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When Mira Awad studied music as a girl in the Galilee Arab village of Kfar Rama, she never dreamed of future stardom on the Israeli stage.
Now delighting audiences at the Israeli Opera as Eliza Doolittle in the musical comedy "My Fair Lady," Awad says she has a different wish.
"I hope that in another five years it will be so much the norm that there are Arab actors and actresses in every theatre that it will cease to be an issue," Awad told reporters, fresh from rehearsing the rags-to-riches tale of a London flower-girl.
"Like in America...where it is so much a part of society that you don't think about the fact that siblings in a play, one of them is (played by a) Japanese and one of them is black."
Fellow thespians applaud Awad's success as a product of her talent, energy and a little bit of luck.
But her story, and that of fellow Arab actors in Israel, reflects more than 50 years of an Arab minority's struggle for self-definition.
Many Arab citizens in Israel say they feel they play an ill-suited role in its society, where the main language is Hebrew and not their mother-tongue Arabic and state symbols are imbued with the historical narrative of the Jewish people.
The split in loyalties between their state and their people grows more acute as a Palestinian uprising for independence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rages into its third year, striking at the fragile ties developed between Arabs and Jews in the previous decade of peacemaking.
Their place between the two worlds exposes them to a two-fold danger -- suicide bombings in Israeli cities and violence against Arabs as the army cracks down on the uprising. It also makes them an object of suspicion in both societies.
"There is still a difficulty in accepting this Israeli identity when Israeliness is doing something against your people, your Palestinian friends and family," said Awad. "It's hard for me, but I still see myself here. I want to have my say to Arabs and Jews in our region, to whoever wants to listen."
Tough Choices
Jews and Arabs have worked side-by-side in Israeli theatres for years, though some Arab actors say their road to success is far more difficult, just as many of their brethren complain of entrenched discrimination in Israeli institutions.
"We need to be three times better than the others (Jews)," said one actor. "But I hear from directors that Arab actors have a greater impact…(because) their emotional baggage is that much stronger."
Like a play within a play, some actors say they struggle with the choice between integrating into or resisting the dominant culture each time they pick up their cues.
"I act on stage, but I fear that if I were to show my true face off-stage, I would be shut out," said Juliano Mer, son of a Jewish Israeli mother and a Palestinian father and a well-known figure among Israeli audiences, with a career spanning film, television and stage acting.
Mer, who describes himself as a Jewish Palestinian, has a long history as a cultural chameleon and provocateur. He once served as a paratrooper in the Israeli army, but now espouses political activism for Palestinian independence.
"I try to sound reasonable, not militant, but when I hear my own outbursts I wonder how long I can sustain this split identity," he said.
Mer says he uses his fame to generate publicity for the Palestinian cause in interviews and in a column he writes in a Haifa newspaper, which raised tempers, when he tried to explain the motives of Palestinian suicide bombers who have killed scores of Israelis in the uprising.
The drama unfolded as he walked onstage during a performance at the Haifa Theatre, when a member of the audience interrupted the show and accused Mer of "applauding those suicide bombers."
"He has no right to be here!" the heckler shouted, before he was escorted from the hall. The audience applauded when Mer resumed the performance.
Offstage, Mer said he has frequently sneaked past Israeli military blockades into the West Bank city of Jenin, where he and a few colleagues have run theatre workshops for children for several years.
But even in the midst of danger, he keeps his sense of the absurd. Stealing through olive groves into Jenin, he and his partners came under fire from Israeli soldiers several times. Once inside the city, he said, soldiers asked for his autograph.
Political Stage
Israeli theatre has long mixed politics and art, first focusing on the narrative of nation-building in the 1940s and 50s. By the 1960s and 70s, a new generation of playwrights broke ranks with the national consensus with anti-war satires.
"People involved in…theatre and cinema usually identify with the left-wing of the political map, take a critical view, and they want to express this in their world…whether that is by choosing certain actors or raising specific issues," said veteran actor and director Oded Kotler.
Palestinian-Israeli actor and director Mohammed Bakri said he believed the Israeli army crossed a moral line with its actions in Jenin.
"When Jenin happened, I felt impotent as a person because I couldn't do anything," Bakri said. "If they had put me on the stage then to act in a play by Ibsen or Shakespeare, I could not have done it.
"I hope that if I succeed in bringing the film to an Israeli audience, they will understand the depth of the blow from all perspectives, from a human perspective, and draw conclusions."
(China Daily August 13, 2002)
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