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| Photo: Ran D. Kopiler |
Originally conceived at the Britten Studio and shown at the Snape Maltings Festival of the New (UK), “Silence Makes Perfect” has recently been playing in Israel. This writer attended the performance at Habait Theatre, Jaffa, on June 12th, 2021. The concept of the show is that of the two artists who perform it on stage - a collaboration of Yael Rasooly’s distinctive direction, puppeteering and singing, along with the superb classical playing, arrangements, improvisations and performative presence of pianist Amit Dolberg (Meitar Ensemble). Also involved in the production are Ran D. Kopiler-concept design and 3D masks, Maureen Friedman-costume design, Yoav Barel-lighting, Binya Reches-sound, with puppets designed by Rasooly herself. The language of the performance is English.
Dolberg sets the scene with the furtive sounds and chilling stillness of Claude Debussy’s "Des pas sur la neige" (Footsteps in the Snow). The recorded narrator begins the story in a decidedly naive way, as if telling the story to a child. Here is a happy, musically-talented little girl who takes her music lessons seriously. Opening a ‘cello case, the girl (Rasooly) introduces each side of it as her parents. All props in the show are musical instruments or constructed from parts of them. What quickly transpires is that the girl undergoes sexual assault by a “friend of the family”. Dolberg’s use of music by Debussy, Schubert and Beethoven begins to reveal the girl’s inner struggle, her isolation and growing detachment, these also represented by a ghostly and fragmented rendering of Dido’s Lament (Purcell’:“Dido and Aeneas”) Dolberg’s improvisations on these works and the build-up of distortion of their musical elements, some moments joined by Rasooly’s singing, reflect the turmoil created in the girl’s life as her flashbacks, imaginings and psychological state spiral out of control and sounds become more condensed and disturbing by way of looping and layering. The peak of her trauma is represented in a scene on a dark stage hung with large silver boards, the latter manipulated by Dolberg to produce spine-chilling reverberations as the girl fondles a horrific vertebraic, snakelike object. Rasooly and Dolberg now appear in monstrous masks. This performance is not for the faint-hearted and its message is clear: sexual abuse must not be overlooked or swept under the carpet, that silence is far from perfect.
Rasooly and Dolberg offer the audience 50 minutes of polished,
streamlined and daring performance. With the piano on stage, Amit Dolberg’s
musical contribution remains integral and engaging. His acting role, although
non-verbal, is no less effective. Yael Rasooly’s fresh, pure soprano voice and
her fine British English are as convincing as her depiction of the three stages
in the protagonist’s “journey”, each stage endorsed by effective costuming. The
performance ends on an optimistic note with the confident, truly splendid and uplifting
cabaret-style performance of the now young woman singing Lana Del Rey’s
suggestive song “Yayo”:
“Let me put on a show for you, daddy
Let me put on a show
Let me put on a show for you, tiger
Let me put on a show”..
One of Israel’s leading performers of new
music, Amit Dolberg has premiered works dedicated to him. Founder/director of
the Meitar Ensemble, he has been instrumental in the Centre for New Music (Tel
Aviv), the Matan Givol Composers Competition, the Tedarim M.Mus. Program of Contemporary Music (Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance) and the CEME
International Festival for New Music.
Trained primarily as a classical singer,
Yael Rasooly also studied theatre design in London. She graduated with
excellence from the Jerusalem School of Visual Theatre, where she specialized
in directing, puppetry and design. As of 2006, she has been creating
independent theatre works, performing at international festivals throughout
Europe, the United States, South America and the Far East.
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| Photo: Ran D. Kopiler |
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