Review: Not By Bread Alone - The Jewish Chronicle

Tel Aviv's Nalaga'at Theatre Company - the world's only theatre company whose performers are either deaf, blindor both - has come to town and delivered a show that is so unique, star ratings seem redundant.

It is not easy to decide on what terms to judge Not By Bread Alone. To make allowances because the performers are disabled would be patronising. Not to recognise the fact would be ridiculous.

If the play's objective is to give a sense to those who have sight and hearing of what it is like to have neither, Nalaga'at (which in Hebrew means "do touch") are only partially successful. But if the objective is to reveal the human spirit at its most astoundingly resilient, Not By Bread Alone is an
utter triumph.

In the time that it takes the 11 performers to bake as many loaves - about 75 uninterrupted minutes - their stories are told, the most modest of fantasies are played out, and from this hotchpotch of singing and sign-language, portraits emerge of people whose fortitude make our own - or at least, my own - problems seem shamefully trivial. In that sense, the evening is exhilaratingly liberating.

Actress Bat Sheva Ravenseri tells us how, apart from her wish to be able to see again, her recurring fantasy is to have her hair done by a posh hairdresser. Cue a tableaux in which Igor Osherov, one of the company's talented clowns, sits under a hairdryer distracting Bat Sheva's moment of vanity by flirtatiously stroking her arm.

Their fortitude makes our own problems seem trivial

Much of the comedy here is old-school and simple. Mime and music play a large part but that is not a bad thing. What with the accompaniment by an accordion, the evening feels inspired in part by French director Jacques Tati, as well as director Adina Tal, who started the Nalaga'at project.

Another personal story is told by Itzik Hanuna's writer who, with the help of an interpreter for Hebrew speakers (there are English surtitles too), describes the loneliness of a childhood lived in silence and darkness, and the soaring happiness he feels with the touch of someone's hand.

Helping the performers on stage is a crew dressed in black who discreetly pat the actors so they know when the audience is applauding. Sometimes they guide the actors across the stage. But for the most part the performers need no redirection.

By now the auditorium is filled with the smell of bread baked in on-stage ovens. We are invited to share it with the cast. It is a moment in which to savour the title's meaning, that life cannot be lived on bread alone - a lesson bolstered by the breaking of bread in company.

As well as the show, there are two further opportunities at the theatre to experience something of life as lived by the company's members. At Café Kapish you are served by deaf waiters. In the Blackout Bar, you are led to your table in pitch darkness.

The ambient noise of people chattering and cutlery clinking gives a powerful insight into what it must be like for a blind person to enter a room full of strangers who are oblivious to their presence. Sitting at my table were Sarah and Charlie. We chatted in the darkness, about the show, Israel and theatre. It was a most enjoyable 20 minutes of temporary blindness, until the chilling thought occurred that blindness is only half of what most of the performers we had watched have to cope with.