An Outlined History of Theatre Research in Israel

Contours for the History of Hebrew Theatre Research in the Land of Israel and the State of Israel – From Conformism to Subversive Revisionism

Abstract

The first part of this article outlines the unexplored history of theatre research in Palestine and the State of Israel. During the early period scholars and writers confined themselves almost exclusively to the subject of relations between the Bible, drama and the histrionic art. The majority of second generation scholars (1950s and 1960s) - with a few notable exceptions - investigated drama as a purely literary genre, and dramatic art as a hermeneutic metaphor in the service of extra-aesthetic fields. Their students expanded theatre research through an inter-disciplinary approach, merging aesthetic considerations with other perspectives, retaining their performative disposition while claiming social and political standpoints. The second part of the article explores those publications that constituted milestones in the development and orientation of Israeli theatre research, from analysis of historical Hebrew drama in the early 1970s; through various attempts to overcome the problems of conceiving a historiography and generic exploration of Hebrew drama and theatre; up to representation of the polyphonic character of contemporary research in the mid 1990s; followed by the latest studies of specific theatrical fields in Israel.