Gabriella Lev

Gabriella Lev is a theatre director, writer and performer. She co-founded the “Theatre Company Jerusalem” and is currently its artistic director. She has won many awards, including ‘My Jerusaelem award’ for contribution to cultural life in Jerusalem 2010.

Gabriella Lev graduated from University of New South Wales where she majored in theatre in 1969. There she played many varied roles, including Gertrude in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and Joan in George Bernard Shaw's "St.Joan".

In 1971 Lev attended the London Film School, where she joined an alternative theatre company, "The Low Moan Spectacular" and helped create "El Coca Cola Grande" in which she also performed. This play was performed off Broadway and is still running in various parts of the U.S. and Canada today. Lev performed in various theaters in the U.K. IncludingThe Hampstead Theatre Club,Grenwich Theatre, The Close, The Citizen's Theatre Glasgow, The National Theatre of Wales andThe Bristol Old Vic as well as appearing in various theaters in Europe.

Lev was influenced by the alternative theatre scene in London in the 1970’s where she first came into contact with such troupes as The People Show and practitioners such as Charles Marowitz.

In 1973 Gabriella Lev made Aliyah to Israel. Which had a great effect on her work. She participated in a 10 day workshop given by Andre Gregory and Jaques Chwat at Mishkenot Sha'ananim. This exposure to work inspired by Jerzy Grotowski influenced her artistically. Later she collaborated with Serge Quaknine a student of Grotowskis. Also in this period she first came into contact with the voice work of the Roy Hart Theatre and co-operated with members of the theatre particularly Barry Coglhan for many years. In her first year in the country she worked in various schools and community centers teaching drama. At the end of this year she established the Odot Company which produced two original Israeli theatre pieces, "Nashim Odot Nashim" and "Anashim Rakim”. She later helped establish The Jerusalem Drama Workshop and was its director for three years. This establishment grew into the Theatre Company Jerusalem which she co-founded and today is its artistic director. The original works of TCJ have won much acclaim and recognition. The company has been invited to perform at many theatre festivals around the world.

Lev lectures and demonstrates the unique theatrical modes developed by her and her company in many universities and institutions of higher learning, both in Israel and abroad. Such as Yale university, Wesleyan University the University of California in Berkeley and [Harvard University].

Works Gabriella Lev initiated and co-created

Maaseh Bruria

Ester

Sara Take 2

Sota

Ahava Atika

Shulem

Feminist Theatre

The Judaic Nature of Israeli Theatre

Interview with Gabriella Lev

Seven languages on one stage :The play "Shulem" experience the Holocaust through art

Shulem recalls the liberation from slavery in Egypt, remembering the Holocaust

External Links

Theatre Company Jerusalem

Articles and Reviews

"Theatre Company Jerusalem embodies an impressive creativity…They could be defined as The definitive young, original Hebrew Theatre or as The definitive alternative, experimental Jewish Theatre.” - Eli Yishai, Theatre Critic, Kol Ha’Ir (Jerusalem Weekly)

“What Theatre Company Jerusalem and Gabriella Lev have to offer is both extraordinary and important a most wonderful and meaningful gift, a chance to see how diverse, beautiful a force they are an exciting way to profoundly impact our greater community“ - Rebecca Hoffberger Founder and Director of American Visionary Art Museum

“TCJ challenges us to hear and see differently. Its provocative program compels us to stretch our intellect and to expand our senses to take in the wonder of the language and the message. TCJ's majestic art draws us into its mystical circle and holds us there long after a performance has been completed. Time and again, Gabriela Lev has taken the discourse about women's roles in Judaism to a deeper and significantly more intense level. Theatre Company Jerusalem moves us all to consider how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.” - B. Dobkin, Current chair of the AJWS.

“I have seen Gabriella Lev’s work and find it among the most exhilarating Jewish Theatre experiences available in our times The innovative and provocative theatre that emerges from her company’s efforts to reconstruct the lives and experiences of Biblical women out of fragmentary bits and pieces of evidence is intensely engaging.” Gail Reimer, Director and Founder of Jewish Women’s Archive, Brookline

"Gabriella Lev is one of the most creative forces in contemporary Jewish theater, using her work and that of the Theater Company Jerusalem to develop a midrash for the stage. Theater Company Jerusalem blends feminism, Judaism and text study in electric performances." - Shulamit Reinharz, Ph.D. Director, Hadassah International Research Institute on Jewish Women, at Brandeis University Director, Women's Studies Research Center

“Power to provoke…. If every generation contributes an innovation to the interpretation of sacred texts then Gabriella Lev and Theatre Company Jerusalem are the first to give physical expression to an oral tradition.' - Jerusalem Post (National daily}

“Our students were simply amazed at Ms. Gabriella Lev’s art and moved by her passion and memory . A canvas so large and beautiful that one student after the performance said to me that she hoped to be among those women who will continue to make it “bigger “, by continuing to spin the threads for her family, her friends and her children one day.Francesco Melfi , Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, Oberlin College, Ohio.

Reviews of ‘Shulem’

“The work "SHULEM" is a theatrical journey of the memory- strange beautiful and impressive. The new work of Theatre Company Jerusalem is a very personal one of the director of the company, Gabriella Lev, based on her memories as a child of survivors of the Shoah who immigrated to Australia. Lev created the piece in the memory of her father in whose name the show is titled. Together with the director, Serge Ouaknine and the three other participants she designed the event as a kind of family seder for Pesach in which the religious command to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt is naturally integrated with the need to tell the story of the father and the family's. Exodus from Europe. The style is poetical, circus-like and grotesque, with excellent use of the enormous table, which is the central object, around and on which the performance takes place. One of the characteristics of the stories that Lev tells is that they change occasionally and thus have various endings. It is this very openness that gives the work a sense of a ritual journey through the confusions of memory in search after some key, which will be able to contain the horror. There is a gradual transition from an external perception to an interior one, and from this inner perception suddenly things appear different with moments of humour and even a strange kind of optimism. At a certain moment Lev chose to quote from Paul Celan's "Death Fugue" and I was reminded of his statement –after Auschwitz to continue to write poetry has become impossible. And indeed there are moments that it seems that the avant-garde style of the work accentuates the uneasy feeling of dealing with this difficult material. But taken as a whole the play succeeds to triumph over these instants and ultimately creates a journey of the memory which is theatrical, strange, beautiful and impressive.” Yediot Achronot, National daily

“A Distinctive Seder Night- Extremely Powerful !" "Shulem”, Theatre Company Jerusalem, Shimshon Performing Arts Centre Theatre Company Jerusalem uses ancient Jewish sources as the inspiration for the creation of alternative theatre. Their new play "SHULEM" is a very original performance piece that juxtaposes the traditional Seder night with personal truncated memories from the Shoah. One of the powerful vignettes is a survivor's railing against a God who remained silent. The confrontation on the Seder night contains within it an intrinsic powerful irony, a strong consciousness that the same God, who delivered the children of Israel from slavery to freedom, is the God who disappeared during the Holocaust. The audience sits on the stage in two rows, opposite to and facing each other, the play is performed between them. The idea is that we, the audience, have also come to celebrate the festival of Passover together with the performers. I found myself rather a spectator than a participant because this Seder night is a framework from which the memories and experiences from the days of the Holocaust arise. From this framework, which acts as a strong central and poignant metaphor, the play is carried out in a grotesque manner that also creates an ironic distance- needed because of the intensity of the subject. The director Serge Ouknine is responsible for the visual conception, where on one side of the stage hangs a rope ladder and on the other side a swing, which blends with the use of fire and candle-light, puppets and a musical collage that blends gypsy and Jewish music with the addition of cabaret songs, where a fantastic Tuba, being played and carried across the stage by one of the actors, leads everything with thorough resonance. The above fusion is buttressed and elaborated by a mixture of languages. Gabriella Lev, who wrote the piece and is also the main actor, speaks monologues in Hebrew but weaves into them pieces of Yiddish Hungarian and German. We also hear voices in English and Russian This intricacy emphasizes the strange quality of the piece and works excellently to prevent slipping into sentimentality and tears by creating a distance from the horrors of the Shoah. This is an exceptionally powerful play with exquisite and compelling performances of the highest quality, and a uniquely superlative fusion of acting, music and an extraordinary visual concept: A Seder night which is certainly distinctive.” Ma'ariv, National daily

In Israel of 2006 where Jewish –Zionistic administrative bodies such as the Ministry of Education or Yad Vashem have an almost complete monopoly on the Holocaust, it is very difficult to say something about Europe 1939-1945 without sounding either tiresome or enlisted. Theatre Company Jerusalem, presently performing "SHULEM " circumvented these pitfalls with an elegance that leaves one breathless! Instead of producing a "Shoah" show, Gabriella Lev (playwright/actress) and her collaborators (Ayellet Stoller, Avishai Fisz and Gershon waiserfirer) mount a play about memory. The Shoah of the Jews has a very clear narrative (they despised us, they slaughtered us, we survived, we established Israel, and this land is ours) but the memory of one person cannot contain such a clear narrative: the minds of many who survived the disaster became distorted on some level, either clinically or philosophically. The Holocaust stories that were told to Gabriella Lev in her childhood often had different endings. In one ending her father shoots and kills a captured German officer who helps him plan and conduct battles in the Soviet army, in another ending they part as friends and the third ending narrates how the wife of the Nazi tells the father long after the war, that her husband died of cancer. Refreshingly, the characters in "SHULEM" are real people, and as such they are both victims and victimizers of others, and as they go about their lives, they sing, play musical instruments, pass the time, and interact with this idiotic human condition of ours with much energy and irony on their way. And so the refugees of the Shoah in "SHULEM" put God on trial in a Din Torah, and find him guilty but somehow still continue to conduct a Seder every year at Pesach. There is no logic here because you cannot comprehend the Shoah logically. The play "SHULEM " is courageous because it dares to stray from the national narrative and because it dares to stand in front of survivors without either being obsequious or negating one's distinctive personality, surrendering or even disappearing before them. This is not merely exceptional but (the performance) points to the imperceptible and it is almost impossible to grasp how they do this. In a discussion (led by AMCHA -Center for Holocaust Survivors and the Second generation) that took place with the performers and the audience after the performance it was abundantly clear that even the survivors are eternally grateful.” Achbar Hair in Kol Hair, Jerusalem weekly

"Intense, circus-like performed with total conviction. Played by Gabriella Lev with devastating total vocal control and Ayellet Stoller who moves from pantomime to song in a wonderful pure voice. Joining them the two musicians Avishai Fisz, the composer of the play, carrying a gypsy piano-accordion, and Gershon Weisserfirer with a huge euphonium reveal themselves to be outstanding actors."'Bama Theatre Website

"Excellent performances! Perfect ensemble work particularly the acting of Gabriella Lev and Ayellet Stoller and the performances of Avishai Fisz and Gershon Weisserfirer” ''Hatzofeh, National daily

“Whoever attends a play of Theatre Company Jerusalem knows what to expect Theatricality and extravagance are the hallmark of this company. In "SHULEM", the stage is saturated with bold colours, dance and dynamic tones. With each new work the artists of TCJ explore the limits of theatre and attempt to impart a physical and visual expression to memories and reverberations that pass through our consciousness and indeed memory and how it is portrayed play an important role in this work. In "SHULEM" Gabriella Lev and Ayellet Stoller, who created this piece together with two musicians, set out to find Shulem a young Jewish man who lived in the time of the Second World War and the Shoah. Music accompanies the whole piece which is full of "special wonders", including plates of fire and darts falling from the sky. Makor Rishon, National daily