"News Season": Tmuna Theater Presents an Absurdist Horror Comedy

The work "News Season" deals with news as a genre, and how it "formats" and dictates the reality of our lives, disaster, and routine. 

Following October 7, 2023, we entered long months of "news bingeing." The accelerated and repetitive transition from numerous disasters to their public interpretation by confused reporters maintaining a formal tone, the heated panels, the tense and changing music (even unrelated to the events), the suits and makeup, the repetitive interpretations for hours describing the same case, and a narrative war that continues aimlessly for hours—remind us in form of the mystery and horror of David Lynch, and in content of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."

At the center of the stage stands a lit panel table, behind which sit five necktied reporters, delivering a special bulletin to the audience about an approaching disaster, but the disaster is delayed. During this "dead time," which stretches far beyond expectations, the panel members try to interpret the emergency for the audience and themselves. The helpless attempt to interpret what we do not yet know becomes a dramatic battle of different perspectives, ego, opinions, and tears.

Behind the studio panel table sits Eitan, the news anchor, and beside him sit the regular panel members—Loolik, the "commentator," and Shifra, the "expert." Loolik and Shifra clash at two ends of the ideological spectrum—Loolik is a man of action and a security whiz, while Shifra sides with what she calls "lingering." Loolik and Shifra throw papers and insults at each other like two siblings, while Eitan struggles to maintain order and the integrity of the broadcast for the viewers at home.

During the broadcast, strange, mysterious, and worrying events occur in the world outside, reported by Gaia, the field correspondent who mediates the reality outside the studio to the panel of reporters. Gradually, the events outside become increasingly frightening. The birds have left, the sea has receded, and the studio is in a frenzy: Can these events be linked to one another? Do we as a society even need the sea and the birds?

To answer these troubling questions, Knesset Member Oshrat arrives at the studio for an exclusive interview. The MK deflects the subject to avoid facing difficult questions and delivers an exciting and dizzying speech of promises to bring the birds back to the country. Loolik acts as a "mouthpiece" with a "talking points sheet" that sides with Oshrat, while Shifra is so worried that she becomes possessed by a dark prophecy speaking through her throat. 

In a single moment, the studio lights go out. A broken report is received from the field correspondent on her deathbed: the sun has gone out. In this moment of real fear and the collapse of all logic, a different side of each character is revealed. It is no longer possible to deny reality, which penetrates inward and dismantles the studio.

Creators and Dates:

By: Daniel Shapira and Michael Schwartz / Creating Actors: Tal Avraham, Kaya Vinci, Nitzan Trainin, Yifat Semelyen, Daniel Shapira / Original Music Production: Itamar Shlomo Cohen, Michael Schwartz  / Movement Design: Ewa Shubstarska  / Lighting Design: Yael Saadi  / Stage Management: Yali Weiss  / Panel Table Design and Construction: Amit Portman  / Costume Design: Sharon Sirota  / Prop Design: Adi Shmulevich, Keren Katz, Avinoam Sternheim  / Artistic Consultation: Shahar Marom, Itai Doron

Thursday, July 9, 20:00, Tmuna Theater

Thursday, August 13, 20:00, Tmuna Theater

Tmuna Theater

8 Soncino St., Tel Aviv

www.tmu-na.org.il

03-5611211