It is always interesting to see an innovative theatre performance that takes a traditional theme and portrays it from an unusual angle. And Israeli-born theatre maker Shahaf Beer is doing exactly this with The Jewish Dog, a play that depicts the Holocaust through the eyes of a dog.
Based on the book Der Yidisher Hunt by Asher Kravitz, Shahaf Beer’s new contemporary performance bridges stories from World War II with the present day. Shahaf, who now lives in London says : “I grew up in Israel and the Holocaust was talked about a great deal. My grandparents and parents left Poland before it happened but my grandfather’s vast family all perished.
“I felt, as someone who is aged 28, that I am the last generation to hear the testimony of the survivors. As a contemporary theatre maker I wanted to find a way to portray the Holocaust but in a modern way. Then by chance I read Asher Kravitz’s book, and this seemed to be the solution, to portray it through the eye of a dog that lived through it all.”
The performance filters the darkest period of modern Jewish history through the naive perspective of a dog, offering a view of the subject as never seen before.
The adaptation is a visual storytelling using close-circle-camera projection, as the dog guides us through the experience of living in Berlin in the 1930s.
The performance is 60 minutes long with Shahaf as the lead artist and music composed by Eyal Arad.
The Jewish Dog is at Camden People’s Theatre for one night only 27 March. cptheatre.co.uk
