Burning Star yes, Ballad no

By Daniel Nelson

Just as Salman Rushdie tried to tell the story of the post-1947 Indian subcontinent through the lives of Midnight’s Children, Nir Paldi and Theatre Ad Infinitum attempt to distill Israel’s history into an 80-minute performance of one family’s experience.

Battersea’s former council chamber, where the play is staged, was the scene of some spirited political clashes, but none as high-octane as

Ballad of the Burning Star

Image by Theatre Ad Infinitum

‘Burning star’ is an apt description of a country that generated admiration for the kibbutzim idealism and scientific progress of its early years and yet is in a continuous state of war with its neighbours, but ‘ballad’ doesn’t begin to do justice to the energy, drive, humour, drama, pathos or volume generated by the cast of six, plus Camp David, the on-stage musician.

Paldi in drag vamps his way through a kaleidoscope of personal, family and political scenes, entertainingly martialling – military metaphors are intended and unavoidable –  his energetic troupe of Starlets, who pump, dance, gyrate, gurn, sing and act in their uniforms of grey tunics and passion-killer pants.

A running joke about who’s in charge and about dissension in the cast is used to break the sadness and tension of the genuinely moving moments and to undercut any fear of didacticism. It’s history as cabaret, and everything is thrown into the pot – Nazi persecution, the independence and Lebanon wars, bourgeois life in the Jewish settlements, Palestinian stone-throwing resistance, Rabin’s assassination, why Palestinians in the Occupied Territories use animal dung to burn their rubbish, the Blood Libel, even the Holocaust (initially greeted by a finger on the lips).

Everything is serious, everything can be humorous: as the Starlets recite an endless and appalling litany of anti-Jewish pogroms, Paldi  moves to the front to tell the audience that the list is so long it might be a good time to go to the toilet.

Towards the end Paldi heralds the enactment of another troubling issue of contemporary Israel: The Internal  Conflict – to join the army and maybe participate in repression of another minority, or to refuse, and perhaps be responsible for failing to defend a persecuted people fighting for its life.

So, plenty to think about and plenty to laugh about.  It’s rumbustious,  inventive and a bit shouty, but it’s a fresh way of looking at an old story.

·         Ballad of the Burning Star is at the Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, London SW11until 8 March (Info: 7223 2223/ www.bac.org.uk); at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool on 11-12 March (Info: 0844 873 2888/ www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk) and Lakeside Theatre, University of Essex, Colchester on 13 March (01206 873261/ www.lakesidetheatre.org.uk)

·         http://www.fringereview.co.uk/pageView.php?pagename=Edinburgh%20Previews Interview with Nir Paldi,  director and performer