And along with his play, there will be film screenings and some activities going on that simply cannot be missed.
I wrote about House back when I ran MIME.news and have now waited all this time to finally watch the play in real life. Not a minute too soon when Amos Gitai’s theater production based on his trio of documentaries hits London’s cool, brutalist architecture, inside the Barbican Centre.
Starting on September 25th, Gitai takes over the Barbican for a couple of days packed with his work. First, on that Wednesday is a screening of House (12A*) + a ScreenTalk with the director. The first film in Amos Gitai's trilogy follows all the residents of a home in West-Jerusalem — from the Palestinian owners forced to leave during the Nakb, after the 1948 war, to Jewish Algerian immigrants, to its new Israeli owners.
The following day, Thursday September 26th, a screening of the second installment of the trilogy, A House in Jerusalem (12A*) + Intro. Eighteen years after House, Gitai returns to the setting of his first film to observe the changes in the new residents as well as in the neighbourhood. The filmmaker works like an archaeologist, revealing, under multiple layers, a complex labyrinth of destinies through interviews with the current residents of this well-to-do neighborhood, the Palestinian family who lived there in the past, an archaeologist and more.
The same evening, a bit later, kicks off the first night of House by Gitai. La Colline – théâtre national in Paris presents a large-scale, international ensemble theatre production based on the historic documentary film trilogy by the Israeli helmer. House is a dialogue between actors and musicians from Israel, Palestine, Iran, France, Germany and the UK. They speak and sing in Arabic, English, French, Hebrew and Yiddish. House is an attempt to discuss the present and future whilst paying mind to the past. Included in the cast as some of Gitai’s phenomenal collaborators like Irene Jacob and Micha Lescot. The play runs through Saturday, September the 28th.
In fact, on the Saturday is when the third “chapter” of his film trilogy will play. News from House, News from Home (12A*) + Introduction will screen in the afternoon, with a final performance of the play House to follow later in the evening. The film completes the trilogy which began in 1980 with House and continued in 1998 with A House in Jerusalem. Forming a sort of human archaeology, exploring the relationships between the house's inhabitants, past and present, between Israelis and Palestinians.
If ever there was a way to understand the future and manage to figure out a way to navigate it, certainly looking to the mistakes of the past would be the roadmap. And no one is a better navigator of human crisis than Amos Gitai.
To purchase tickets or find out more, check out the Barbican’s website.
Top image courtesy of La Colline, used with permission.