ON STAGE – Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Kadmos establishes bridges among cultures via theater

(Today's Zaman)

The world knows about mythological Phoenician Prince Kadmos from the ancient texts of Greek mythology in which he is sent to rescue his sister, Europa, from Zeus, who kidnapped her from the shores of Phoenicia.
Now, the spirit of Kadmos, the founder of the Greek alphabet and the ancient Greek city of Thebes, is being revived in a multinational project that brings four Mediterranean countries together around the same ambition: theater.

A pan-Mediterranean production of renowned Israeli director Amos Gitai's “The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness,” the first-ever project by the newly established international theater network Kadmos, will be staged tonight and tomorrow night at the historic Rumeli Fortress on the Bosporus coast. The play's cast brings French, Greek, Spanish, Israeli, Palestinian and Turkish theatrical actors together on the same stage and most notably features veteran French stage and screen actress Jeanne Moreau as its narrator.

Kadmos was formed by France's Avignon Festival, the Grec Festival of Barcelona, Athens' Epidaurus Festival and the İstanbul International Theater Festival with the aim of strengthening cultural ties across the Mediterranean.

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Prominent Turkish stage actor Cüneyt Türel plays the Roman Emperor Titus in Amos Gitai's “The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness,” in which Jeanne Moreau plays the narrator, Josephus Flavius, and Jerome Koenig plays the role of Emperor Vespasianus.

In the play, Flavius narrates the horrors of war, which has become a destiny for all peoples in the Middle East. Besides the story of how Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans, based on accounts by Flavius in the A.D. first century and the Dead Sea scrolls, the play also features quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke and Oscar Wilde. The play recalls a multilingual oratorio as it combines a number of languages, including French, Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew.

“The play is a work of historian Josephus Flavius about the war which the Roman Empire started in order to stamp out the uprisings of the Jews,” notes Dikmen Gürün. “The play, which focuses on concepts such as a nation's homeland, war, oppression and domination, in fact stands against all wars throughout the world. While questioning the violence experienced [in the Middle East] throughout history, Amos Gitai's political stance can clearly be observed in this play.”

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