Q&A: Ballad of the Burning Star

Nir Paldi. Photo by Alex Brenner.

Ballad of the Burning Star first premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013 where it debuted to rave reviews and sold-out audiences. This month, Acting Up Stage Company and Why Not Theatre in association with the Koffler Centre of the Arts are bringing Theatre Ad Infinitum's hit production to The Theatre Centre for its North American premiere.

The ensemble cast of Ballad is lead by Nir Paldi as Star, a larger-than-life drag queen from Israel. Armed with music, killer heels and a lethal troop of divas, an enraged Star executes a story of victimhood, persecution, aggression and love, inviting audiences on a journey into the core of the Jewish State.

Here, we chat with Paldi about how his personal experiences informed the show that he eventually shaped into an explosive cabaret.

Theatromania: Tell us about Ballad of the Burning Star. What inspired you to create a drag musical about the Israel-Palestine conflict?

NP: For me, the show is more about the Israeli psyche rather than the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, the conflict is a major part of the Israeli psyche and therefore also a major part of Ballad. At the beginning of the creation process I didn’t know I was going to use drag. Actually I didn’t even realize back then that it’d be a cabaret. I only knew I wanted to make a piece that would articulate the powerful internal conflict relating to my national identity. My passionate love/hate relationship with my home, Israel. I also wanted to find a way to bring to the stage the complexity of a situation that more often than not is being presented as one dimensional and overly simplistic.

I started making the show as a one-man show in which I was telling the audience about my experiences growing up as an Israeli-Jew in a settlement on occupied Palestinian territory. I spent six weeks in a rehearsal room with my colleague and life partner, George Mann, telling him stories about my life and about Israel and the history of the Jewish people. At the end of this six week period I showed some friends the 25 minutes we came up with. They said it was great but all I felt was that something was missing. It was lacking a certain degree of distance. I wanted something that will liberate me, and the piece, from the enormous weight of the subject matter. And that was when I first thought about using drag.

Drag allows the freedom to say whatever you want. People accept it like they did when the royal fool told jokes back in the day. We started experimenting with the style and it worked like magic. My drag character, Star, is wild and free. She’s a great vehicle for the emotional rollercoaster that is Ballad of the Burning Star. She shifts and changes from extreme happiness to extreme sadness within seconds and she takes the rest of the cast and the audience with her. She brings comedy into a very complex situation and allows us to laugh at it. She exposes the complexity of the subject matter.

Theatromania: The show has received rave reviews since it premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013. However, it has also sparked some controversy. How have you been responding to protests during and after performances? Do you think the subject matter will be any less contentious for North American audiences?

NP: I love the fact that the show provokes debate and discussion. This is what I made it for. The only thing I find hard is violent reactions but we haven't had many of those. When once I was aggressed by an audience member during a show I just used my character to sooth the situation and get on with the show. Star is a very good MC. She takes what you throw at her and makes the most out of it. I don’t know how North American audiences will react to the show but I really can’t wait to discover!

Theatromania: Why do you think discussions about the individual humanity of Israelis and Palestinians are still so threatening to people from these communities?

NP: I think people carry so much pain, so much trauma and very often hate that they feel that any discussion, any sympathy to someone from the other side or even regarding them as a human being rather than "the enemy" puts them in danger. I think the subject is so emotionally charged that people are worried they’d lose control, which is something we all prefer to maintain.

Theatromania: What have you learned from this experience so far?

NP: On a personal level I understand my national identity better. Through the need to articulate my feeling in a way that will welcome my collaborators and the audience I had to figure it out for myself first. I also have a much stronger political view on Israel and on the world in general. Having performed the show quite a few times now and receiving so many emotional responses, many of them full of gratitude but many others very angry, I feel much more comfortable as an artist to touch upon political themes without worrying too much about making someone angry. I’m interested in provoking discussions and debates and I’m looking forward to pushing even further in my next piece of work.

Catch Nir Paldi in Ballad of the Burning Star, on stage until May 24 at The Theatre Centre. Visit burningstar.ca for more information and to buy tickets.