Eli, a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder, comes to Yehuda’s clinic. Yehuda is a psychologist and mental-health officer (KABAN) on army reserve duty. During their meeting, it comes to light that Eli was a platoon commander in Gaza four years ago, in the same operation in which Yehuda served as a mental-health officer and treated a shell-shocked soldier from Eli’s platoon. Eli feels guilty about the soldier’s death, and asks Yehuda to tell the story from his perspective. Reluctantly, Yehuda revisits his past and tells the story of how he refused to send the soldier back to the home front, insisting instead on a daring and controversial treatment method: to send the wounded soldier back into the battlefield, forcing him to face his trauma and achieve true healing. Yehuda stubbornly defended his innovative treatment approach to his commander and the soldier’s mother; he was sure he was doing the best thing for the soldier and saving him from a lifetime of PTSD. But war is war, and things don’t always go as planned…
A play about the psychological wounds that war leaves behind, and the impact they have on anyone who is exposed to them – soldiers, mental-health officers, and family members.
Inspired by real events during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Nevo Ziv (playwright) also works as a journalist and assistant editor for the daily Yedioth Ahronoth. He holds a BA from the School of Film and Television and from the Department of East Asian Studies at Tel Aviv University. His works include Euphoria – The Happiest City in the World, Haifa International Children’s Theatre Festival 2016, produced by Haifa Theatre (the rights to the play were bought, and the adapted script is currently produced by Tedy Productions and Pie Productions); I’d Like To Be…, a children’s book, Am Oved Publishers (with Yonatan Yavin); Grandpa Hides Everything with his Back, children’s book, Yediot Sfarim Publishing; Arieh Ben Naim the XIV, children’s book, Yediot Sfarim Publishing. His screenwriting includes Sesame Street (Hop Channel), A Wonderful Divorce (drama series), and various other projects for children’s channels. He serves as the creative director for Yehoshua/TBWA and Gitam BBDO advertising agencies.
Daphna Silberg (director) graduated with honors from the MFA Theatre Directing Program (Department of Theatre Arts) and the BFA Screenwriting Program (Film and Television Department) at Tel Aviv University. She is a member of the 2014 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and teaches documentary theatre at The Goodman Acting School of the Negev. She won the Award for Best Director for Demonstrate (2018). Her works include Whose Afraid of Hana Laslo, Comedy Theatre (2021); The Cherry Orchard, third-year students at TAU (2019); Bertod & Agnes by Noa Lazar Keinan, Habima National Theatre (2018); Mother in Love, Comedy Theatre (2018); Oedipus Shmedipus, Yiddishpiel Theatre (2017); Demonstrate, director and playwright, documentary theatre work, Tel Aviv Museum (2017); The Hunt by Martin Sperr, Goodman Acting School of the Negev (2016); Euphoria – The Happiest City in the World, by Nevo Ziv, Haifa Theatre (2016); Baby by Amanda Whittington, SELA – Performing Arts Studio Founded by Yoram Lowenstein (2016); playwright and director of Ticket to the Circus (Tmu-na Theatre, 2015); The Golden Dragon by Roland Schimmelpfenning (Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, 2014); playwright and director of Spermology (Tmu-na Theatre, 2014); Scenes from an Execution by Howard Barker (Goodman Acting School of the Negev, 2013); director and translator, Tales from Vienna Woods by Odon Von Horvath (graduate work at TAU, 2013); director and translator of Whose Life Is It Anyway? (hosted at Habima National Theatre, 2012-13); playwright and director of Mother Needed, Bat Yam International Festival of Street Theatre (2010).
Social and Political Issues