Israel Horovitz plays

The three Israel Horovitz plays may have seemed to be very different from one another, but they all did seem to have a common theme in the end. They all tried to bring up the issue of stereotyping and showed the differences within different cultures and how that’s subject to discrimination and hatred.

The first play we saw was the Indian Wants the Bronx. My general impression of the play was that I thought that it was a lot better than the actual text. It helped a lot to visually see the play. I actually liked this first play. I thought that it was pretty well performed. I liked how the Indian was actually speaking his own language, because that definitely helped add to the whole affect of being and outsider and not knowing what was going on. Because I couldn’t understand what the Indian was saying while he was speaking, it made me think that that’s exactly how the Indian felt when the two guys were speaking to him. I feel as though the social issues were well addressed in the play, and they were made clear. You were really able to feel and see the violence and hatred that foreigners have to deal with. I felt that this was well portrayed through the acting, and the emotions that the actors used. The staging and lighting I felt added to the overall performance in a positive way. The acting I felt was very believable. The staging I felt was very thought out and carefully planned, as well as the lighting. I especially thought that this was effective for the ending when it was just the Indian on stage.

The second play was What Strong Fences Make. My general impression of the play was that it wasn’t very good, in fact it was my least favorite of all three plays. I didn’t feel as if the play was well performed at all.  I felt as though there definitely was a purpose to the play, in that he was trying to bring up social issues, but I felt as though the performance didn’t live up to what Israel Horovitz wanted to achieve with the play when he wrote it. I felt that I might have actually enjoyed the play had it been performed in a better manner. I really wasn’t able to understand the play for reasons other than just the acting. It was also very difficult to understand the play due to the fact that I could barely hear what they were saying the whole time. The acoustics within the theatre weren’t that good, and the actors facing one another instead of the audience while talking didn’t help that problem out at all. Another reason why this play was my least favorite of the three was because there was very little going on on the stage. The two actors just stood there the whole time, one pointing a gun at one person, and the other just standing there. Because of the lack of props, movements, and lighting on the stage, it made it a lot harder for me to engage in the performance.

The third and final play we saw was Beirut Rocks. My general impression of the play was that it was really good. I thought that it was a really well performed play, the only thing that I didn’t like too much was that so much occurred within such a short period of time that it at times seemed to be a bit overdramatic, especially with all the screaming that was taking place on stage. Now reflecting on this, I realize that there was a purpose to all of that commotion. The screaming and so much taking place at once was suppose to add to the feeling and message of the play as a whole. I liked how there were people of such different backgrounds present within the same room. I felt as though this play did a really good job of addressing both political and social issues. In fact I feel as though it even went far at times and touched upon really controversial issues, that at one point the audiences reaction to something that had been said in the play could be taken offensively. The acting, staging and lighting also added to why I enjoyed this play the most. I felt that the props and set up for the play was appropriate and really made it believable that they were all college students stuck in a room together. The sound effects were really loud, and really helped to make you feel as though you too were in the same room as them.

The three plays overall had a common goal. They were written to raise awareness of cultural differences within a society and how the treatment of these different cultures has become a problem. He also wanted to point out that racism and stereotyping was a problem, but still is and that’s why people need to become aware of this and action must be taken.