Via Dolorosa (play)
Encyclopedia
Via Dolorosa is a play by British dramatist David Hare
, in the form of a monologue. It deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
through Hare's own 1997 journey through Israel and Palestine, and the 33 people whom he met.
Hare premiered the work in London in September 1998, in his solo acting debut, in collaboration with director Stephen Daldry and set designer Ian McNeil. The first US performance was on 18 March 1999, again with Daldry as director. Excerpts of the play were released on CD. The work was later produced for television. Hare performed the work again in July 2002 at the Duchess Theatre, London.
In the context of this play, Daldry has characterized Hare's attitude to the Israel-Palestine conflict as follows:
Hare received the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for his performance of Via Dolorosa.
In May 1999, Steven Greenstein filed a US civil complaint against the Royal Court Theatre that alleged that Via Dolorosa had unlawfully taken ideas for the text and structure from an unproduced play by Greenstein, Voices From the Holy...and Not So Holy Land. The lawsuit did not name Hare specifically. In April 2000, Judge Denny Chin of the Federal District Court in Manhattan
dismissed the lawsuit and asserted that the plays by Greenstein and Hare were separate entities.
David Hare (dramatist)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
, in the form of a monologue. It deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
through Hare's own 1997 journey through Israel and Palestine, and the 33 people whom he met.
Hare premiered the work in London in September 1998, in his solo acting debut, in collaboration with director Stephen Daldry and set designer Ian McNeil. The first US performance was on 18 March 1999, again with Daldry as director. Excerpts of the play were released on CD. The work was later produced for television. Hare performed the work again in July 2002 at the Duchess Theatre, London.
In the context of this play, Daldry has characterized Hare's attitude to the Israel-Palestine conflict as follows:
"What David Hare is unneutral about - what he's deeply against - is extremism. Here it's the extremism he found, and brilliantly acts out, between warring political-philosophical-religious diehards within each populace, Israeli and Palestinian alike -- 'people who seek religious justification for excessive behavior on either side.'"
Hare received the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for his performance of Via Dolorosa.
In May 1999, Steven Greenstein filed a US civil complaint against the Royal Court Theatre that alleged that Via Dolorosa had unlawfully taken ideas for the text and structure from an unproduced play by Greenstein, Voices From the Holy...and Not So Holy Land. The lawsuit did not name Hare specifically. In April 2000, Judge Denny Chin of the Federal District Court in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
dismissed the lawsuit and asserted that the plays by Greenstein and Hare were separate entities.