Sami Bardugo's book, 'That's the Thing,' on which the play is based, begins with the words: "While she is still alive, I am waiting for her death." He comes to take his elderly mother out of the nursing home, to do some soul-searching with himself and with her. The narrator comes to his illiterate mother to teach her to read and write Hebrew letters. The attempt to teach her Hebrew is like an attempt to erase the foreignness, the identity of the immigrant, the Mizrahi who mixes Hebrew, French, and Arabic in an irregular language. He wants to correct the language and in doing so correct it and him.

She learns, but demands that he hear a story. The story of the girl Meha, a Jewish girl born into a working-class family in Morocco who is bounced from house to house and is never sent to school, even though it is her deepest longing. It is a painful intergenerational struggle between an immigrant mother and her son. On stage, Hebrew letters slowly crumble and become shapes that tell the mother's story. And pomegranates that become language.
 

Credits:

Directed and created by: Hanna and Ezna Greenwald

Stage adaptation: Alex Fassberg

Dramaturgy: The Flower Ensemble

Creative actors: Pazit Yaron Minkowski, Manny Gross / Ran Duani, Eden Uliel, Sally Arkads

Set and costume design: Frida Shoham and Jacqueline Pearl

Music: Omri Mor and Yakir Sasson

Musical Consulting: Manny Gross

Motion Design: Shahar Berkowitz

Lighting design: Adi Somekh

Assistant Director: Noa Ben-Ari

Producer: Avital Michelle Meir

Artistic Consulting: Avi Gibson Barel

Photo: Efrat Mazor