The New York Time’s review was raving, from plot to music to lyrics. HUHHHH????
I was pumped. A friend gave me a lone ticket to this show and I heard it was a hot new ticket. It sure looked like it from the long lines stretching in both directions from the entranceway starting an hour ahead of opening curtain.
The ruin is that there is no ruin. The essence is that there is nothing to give away about the play other than there is nothing to give away about the play. The premise has promise, but does not fulfill it in any way.
An Egyptian band is to appear at a cultural center in Israel. They get lost. They get assigned to sleep at different people’s apartments, and this gives us entrée into the lives of the average Israeli family.
The show is 90 minutes without intermission. The first 45 minutes of the first half of the play threatened sleep and boredom, the show went nowhere. The music starts and the actors start to sing. Yawn. The music is tepid, the acting brings a couple of hackneyed chuckles on Israeli chutzpah, the voices aren’t asked to sing anything more difficult than a jingle. Lyrics uninspiring, music and acting nothing special.
But I expected to see what effect the Egyptian band members had on their hosts. The answer? None. They came, they ate dinner, they left in the morning, goodbye. Done.
It could be that the audience unfamiliar with the average Israeli’s life would find a peek into their lives eye opening, but the lives of these Israeli’s were undifferentiated from any other culture’s.
There you have it. Sorry to yuck your yum.
-Suri