From Beirut, The Daily Star reviews a London play called 'The Arab-Israeli Cookbook'. The playwright spent three weeks in the West Bank and Israel, interviewing Israelis and Palestinians, and then stitched together the actual dialogue into a play with 42 characters (performed by eight actors). Food and cooking are integral parts of the action and dialogue.
The review criticises the play for many faults, but the Dove likes the concept anyway. The actress/playwright Anna Devere Smith pioneered this method of developing stage material from real life interviews with people in tense situations - she used the Crown Heights, Brooklyn riots of the early 1990s to create a searing one-woman show.
Make plays, not war!
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