The critically acclaimed one woman show, New Eyes, had been playing for three years before I got the opportunity to see it. The performing actress, Yafit Josephson, was insistent I come and see her work. Each time the play was in Los Angeles, she did not forget to send me a reminding e-mail. Until she got my commitment.
Last weekend, I was honored to be among the audience at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks to watch Yafit in action, in the play she wrote with Suzanne Bressler and directed by Sammie Wayne.
The play is a family production; Yafit’s mother, Tamar, has never missed a show for which she prepares, each time, a fresh and yummy set of Schnitzels, as the script requires, and which the audience get to taste at the end of the show. Yafit’s father, Isaac, is another fan attending every show to support his daughter. Her brother, Eliad, is the producer of the show and her husband, Oran Schachter, helps at the door.
Yafit plays, skillfully, eighteen different characters. This talented actress jumps into different ethnic characters, among them her parents and people who she met along the way under different circumstances. While jumping from one character to another Yafit, who was born in the United States and grew up in Israel, portrays, well, different Jewish and Israeli characters, while interjecting some cultural and subtle political opinions to explain Israel’s position and the melting pot of America.
I had a chance to speak with Yafit to ask her about her future plans and there are many.
She will continue performing New Eyes and would like to turn it into a movie. She is busy writing a one woman play documenting her recent wedding.
On June 27, 2013, Yafit will be the celebrity host of Keshet Chaim Dance Ensemble concert, Keshet @ 30, a fund raising event celebrating the ensemble’s thirtieth anniversary while raising funds for education.
Besides enjoying the play a great deal, what I got out of it is that when an Israeli born American has lived in America long enough to begin misunderstanding Israel, it is a good idea to go back to his or her birth place and get re-educated.
On August 4th 2013, the New Eyes production team will celebrate its third year on stage at Santa Monica Playhouse. Watch the website: www.neweyesplay.com and should you want to look yourself in the mirror, go see “New Eyes,” and laugh.
