09/08/23

Summerhall (Old Lab), Edinburgh

Former Israeli soldier, Itai Erdal, has an acutely focused view on the complex issues that surround the Arab-Israeli conflict and the occupation of Palestine, so much so that he, a former soldier himself, eventually decided to pack up his belongings and emigrate to Vancouver. It is his belief that the situation in Israel is fast approaching boiling point.

In the Old Lab at Summer Hall, battalions of tiny plastic soldiers stand guard as we enter the performance space. (A hapless audience member manages to stand on some of them and is clearly mortified, but this will prove to be ironic later.) Erdal enters and tells us a story about his regular visits to his barber, an Iraqi, who shaves him using an old fashioned straight razor – and how he can never quite stop himself from picturing this smiling, friendly man taking that razor and cutting his throat…

The following monologue takes in some of Erdal’s personal experiences in the Israeli army: interactions with his fellow troops; encounters with people who may or may not be dangerous. As he talks, Syrian musician Ermad Armoush plays live, complex pieces on traditional instruments, clearly with the intention of underpinning the monologue, though occasionally managing to obscure what Erdal is saying.

I’d be the first to admit that I’m woefully ignorant about the situation in the Middle East; as Erdal points out, many Westerners are uncomfortable discussing it, concerned about unintentionally sounding anti-Semitic. By the end of the show, I know a great deal more about the subject – a sequence utilising a whole collection of flags is particularly useful, effectively illustrating how Israel has been ruled by so many different nations over the millennia – but I feel that the delicate balance between lecture and entertainment is often too heavily weighted towards the former. At one point Erdal strides around with a very realistic automatic weapon which makes me feel really uncomfortable. That’s the point, I guess, and it works. Erdal is worried that his homeland is guilty of the very racism it was established to mitigate, and he’s distraught that his that his nephew, Ido, has recently followed in his footsteps and enlisted in the army.

It serves us all well to understand as much as we can about the Arab-Israeli situation, and there is much to learn from Soldiers of Tomorrow.

3 stars

Philip Caveney