A Trumpet in the Wadi
A Trumpet in the Wadi – Theater play
The novel A Trumpet in The Wadi has been adapted for play in Israeli various theatres six times since it first appeared on the stage. Among them are: Berit Lessin Theater (1988); Haifa Theater (1998 and again 2016); and The National Youth Theater in Israel (1990 and 2006).
“A Trumpet in The Wadi adapted to theater by Shmuel Hasfari, recounts an intriguing drama involving Jews vs. Arabs and traditional values vs. liberal values. The tangled drama is unfolded in the early 1980s in Haifa, at the dawn of the first Lebanon War. We first meet Huda, an Arab Christian woman. She holds a job as an agent travel who is fully embedded in Israeli culture. She, her sister Mary, a good looking and insubordinate woman, her mother and grandfather, live in rented apartment in Wadi Nisnas, one of Haifa' s neighborhood. The apartment is owned by Abu Nachla – a thug and an unscrupulous man, who covets the Mary. And then we have Alex, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, trumpeter and a student at the Technion. He lives in the same apartment building.
While Huda and Alex falling in love with each other against all odds, Mary is pushed by her mother and grandfather to marry a decent yet a halfwit man, so that here chastity is kept unscathed. While Huda struggles to reconcile her love with her cultural and religious identities, Mary finds it rather strenuous to go against her heart and to comply with the imposition of her mother and grandfather.
A Trumpet in the Wadi is play featuring a recounting of universal dilemmas, located this time however in a particular social and historical circumstance – Israeli society. The protagonists of the play are hard pressed to choose between 'habits of the heart' or social norms, between love or national and religious commitments. What one should do under such circumstances? What is the most humane choice to be adopted under such impossible conditions? A Trumpet in the Wadi deals with these complex and complicated questions in a unique and original manner, claiming continuous relevance to Israeli society for more than three decades, as it becomes evident from its continuous popularity. It has become actually one of the classics of Israeli literature as well as of Israeli theatre. “ Haifa Theater
