no power, power and magic moments

When I got to the Karov today I was first and realised I could feel my way round to the lights nearly as well as in the New End which was weird and nice.

I feel a bit weird and poorly so I will go home soon. I think it is mostly nostalgia because I watched 'Sex In The City' the first movie last night and it made me really really miss my clothes, especially the pink shoes. You can read more about my materialistic moral obsessions on the After A Fashion blog. The height of my feelings is such, however, that I momentarily had to mix the two worlds.

Building the profile of the Karov beyond Israel, or getting beyond Israel into the Karov proves daily to be less and less of a mean feat and today I am exhausted. I know what to do and how to use my brain but the two are just not in tune ha yom and I don't have the koach even for Ulpan. Also, as I was leaving the house today a cockroach fell on my head.

HOWEVER. ON THE PLUS SIDE.

This Saturday we have How To Teach Communism To The Mentally Ill which I can't wait to show to Ruthie when she comes. I can't wait to show you the Karov full-stop, darling. Also, I was telling Dorit all about the things Ruthie and I have done together and we want really to build part of She London around a unique non-Jewish perspective she could bring. If you're in Israel and read this, you can come to see Communism for the special rockabilly rate of 20NIS this Saturday only. I am doing the synopses, Karov backgrounds and refreshments (sort of) in English for non-Ivrit speakers so let me know ahead of time.

Nearly time to start the application for The Fall for Melbourne. We're also looking to Russian-Israeli embassies et al to raise the money to go to Grigory's festival. Nico seems up for the adventure and Albert said he would stay in a tent. All this pleased me.

I have lots of different favourite types of moments at the Karov but one that is very strong in my mind now is the type with Dorit when her energy and genuineness show me a new type of humility I never saw before in my life. Yesterday we were talking about something to do with the program-I do not remember what exactly-and I was moved by how she related the She event to the needs of others.

Very far removed from how I used to feel sitting in certain massive theatres surrounded by wankers who wouldn't know humility if it threw up in their soup.

Goodnight x

The SHE Festival goes live on Kadmus, and daddy meets dorit...

Gerald got poorly in the throat and didn't come to hear Alexa's thrilled, spilled and pilled up thoughts about eating twins and subtitling the mentally ill or whatever I mentioned last time

Oh, you can change the font colour and see how it looks when you type. How exciting. Now I am going to write something that is really difficult to see hahaa oh but I can't see it either so never mind.

So thoughts for Gerry will have to wait. Instead, I took Brian to meet Dorit and co. It was great although we couldn't get any proper cookies because it is Pesach. I showed dad all the nice backstage and the wide stage and the foyer and office and tea and coffee and we talked about twinning the She Festival in particular with the New End. Ann has since made a page for this year's SF on Kadmus which is ever so nice of her. I will add some pictures here next week.

Increasingly I am excited about The Woman In The Wall. I think I would like to have a tyre as my swing, or something round-ish. They have now those wide round swings with three pieces of rope and they go round as well as up and down. The Sailor pushed me in one at Edinburgh and it was so much fun. Also, I always prefer round and round to backwards and forwards.

As a result of going to the Karov and meeting Dorit, B has an idea for a play about families in theatres, especially fathers and daughters. It sounds quite interesting actually. Anyway, we shall see. I also want to get Alef Alef to London in some shape or form, to promote the work of Jewish artists on the issue of domestic violence.

My dad said he was happy I went to the Karov and not somewhere like the Cameri, which I thought was nice. Also I felt very proud in a general way. It is sad he won't get to see anything there this time.

Introduction and drumroll - welcome to Alexa le Karov

ALEXA'S FIRST BLOG POST EVER.

I had my interview at the Karov on Wednesday 27 January 2010. I had been in Israel for just over a week and started the Oranim Tel Aviv Internship Experience two days before. The shared room was too small but I lived on Rehov Ben Yehuda in the centre of North Tel Aviv where, thank G-d, there was noise all the time. Since Edinburgh 2009, which I will always label as a professional and personal disaster, I hadn't worked in theatre but had focused on my beloved au pair job in Tufnell Park and work for cult jewelery boutique Tatty Devine in Brick Lane.

When I asked Oranim to find me an internship in Tel Aviv, I specified that I did NOT want a theatre. I had worked, played, eaten, drunk and exploited my father's theatre (the New End in Hampstead) for half my lifetime. Determined to move into burlesque, circus or anything else, I had Oranim contact any relevant company I could lay my hands on. But after 6 months, all they had for me was an interview at the Karov.

"It's something different," I was told. "You wanted something different and that's what we've found for you. It's in the Central Bus Station. What more could you ask for." It was not a question.

Tel Aviv's New Central Bus Station is a cross between Elephant and Castle in South London, Stamford Hill, a masked sewage system and the Guggenheim in New York. You have to see it to believe it and I've always perversely loved the place. I'd never heard of the Karov Theatre and when I eventually found it on the 4th Floor I was curious or something.

Liron opened the door to me and I liked her at once. She gave me the grand tour - 90-seater-or-so with old cinema seats and eff-off huge wide stage. Kitchen and dressing rooms backstage, tiny office leading to a spacious foyer with tea and coffee area. No bar. Dark, dingy, and all of it beautiful beautiful beautiful.

The Karov was established by Romanian-born director, actor and theatre practitioner Nico Nitai. In my interview with Liron (Press and Marketing) and Dorit Nitai Neman (Nico's daughter and Associate Director and Producer as well as theatre manager) I learnt the Karov story. Nitai established his production house in a disused bomb shelter in North Tel Aviv in 2001. Two years later a fire destroyed both the space and its creative archive to date.

Against all advice, Nitai relocated his theatre to an available complex in the Central Bus Station where few "respectable Israeli theatregoers" venture to take a bus, let alone enjoy a night out. But Nitai was determined to make his philosophy of merging life, performance, audience and text ("karov" translates as "close/near") a reality in the heart of "real" Tel Aviv.

Seven years later, here we all are with over 100 in-house productions, a current repertoire of around 10 shows (performed in rep by the Karov company) from promenade Sartre to community theatre, and an ever-growing audience from all over Israel and beyond.

My job is to break the Karov into the English-speaking festival scene and build its International Relations "department" as a whole. I am at-home there and happy, my fears of it being an unwelcome home-from-home remain unfounded.

It is now Pesach, and what I do for the Karov requires tremendous motivation, initiative and self-belief. I have never written a blog before and hope that Alexa Le Karov will rouse some curiosity somewhere for arts outside the box, theatre in Israel and a personal journey from which I hope others can profit. Somehow.