Ohel theater was a pre-state Israeli theater company established in 1925.
History
Ohel, originally known as the Workers' Theater of Palestine, was established in 1925 as a socialist theater: Members of the company combined acting with farming and industrial labor. The theater, founded by Moshe Halevy, who had been a founding member of Habimah in Moscow,[1] was organized as a collective.[2]
The theater's first production was a Hebrew adaptation of stories by the Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz. Peretz's Parties depicted the decadence of life in the Diaspora, compared to new Jewish life in the Land of Israel.[3] In 1927, it staged Dayagim ("Fishermen"), a socialist play about the exploitation of fishermen by entrepreneurs.[4]
Set designers who worked with the company in its early years were European-trained painters and architects, among them architect Aryeh Elhanani, expressionist painter Israel Paldi and Menachem Shemi, a painter of the Paris school, as well as other important artists such as Reuven Rubin and Arie Aroch.[5]
On a successful European tour in 1934, Ohel staged biblical and national plays. When the company returned to Palestine, it produced "The Good Soldier Schweik" (1935), one of its most successful offerings. In 1961, Ohel staged a comedy by Ephraim Kishon, Ha-Ketubbah ("The Marriage Contract"), which played for three seasons.[6]
Until 1958, Ohel was the official theater of the Histadrut, the General Labor Federation.[7]
In 1964, under a new artistic director, Peter Frye, the company performed Ammekha by Scholem Aleichem, plays by Ionesco, Brecht, and young British playwrights. The theater closed in 1969.[8]
See also
References
- ^ Theater personalities
- ^ The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Europe
- ^ The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Europe
- ^ Ohel
- ^ From Design at Large to Design for the Stage: The Effects of Specialization in Scenography
- ^ Ohel
- ^ The Cambridge Guide to Theatre, ed. Martin Banham
- ^ Ohel