SOURCE: "Patterns and Trends in Israeli Drama and Theater, 1948 to Present," in Theater in Israel, edited by Linda Ben-Zvi, The University of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 9-50.

In the following excerpt, Avigal surveys developments in Israeli theater from the beginning of statehood in 1948 to the mid-1990s.

In Other Places People Die of Strokes

One evening in 1985, about three years after the Lebanon War, I sat in the Rovina Hall of the Habima National Theater and witnessed a revolution, revolutionary only in Israeli terms, since what seemed so unusual here would have been routine for a Broadway or West End stage. For the very first time in Israeli theater a Yuppie couple, the same age as the playwright and I, dealt with entirely personal problems: the breakdown of a marriage, midlife crisis, personal fulfillment, and self-analysis. Traditionally, Israeli drama had concerned itself with themes of national identity. Individual problems...