THE ARAB-ISRAELI COOKBOOK
Tricycle Theatre

REMEMBER how you felt on Friday morning? Anxious, disorientated but life goes on.
For the interviewees in Robin Soans’ latest verbatim venture, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, these emotions are a permanent reality. The script is taken from real life accounts of normal lives caught up in the Palestinian intifada during 2003. Soans approached his would-be cast by asking them to cook him a meal. The cooking is recreated on stage and the recipes collated in a cookbook on sale at the Tricycle.
Aromas fill the auditorium – make sure you eat before you go.
But the cookbook theme is no gimmick.
All the food seems equally appealing. You find yourself thinking about different tastes on a level footing.
And by talking to people as they cook, Soans came away with a script that is astonishingly frank.
The conversations are relaxed, reflective of common wants and common cares. One boy squirms when he is offered a mushroom omelette. A man worries about his tan. A woman remembers her first date with her husband.
But after the interval the discussion switches to the outside world.
We hear about extremism and defiance.
A 29-year-old lawyer who walks into a coffee shop with a bomb strapped to her stomach makes a beeline to the nearest pram and the bomb explodes.
A bus driver tells how his route was redirected away from the Arab part of town after stone throwing turned to shootings. But all the characters submit that life cannot just be re-routed.
To move away from the problem is to let the terrorists win: “We cannot sit like clipped birds in a cage – we must fly!”
Soans compiled the play to enlighten. He believes that is the only way to progress but after Thursday’s bombings, a sense of empathy has already swept through the country.
All the suspicion of packages, talk of near misses and despair mixed with defiance, makes this play more pertinent than revealing.
Another compelling night at the Tricycle Theatre.

020 7328 1000
Until August 6