What We Did To Weinstein

With:

• Yaniv Fridel - composition/mix/production

A dark play about brutality and identity around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It ran in the Menier Chocolate Factory for 5 weeks, won writer Ryan Craig an Evening Standard Theatre Award for best script, and was a fantastic introduction to writing for theatre.

Josh and Sara grew up in north London. We see their relationship begin and end in the mid-1990s, and also – in fluidly intercut scenes – their positions in 2002: Josh has emigrated and joined the Israeli Defence Force, Sara is a news journalist best known for her criticism of Israeli policy. Their respective fathers – Josh’s a famous writer, Sara’s his agent – speak of their own youth fighting fascists in London’s East End. Josh’s father’s nurse is a Briton of Pakistani heritage, thoroughly westernised; her brother is increasingly embracing Islamic fundamentalism; Sara has a one-night stand with a waiter who turns out to be a foaming racist. Every plot strand has its quota of questioning reasonableness counterpoised against forceful intolerance.

Blurb from cover, published by Oberon Books.

Sickened by the everyday arguments and compromises he saw around him in his native London, the idealistic Josh has moved to Israel and joined the army. There, however, he finds himself in a situation with a Palestinian terror suspect which seems to challenge his most strongly held beliefs.

Deftly cutting between different locations and time periods, Ryan Craig’s play lets us see unexpected connections between disparate events, as well as bringing together people with apparently nothing in common. A wryly humerous, sometimes hilarious, look at a serious issue, What We Did To Weinstein moves between London life and the world of the intifada, creating a portrait of a society where idealism too easily becomes extremism and pragmatism hypocrisy.

Press

"Lemez Lovas and Yaniv Fridel’s low-level soundscapes are excellently disquieting.”

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