SEVEN OTHER CHILDREN

Seven Other Children

Carol Churchill's antisemitc little skit continues to make the rounds. I've already commented that a play is better than an op-ed or blogpost for disseminating ideas, right or wrong, because it's shelf-life can be longer, especially if it's got a constituency. Which is why it's neat that there are now two plays out there. Churchill's antisemitic one, and a counter-one by Richard Stirling, called "Seven Other Children". Stirling, like Churchill, is not Jewish.

Since there are two plays, and they're both short, one can now demand that both be played together. After all, Churchill's piece purports to want to "encourage discussion", and what better a way to do so than by having two 11-minutes pieces which deal with similar materials from differing perspectives?

This story indicates how the discussion might play out. One side won't allow stirlings' play to be shown because it's new:

In explaining the rejection of Stirling's play, the festival's development
coordinator Madeline Heneghan said: "The program is planned months in
advance." The request was "unrealistic at this point", she added.

Churchill's play about events in Gaza four months ago, you understand, managed to get onto the program. The other side, however, now has a tool, and in this case the careful politicians are cutting funding for the event because only one side of the "discussion" is being granted a platform. An interesting dynamic, based upon the fact that although antisemitism is widespread, at least in the West it's also something one ought to be a bit embarrassed by.

I haven't read Stirling's piece yet.

taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)