Theater day was an exciting and unique experience that Ill never forget. Ive watched a few Broadway plays before like Phantom of the Opera and Shrek the musical, but Ive never gotten so close and personal to the plays themselves. Reading “The Indian Wants the Bronx” beforehand, I had pretty high expectations about what would be illustrated through the actors and scenery. However, I was quite disappointed because I felt the storyline itself wasn’t realistic along with the acting. At first, this confused Indian walks onto stage and I couldnt even see his face clearly because of the bad lighting. Then, as the play went on, I didnt enjoy seeing Murph and Joey go at it again and again. I felt like the audience got that they were unstable and “mean people” and it didnt have to be emphasized so much. I felt kind of special that I understood what the Indian was saying during the play but also felt weird and curious about how people around me were understanding what was going on. However in the end I felt like my understanding of the language didn’t really affect my viewing as I was still not satisfied with the play. I did understand Joey and Murph’s issues and mental instability which contributed to the way they behaved with the Indian and felt some sympathy but didnt think the situation was realistic at all. I felt like asking, “Why didn’t the Indians son pick him up or know his whereabouts?!”Overall, I think the writing of the plot was on the weaker side and could’ve been more believable.

I completely was not in tune with “What Strong Fences Make” throughout the whole play. I didn’t hear a word of what was said and I don’t think the audience members should have to try so hard to try to pay attention and listen to the actors. I think the costumes were unrealistic and staging was horrible. I didnt get much out of it except that there were two guys that were friends from before and then “Boom!”, there was an explosion. I didnt enjoy it like many people and felt like if we had heard it better, it could have been a better experience.

I definitely think that third play, “Beirut Rocks” was my favorite because I related to it the most, but also because it was better than the other two. Having done a scene from it during the theater workshop i knew it would be controversial and a touchy subject. However, I looked forward to how Horowitz would portray the characters and approach the subject. I think the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets people very emotional and felt like the play did an “okay” job of its portrayal. I liked that Horowitz tried to make it unbiased but I still think many people took offense and didn’t think that going that deep into the topic was appropriate for the audience. Maybe if everyone had some educational background on what was going on, it would’ve been more fitting but I think many people weren’t in that place. Even though Benji and Nasa seemed like total opposites, I feel like they had a lot more in common than they realized. I also felt a connection to Nasa because coming from a Muslim background, I know how it feels like to be looked at differently and to be misunderstood about your views on the world. I was in shock when they revealed Nasa from under her burka and I felt offended for her. I think that this made it realistic for me and the fact that I felt an emotional connection to her made the experience so much better. Overall, this topic is ongoing and is bound to show up in our lives so I think its good it was addressed but maybe this sort of representation was a little inappropriate. However, the plays’ realistic characters, costumes, and sound effects enhanced the experience for me and I loved it in the end!

I love analyzing art. Whether it is literature, a painting or a piece of music, I enjoy taking something apart and infusing my ideas into its fragments.  So when I was watching “The Indian Wants the Bronx”, those were my innate intentions. The first thing I noticed was that the lights in auditorium were dimmed. This is usually a sign that a performance is about to start. For “The Indian Wants the Bronx” though, the lights stayed dim the entire show. The only other light was a bold spotlight over the main stage prop, the phone booth. It immediately caught my eyes. I think that in any art form, something to initially grab a viewers’ attention is extremely important. Something I thought was interesting about the prop was that it helped convey a message Israel Hurvitz was trying to get across. The idea of the phone booth is communication. The boys and the Indian are really unable to communicate properly. When reading the play I really did not fully grasp this fact because the Indian’s part is written in English. While watching it though, I was able to witness the struggle to communicate.  Watching the Indian speak with out really being heard was quite heartbreaking. Something I took from the play, that I think the actors were able to convey with the urgency of their performances, was that regardless of one’s religion or one’s culture, a unifying form of communication that everyone craves, is to love and to be loved.

A reference that came to mind was the movie Crash.  Which may seem a bit random, but like this play it deals with the idea of different cultures meshing.  In the opening scene of the movie, a character narrates, “… I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”  The idea of the absence of love or human connection resonates in “The Indian Wants the Bronx” as well.  Murph and Joey are these stupid, delinquent boys just messing around. When you get to their core though, someone from social services is taking care of them. They are really alone, and so they bully the Indian just to feel something in their lonely, young lives. This is expressed quite eloquently in the staging of the play. At the very beginning, the stage is empty. The audience though hears these two boys singing a song in the back round. These lyrics, “I walk the lonely streets at night… but, baby, you don’t care,” echo through out the auditorium. The actors make it seem like a casual song, but then you listen closely and realize what they are saying. This is the echo of their loneliness.

I found the theme of this play to be a strong one. The value of communication is something that can really be stretched in many different directions of thought.  Besides for this idea and the nuances in the props and stage directions, I did not thoroughly enjoy any other part of this play. If you love to analyze things you can always find something interesting but honestly, the play just dragged on.

At first, the idea of sitting down and watching three plays in a row seemed a tad bit boring in my eyes.  Usually I’m unable to sit through one play at the most, however, the short style of Horovitz’s plays made it much easier to sit through the plays and the majority of the plays caught my attention from start to finish. In high school, I’ve went to see many plays that were sometimes two to three hours long with just one intermission.  These plays were always really hard to connect to or to understand, which is why we’ve had to read all of them before seeing them in action.  This took away the surprise factor that there usually is when seeing a play.

After reading “The Indian Wants the Bronx,” I was almost sure that I could picture exactly what would happen and to sit there and watch it would be pretty boring since it was an uneventful play, but I was wrong.  The characters weren’t exactly what I was expecting which made it a lot more interesting and engaging.  Many of my fellow students thought that the play had no plot but I think that was the exact intention of Israel Horovitz.  He wanted to show the way immigrants are treated in everyday situations not just a made up storyline.  I loved the way the lights were on the young kids and not on the Indian because it showed how unimportant the other characters made the Indian seem.  Also, the phone booth and garbage cans made it a little easier to picture the scene where this event might have occurred.  One thing I did not like was that it was difficult to notice that the scene was in fact at a bus stop.  Maybe a bus stop sign or a bench of some sort would’ve made that easier to understand.  This play evoked many emotions in the audience because we saw a man get killed just for being an Indian, an immigrant, and in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Even though there are some questions that make the play seem unbelievable like, how come no one saw this happening and why would the Indian’s son leave him alone is such a big city, events and situations such as these happen on a regular, especially in other parts of the world.  Last week, when I attended church, there was a guest pastor from Pakistan who spoke about people who were killed on their way to church just because they’re Christians in a predominantly Muslim society.  Israel Horovitz brought this aggression amongst cultures to life.

The second play, “What Strong Fences Make,” was completely foreign to me.  For one, I did not hear a word of what the actors said and so, I stopped paying attention.  I believe that it’s the job of the actors to engage their audience as well as the setting of the stage.  I couldn’t even tell that the two men were at a border because there was no set.  There were no props other than a gun and some costumes, which, in my opinion, weren’t that great.  I can understand that it might be difficult to create an entire stage set for such a short play but something small would have been enough just so that we can understand the setting.

The third play, “Beirut Rocks,” was by far, my favorite of the three plays.  As I sat there that night watching, I remembered that we had acted out a part of this play during our theater workshops and I was eager to see that scene played out.  The racial slurs that were being thrown back and forth between the “Jew” and Nasa showed the ignorance that some people have when it comes to other races and other cultures.  At the end of the play when they check Nasa to see if she was hiding a bomb, it made the entire audience gasp in shock.  Israel Horovitz made a good decision in deciding to include this because it showed how far these people went just to prove something that they weren’t even sure of.  One thing I did not like was that everyone focused on what had happened to Nasa, but many forgot that she had also called the Jewish young man, a “Jew” and told him that the world won’t be good until all of the Jews are out of it.  Sometimes a person’s background and culture can influence their views of other cultures.  For example, some of the people who were affected by the incident of 9-11 now show hate against Muslims and their children will probably follow the same.

Israel Horovitz correctly displayed the social issues between races and the unfortunate events that occur because of this.  Overall, I really enjoyed watching the plays, and I might have even enjoyed the second one if I had heard it!

The 3 plays we watched on Theatre Day by Israel Horowitz were all very moving and successfully portrayed their message to the audience. They helped show the world that hating each other will really get us no where. We need to redefine the word love because obviously people do not know the meaning of it anymore. We shouldn’t restrict ourselves to only loving one culture like it is the only one around. We have to learn to respect everyone around us. We don’t have to understand them, be like them, or practice their beliefs, we only have to respect them and let things be.

The first play, “The Indian Wants The Bronx”, was very compelling and I have to admit, it had me on roller coaster ride the whole time. It made me laugh when the Indian was mimicking Joey and it also made me tear up when Joey was crying on the Indian’s shoulder. At first I really did not like the characters of the 2 boys because they had all the qualities you could hate in a person and I did not understand how they could treat another human being like they did, but from the moment  I saw Joey break down and cry I finally understood the characters. All these boys needed was a little love and they never received it from their parents or even their social worker. So who is really to blame? The kids or the environment they grew up in? Of course this doesn’t excuse their actions but it does help clear up why they did what they did. They never learned to love because they never received it.

On another note the actors did a good enough job here but it wasn’t as great as it could have been. The guy who played as Murph was nervous and it showed because I could tell when he messed up, and as an actor that is a big no-no. You can mess up but you have to be able to make it seem as if everything is fine. He let his nervousness show and it affected his character. If he was truly in character he wouldn’t have been nervous because his character Murph wasn’t supposed to be. I do have to say though that I really liked the lighting and the set. I totally believed that they were on a street corner waiting for the bus unlike the staging for “What Strong Fences Make” where I had no idea where they were until the last couple of seconds of the play.

Just like everyone else in that theatre (except for the first row), I felt that this play would have been so much more enjoyable if I could have heard it. Throughout the whole beginning I was paying attention but it was so frustrating not being able to clearly understand them. I kind of felt like the Indian from “The Indian Wants The Bronx!” Also I kept trying to figure out what in the world he had on his head which really distracted me. They barely used any set pieces which I guess was because they wanted the audience to fill in the set with their imagination. Unfortunately that was really hard for us poor audience members who were lost.

I found the final play, “Beirut Rocks,” really enjoyable, as did everyone else, but I think that, that was because we could all relate to it more than the last two plays. The actors really did a wonderful job evoking so many different emotions in the audience. That, I think is the true test of an actor: how well they can get a reaction from the audience. There was especially one moment where Nasa made a comment about how the world would be better with no Jews and at that moment everyone just took a deep breath in, and it felt like we were all unified against one cause. It was like we all became insulted whether we were Jewish or not. I also loved that they actually balanced the racism(that sounds a little weird but play along with me for a little.) What I mean is that they didn’t just target one race, like in “The Indian Wants The Bronx,” instead they actually insulted almost all of their races which just strengthened their theme of racism and animosity even more. This play really helped emphasize the meaning of love. Especially for us young people, who are more likely to interact with different cultures everyday than our parents and grandparents, we have to learn to respect each other and learn from one another.

The set was simple and yet intricate at the same time, which I liked. I loved how I didn’t have to imagine a whole set design in my mind like “What Strong Fences Make.” The lighting was very warm and it made me feel very comfortable in the beginning, like I was in my own home.

All in all, I had a great time watching these three plays(well maybe not so much with the second one 0_0.) I feel their message was very clear and that they executed it very well. So go ahead and spread the love yo.

The Israel Horovitz plays were both thought provoking and extremely controversial. The first play “The Indian Wants the Bronx” seemed as if it was another portrayal of violence and racism in the city. The plot of the play itself was very “ugly.” An Indian named Gupta encounters two delinquents, Joey and Murph, as he frantically searches for his son. These two distinct characters continually pester the Indian, becoming enraged at the language barrier between them. Language is a one of several many unifying traits that people can share. The anger and acts of cruelty imposed on the Indian exemplify how cultural differences can play a tremendous role in our society. I thought this play showed a side of New York that almost all immigrants have experienced at one point. It actually made me think back to a time when I knew very little English, a time where day after day I was the source of everyone’s laughter and entertainment. Yet despite all of the violence that seemed to be written into the script, I found the acting very enjoyable. Both actors were extremely audible in the large auditorium and had managed to keep my attention amidst all the noise and cell phones going off. When I found out that Hunter College was not a familiar workspace for the actors, I was very impressed with how the Barefoot Company made use of their limited resources and props. Even the spotlights and introductory sounds seemed on par with the acting. Overall I thought the bold characters and skilled acting was an excellent way to start off the night.

The second play “What Strong Fences Make” was my least favorite production. It was not the script or plot I had a problem with but more so with the performance and quality of the acting. I understood that some of the actors were being recycled into subsequent plays, such as the actor who played the Indian in “The Indian Wants the Bronx,” but it was shocking to see such a drop in the quality of work being put out. I am certain that I am not the only one who feels this way. I could not hear a large majority of the dialogue that went on between the actors. It was unfortunate that this play consisted mostly of dialogue. As part of the audience I felt like I was being excluded from the action, the juicy stuff. It was like biting into a steak cooked to rubbery perfection. From what I was able to make out from the ominous background music, the small portions of recognizable dialogue, and the bombastic explosion at the end, I think the play was about the idea that rage trumps friendship and gets the better of man. The uncontrollable nature of people and reluctance to listen to others continually breeds destruction. A failure to compromise is one of the primary reasons why nations wage wars. I would like to reiterate that most of this is from what I observed and may not necessarily hold true. I was very disappointed in the acting, but the props and costumes were very aesthetically pleasing. I certainly did not expect the Indian to be carrying such a big gun.

The last play of the night “Beirut Rocks” did more than make up for the previous performance. To me this production reeked of a history built on heavy tension and cultural differences. From my peers I understood that this play stirred up a whirlpool of controversy, the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Beirut Rocks” happened to be the script that we explored in theatre workshop, so I did try to keep the historical context in mind as I watched. Unfortunately I found myself more attached to each individual character because I was given the opportunity to act out the script beforehand. I was more intrigued with the idea of self-realization and awareness of the people around you that I had almost forgotten Benji’s and Nasa’s ingrained hatred for each other. I was stunned by the performance. The actors had managed to capture each character as I had imagined them, especially Benji’s cool demeanor and Nasa’s subtle inborn hatred. My eyes bulged when Benji whipped out the golf club and began banging on bed. I could not help but wonder if Nasa really did have a bomb underneath her dress. The acting was that good. The props, costumes, and lighting were perfect and only intensified the dispute between the characters. As I watched the curtain close I found myself thinking, “It’s pretty shocking how much people really hate each other deep down.”

The talkback session with the cast, directors, and playwright Israel Horovitz was not how I had envisioned it. Somewhere along the lines of trying to understand what theme Horovitz focused on, I had my doubts on whether there was really a theme at all. I was confused when Horovitz had stated that there was no theme, and that the three plays were a collection of his favorite written works. I was even more baffled when he went off on a tangent discussing inappropriately dressed “wood nymphs” or pixies or something like that. Whether or not there was an intended theme to be followed as we watched the performance, I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed theatre day. I am happy that there is more to come.

The three Israel Horovitz plays presented a unique experience for me.  It was my first time going to see a play with a more modern setting, and I can honestly say I enjoyed the experience.   Of the three, my favorite was Beirut Rocks, not just for the content, but also because of the ease of understanding and the actors’ well portrayal of all the characters.  It was, for me, the most exciting; it contained the most emotion, because the actions taken and the words spoken by Benji and Nasa cause a sharp reaction in the audience.  At first, it is easy to show sympathy to Nasa, who is being singled out as the terrorist, and is then threatened and violated; but when she makes the remark about Jews and wanting them all to die, the sympathy shifts, and neither of the two seem deserving.

Because the first two plays used few props and even less scenery, it made understanding the plays a little difficult, particularly since it was the first time I’d encountered What Strong Fences Make.   This play was the hardest to understand because of many factors.  One of the most important factors was that the actors directed their voices upstage rather than downstage, which, added to the lack of a visible setting, made it nearly impossible to understand about three fourths of the play.  Unless you were sitting in the first two rows, or had exceptional hearing (and i mean like the level of hearing a dog has) there was no way you’d know that this took place at a checkpoint, and that the two characters, (whose names I don’t know because I don’t remember hearing it or because it wasn’t mentioned) were childhood friends.  It was only when one of the two men onstage (the only prop during the entire play being a rifle in the checkpoint guard’s hands) mentioned his children who had died, did the play begin to make sense.  However my epiphany came slightly late, since just after I pieced together the few sentences I managed to hear (with much difficulty) one of the men ran forward, and the guard shot him, resulting in a large explosion offstage and the sudden end of the play.

The Indian Takes the Bronx was easy to understand, however, there was no plot.  The storyline can be summarized as two grown men terrorize an East Indian at a bus stop when they get bored waiting for a bus that never came, and at the end, one of them, Murphy, takes a knife out and cuts the Indian’s hand.  And while we do learn some of the two men’s background through occasional comments they make, it does little to help explain the cruelty they demonstrate towards the Indian, other than to claim that they were very unstable.

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.

My high school English teacher asked, “What makes a book a classic?” Each student in the class had his and her own opinion of what defines a “classic.” They compared it to movies, plays, music, and other media. The teacher, in the end, replied, “The concepts and themes of the book are what make it a classic. Those themes have to be able to pertain to society even in a different time period.” The teacher’s words made me think, “Are those the only requirements that make a classic?” Currently, I do not know, but it still intrigues me whenever people say such and such is a “classic.” So when I watched, “The Indian Wants the Bronx,” “What Strong Fences Make,” and “Beirut Rocks,” by Israel Horovits I asked myself, “Are these classics?”

The first short play, “The Indian Wants the Bronx,” made me think that it might be a classic. The clear-cut ideas were racial profiling and fear of the unknown. But I also believed that Horovitz was also making subtle statements: whom are we to blame for the way young children live? The government? The parents? The friends? The social worker? Or the “other”? Personally, I don’t know the answer, but it seems to me that the people in authority are shirking their duties. In the play, Joey says, “Murph’s on a rap for slicing a kid,” so we would think that Murph wouldn’t have a knife on his body, but Pussyface gave them knives as a Christmas present. In addition to that, Murph’s mother “don’t even make a living” which shows that even his own mother doesn’t take responsibility for taking care of her child. Does this pertain to us? Maybe not personally, but there are a lot of kids out there dealing with these problems. It doesn’t affect the whole society, really, but it’s still something striking – a thought that sparks the tinder.

The second short play, “What Strong Fences Make,” was less active. The actors were standing on stage talking. From reading the script, I felt that there should have been great tension between Uri and Itzhak. I thought that they were much too close to each other onstage to be hostile; they seemed too “friendly” with the distance. What I did like was the lighting of the stage because the rays were focused on Uri while Itzhak lingered in the shadows. It felt like a foreboding incident was going to happen and it did. In the end, I don’t think that the production of the play was done well because most of the people in the audience couldn’t hear Uri. It’s important for the audience to be able to understand the play in order to obtain the message.  As for the message, I feel that it could be a “classic” because all cultures may continue to fight against one another and new ones may form.

The third short play, “Beirut Rocks,” was, most probably, the favorite for the majority of the students. Personally, it was shocking, to say the least. The topics and emotions that were expressed shook me. Nassa and Benjy surprised me. The way they became their characters astonished me because the previous two plays the characters, I felt, did not really become their characters. I felt that the actors playing Joey and Murph were trying too hard to become their characters while the actor playing Gupta felt…”choppy” in scenes where he interacts with the boys. And I felt neutral when I saw the actors playing Uri and Itzhak. I just thought that Uri was holding his gun awkwardly, but I think it was in order to show how inexperience he was in combat. In addition to the characters, the scenery was simple, yet it showed chaos. The scene took place on one set: an area with bags strewed over the bed and floor with two chairs. But in terms of being a “classic,” I believe this play could be one. The fiery argument and conflicts and misunderstandings within this play takes elements from the previous two and amplifies them such as misunderstandings, lack of knowledge about other cultures, conflicts between cultures.

Even though I’ve thought about these plays and analyzed them in my terms I wouldn’t know if they would become the “classic” my teacher defined that day in class. I could only guess what the plays would become. Hopefully, because of their strength as a collection, they would leave impressions on the audiences and live on.

Horovits, Israel. The Indian Wants the Bronx. New York. Dramatists Play Service, Inc, 1996. Print.