Greeks Conquer Sinai
Thursday, 05 March 2009
They say that Purimspiels are stranger than fiction, but last week the Greeks conquered Sinai for real, at the 4th RSY-Netzer Purim Spiel-off competition.
Communities are invited to enter Purimspiel teams, where they produce a play or film to compete against each other in a ‘spiel-off’. Each entry is marked by judges selected from every community that enters. The winners get to engrave their name on the Arnold Angel Inter-Community Cup and the honour of hosting the next Purim Spiel-off. It’s a real competition folks, and in the crucible of heroes, not everyone is a winner! It can be a hard lesson to learn. Last year Sinai Synagogue, Leeds, won the competition and this year turned their synagogue into a magnificent theatre of dreams on Motzei Shabbat.
This year we saw magnificent entries from five communities from across England. All the young people involved and their adult helpers worked extremely hard to produce the plays or films, and their talent and teamwork is to be highly commended. Sinai staff also worked very hard to create a warm, welcoming atmosphere, the food from Sandra and Malcolm was tasty and freshly prepared. A special well done must go to Arieh Miller, Sinai youth worker, who coordinated the whole event for Sinai.
Maidenhead opened strongly with a Star Wars theme. The film was preceded by a procession of light sabre wielding Storm Troopers bopping to the sound of ‘Low’ by FLO Rida. The film was a tightly edited feast of Star Wars mockery, complete with light sabre fights, explosions and dialogue in Huttese. The action was usually fast paced and featured a couple of inspired scenes, one where Esther establishes a psychic link with Mordi the Jewdi. Her first attempt leads her to mistakenly contact youth worker Nathan Servi, ‘Sorry, wrong line.’ she says. When she finally gets through, the voice over dialogue is emphasised through hilarious facial expressions; the other scene is where Darth Haman reminisces about early fatherhood and nostalgically remembers playing with his daughter Mordi as a toddler in the shul garden. Maidenhead picked up well deserved Best Costume and Best Editing/Sound Awards for their effort.
Next up was Menorah; originators of the Purim Spiel-off enterprise, they opened with their traditional ritual grieving for their loss a couple of years ago, a lament of Shakespearian proportions. This mournful rite could well become Spiel-off lore! Into the action, where Menorah started strongly by translating Purim into a science camp. Here young Aron Mather conducted an experiment with a coke bottle and a mentos, thankfully only one sweet! The concept was excellent, with good costumes and all the actors adorned with spotty faces. It was also refreshing to see some new faces amongst the team of Menorah diehards. Yet the team sometimes lacked confidence with their lines and in places the action was a bit slow. However, there were a couple of admirable songs written by the cast. Any other time they would certainly have been up for one of the awards, but alas, this year Menorah were once again to go home empty handed, but they should hold their heads high for a job well done! Perhaps next year will be theirs.
The turn of last year’s winner Sinai came up next. They interpreted the Purim story into an episode of Doctor Who. Written by the very talented Amos Jacobs, the Sinai team took us on a fantastic journey of criminal space robots, pac-men intent on regicide, accompanied by Sinai’s signature of racy and lewd lines contoured closely to the edge of good taste (‘Melons, anyone for melons?’ cried a buxom Esther). What the play lacked in pace was more than made up for by their imagination and depth of the characters. The props were excellent, with a full size Tardis, which unfortunately was not fully utilised. A sterling performance by Sinai was not however rewarded by the community judges. Nevertheless, like Menorah, Sinai should be proud of their artistic and creative achievement.
After the break, Alyth took to the stage with their tour de force ‘My Big Fat Greek Megiallah’. Here our famous story was converted to a Greek scene complete with togas and akin to ‘Something happened on the way to the Forum’ (yes, which I know is set in Rome, but you get the idea!). We were taken by Joe Grabiner’s character Zeus to the top of Mount Olympus in ancient Greece. In the best tradition of British farce, Alyth romped through this comedy that had pace, action and laughs, Greek gods rubbing shoulders with Esther (‘that’s not a Greek name!’ ‘Err, Esther, hmmm, mousaka?’). For the beauty pageant members of the audience were brought on stage, but Cupid got a bit fed up and has a hand in choosing Zeus’s new wife. Louis Patterson provided the perfect foil for Zeus as the Haman character and new comer Max Traeger played an angelic, yet dynamic Mordechai. Poseidon and a drunken Dionysus plot against Zeus, overheard by Mordechai who is reading a giant copy of the ‘14 platforms of RSY-Netzer’. Later Zeus is seen reading ‘How to Rule Ancient Greece for Dummies’. It is this attention to detail, the comic timing and the end song that finally won the competition for Alyth after three years of trying. They also picked up awards for Best Acting and Best Direction.
Last on was North West Surrey, winners two years ago. Their film was introduced by Mathew Ellis, the only cast member who could make the weekend. Set in a high school, the bad tempered Haman arrives and instantly latches onto the Zak Braff character Ahasuerus, who is deeply taken by his expensive guitar (‘You’re my best friend now!’ claims Haman). Each scene is punctuated by contributions from Adam Sela who steals the show with his non-sequitur one-liners (‘Did you know this handle goes down as well as up?’ he quips, interrupting Haman and Ahasuerus mid-argument before disappearing again). Even Rabbi Jackie Tabick makes a cameo appearance as the headmistress of the school who expels Haman instantly. A sweet and well made film, it was not quite enough to capture the hearts of the Judges. However, since the team knew they could not make the weekend up in Sinai but nevertheless made the film, they were awarded the Best Ruach Award for team spirit.
The show was ably MC’d by Hadas Morris and Gav Morris (Sinai) and Josh Brown (Menorah) who provided comic interludes and cynical critiques between each performance. They ended the show by bringing up much younger members of the audience to hear their views on each play or film and to start the traditional joke competition, giving away RSY-Netzer goodies and hoodies to all those who cracked a funny (and their were some terrible ones, especially from Anna Dyson!).
A huge Kol Hakavod, well done, to Arieh Miller, the Sinai youth worker, for organising the event, and all those involved, young and old, actors, stage hands, technicians, cooks, servers, community judges and the whole Sinai community who made the weekend and event a great success.
Pictures Nathan Servi www.nathanservi.com
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