7 Collective Action: Theatre and Politics
Caryl Churchill’sSeven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza premiered at
the Royal Court Theatre in early 2009. The play was about ten minutes
long; it was free to all spectators, but a collection was taken at the end for
‘the people of Gaza’, via an organisation called‘Medical Aid for Palesti-
nians’. Free entry, followed by a collection for Medical Aid for Palesti-
nians is, in fact, a condition on any performance of Churchill’s play. The
play text itself consists of seven speeches by unspecified adult relations,
parents perhaps, of seven Jewish girls. The speeches correspond to differ-
ent times in the prehistory or history of Israel; in each speech, the adult
relative debates or agonises over what the girl should or shouldn’t be told.
The play was billed as a response to the Gaza War of 2008–9, which
ended shortly before thefirst performance. The publicity material sug-
gested (although this is not explicit in the play text itself) that thefinal,
seventh speech was that of a contemporary Israeli relative during the Gaza
War. In any case, in the most controversial and concluding part of this
speech, the seventh relative says:
Tell her we’re the ironfist now, tell her it’s the fog
of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I
laughed when I saw the dead policemen, tell her they’re animals
living in rubble now, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out,
the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if
the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re
chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in
blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.
Don’t tell her that.
Tell her we love her.
Don’t frighten her.^1The controversy surrounding Churchill’s play–and the wide range of
responses it provoked–could hardly come as a surprise: the play was
accused of anti-Semitism in some quarters, just as it was praised for its
accuracy and insight in others. Reviewers also took the opportunity to
discuss, albeit in passing, the role of political theatre. Readers familiar