliezer, an Iraqi Jew born in 1930, a member of the Zionist underground, refugee, Israeli spy, and immigrant to America. Eliezer brings twenty years’ experience as an acclaimed physical performer to create a dozen different characters, including her father at three different ages, her great grandmother, their Iraqi neighbors, an ethereal embodiment of the Tigris Euphrates valley itself, refugees, immigrants, and more. First generation immigrants have often hidden the stories of their past, sometimes to keep painful memories from their children, sometimes to enthusiastically embrace their new countries. The children are caught between cultures, with no way of acknowledging a multi-national, multi-ethnic identity. It was not until Eliezer’s father had begun his descent into dementia that she began to glimpse his past. “We kept cyanide in our socks,” he said out of the blue one day. And she learned that her peace-loving father had been a spy for the Israeli Defense Forces. Other stories trickled out:- as a child he hid for days on a rooftop as Baghdadi Jews were slaughtered during the Farhoud, a Nazi-inspired “pogrom”;
- at 11 he joined the Zionist underground, smuggling weapons;
- at 19 he was targeted for assassination, fled Baghdad, crossed the desert on foot, and lived in a refugee camp on the Iraq/Iran border for two years;
- he managed to bring 8 of his 9 siblings to Israel, unable to save the eldest, who stayed behind and was killed.
“Luminous…So beautifully written, performed and directed that you might wish it were longer.” (SF Examiner)
