Rebels and Patriots will be performed at 3pm at the Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs) from 31st July – 25th August.
Booking Link: https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/rebels-and-patriots
Nadav Burstein, the co-founder of Floating Shed Theatre, brings a deeply personal and compelling narrative to the stage with his latest play ‘Rebels and Patriots’. Premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe Fstival this summer, this powerful production draws on Nadav’s own experiences in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and his nuanced understanding of the Isreali-Palestinian conflict. Through a blend of multilingual storytelling, physical movement and live music, Nadav and the ensemble illuminate the urgent need for co-existence and display the harsh realities faced by those living amongst violence and division.
Here, Nadav shares insights into the creation of Floating Shed, the creative journey behind this pece and the critical conversation he aims to ignite.
Can you tell us the backstory of how the four members of Floating Shed Theatre know each other?
Floating Shed started its journey in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, when Tom Dalrymple approached me with an idea for a project he wanted to develop. We were in our first year of actor training, and by the time we got to third year and were approaching graduation, me and Tom were really lucky to have been cast in a few drama school productions together and developed a really good creative relationship.
For our last third year show, we were directed by the head of the school; Stephen Simms, in a devised project titled ‘International Klein Blue’ that explored the life and work of Yves Klein and the Nouveau Réalisme movement. In the project both me and Tom had the pleasure to work with the third member of Floating Shed, Harvey Schorah who was also in our cohort, and the three of us developed an immense passion for multidisciplinary theatre and text-devising and learnt about the RSVP Cycles method of devising and creation that we’re still working with today. We were extremely fortunate to have Patsy Browne-Hope as our movement director on the project and she taught us most of what we know about incorporating movement and physical language into our storytelling. So, by the time we graduated it was clear to us that we needed a creative space for ourselves to keep developing and exploring our craft and practice, and that’s how Floating Shed came to being.
We immediately revisited the first proposed project Tom had in mind – PASSION; a two-hander exploring homophobia and the damages of conversion therapy. We worked on it with an excellent director; Frances Gillard, who was another member of our cohort in the conservatoire. We presented the piece in the Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham in June 2022, and by February 2023 transferred it to the Lion & Unicorn Theatre in London, where it was awarded the OffComm Award for its short run and received fantastic responses from critics.
The fourth member of the ensemble of Rebels & Patriots and the newest member of Floating Shed is Tarik Badwan. I met Tarik as an actor on a project that he directed for the Camden Fringe called ‘Jerusalem 48’; a show about a post-apocalyptic Jerusalem where governments have collapsed and that examines a survival-based relationship between an Arab and a Jew. Since then, we’ve found a special creative and collaborative relationship and find great strength in working together as an Israeli and a Palestinian. Meeting Tarik at a time when Floating Shed was beginning developments on Rebels & Patriots couldn’t have been in better timing. Tarik’s experiences have informed the writing of the current draft greatly, and it was important for me that he moulded the way the character he’s playing is being written; an Arab-Israeli who’s conscripted to the IDF.
Rebels & Patriots will be Floating Shed’s first long-run show and debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. Our piece talks about many difficult themes of political urgency, and we’re very grateful to have the chance to share it with audiences.
Rebels and Patriots follows a very conflicting and topical issue at the moment. Have you encountered any challenging moments from the public during the creative process?
Rebels & Patriots explores one of the most press-covered political conflicts in the world, and one that has polarised people greatly in the past year. The information out there about what’s happening in Israel and Palestine is extremely narrativised, so wherever you get your information from, you only get half the picture. And so, when we discuss the project with the public or with friends we’re always faced with a great deal of misconceptions and misinformed political standpoints – from both sides of the political map. But that’s where the play draws its power and mission. We want to challenge the things people believe to be true and encourage them to ask questions and see the complexity of existence in that region. We’ve been having important conversations in the rehearsal room and making sure we don’t shy away from the difficult aspects of the argument, because that’s the only way to bridge differences and establish understanding. We hope to offer that to our audience too, and to show them that it’s only through honest conversations and the recognition of each other – especially the ‘other side’, that we can see each other’s humanity and strive for resolution.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a peak in its horrors this year, and at least in my lifetime. Rebels & Patriots is trying to show that if you look beyond the big accusing titles of newspapers and social media posts, there are many people that are trying to live safely and pursue their political truth. The core of the conflict as a whole, and of the individual conflicts of the characters In the play is around the notion of what safety is and what people are willing to sacrifice in order to defend it as a truth. The play’s title encapsulates the essence of the piece, or perhaps even contrasts it; Rebels & Patriots – while the play is about neither; it’s about young people in an impossible violent reality.
How much have you drawn from your real-life, lived experiences?
Rebels & Patriots is based on my experience serving in the IDF and is based around the time where I was getting out of the army, and the story is based on the experience of my best friends growing up in Tel-Aviv. I started writing the play as notes in my diary as a soldier, and when I got out of the army and moved to train as an actor in the UK, I realised that my experiences could belong in a dramatic space.
The play explores the different attitudes and journeys myself and my friends had with mandatory army conscription. For some of my friends, service was an important way to give back to society and protect their homeland, families and homes. Some of my friends had medical exemptions and didn’t serve, and some, like me, joined and found they were conflicted with the things the army was involved in. For me, the problem in Israel, especially in the past year, is the way in which the army is being used by the government, and that was my biggest struggle with it. So, while at times I felt I was doing valuable service protecting my home, on the other hand I saw the occupation of the Palestinian people. That was something I could not agree with. That’s why after 11 months of service I got out of the army. My personal circumstances and the political situation all affected my mental health severely, and I couldn’t stay any longer, and that’s what the play deals with.
Rebels and Patriots tells an important story about the conflicts that many young people have to go through. What message do you want to leave with audiences?
Although the story takes place in Israel and explores a specific political reality and is directly related to what’s going on in the region right now, the struggles the four characters have to face are very global. The play talks about the universal feeling of being lost that young people encounter when they finish their compulsory education, and the search for meaning and purpose in life. That search for purpose is connected to the appeal young people have behind getting in uniform. The armed forces, in Israel and globally have always been a place young people could gain community and purpose, and so even for young soldiers in the UK, conversations around mental health in the armed forces are extremely important, and more specifically, young men’s mental health in general. The play deals with themes of toxic masculinity and self-harm and explores the lack of emotional tools or inability young men have to speak about their emotions, especially when faced with a violent or difficult reality.
There are many messages in Rebels & Patriots, from the micro of the importance of supporting your friends, to the macro of the pursuit to the violence in Israel and Palestine. But the largest message is of the pursuit of truth. We want people to enquire with themselves what it is that they believe to be the truth, and why they believe it to be the truth. We want people to challenge what they hear about the conflict and investigate what other narratives might be, and we want them to practice empathy and work towards seeing other people’s humanity – even if they’re on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
Your theatre company Floating Shed focuses on socialist politics and human rights. Do you have any upcoming projects planned after Rebels and Patriots?
There are many ideas floating around about what might be the next project we develop. We would like to keep building on the unique relationship we have as a company creating Israeli-Palestinian co-creation. Our company member Tarik’s brother, Harry Badwan is a writer, and we would like to look at working with him on something soon too. Our first aim is to make sure Rebels & Patriots gets seen by as many people as possible and will be looking at touring the production around the UK and Internationally. This is the start of a new journey for Floating Shed and we’re excited to share it with you.
Rebels and Patriots will be performed at 3pm at the Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs) from 31st July – 25th August
Booking Link: https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/rebels-and-patriots