For someone familiar with Yehoshua's short stories there is hardly any surprise in the fascination the theatrical medium has for this writer. For in each of his stories,—for instance in such a multi-symbolic story as "Mul Hayaarot" ("Opposite the Forests") as well as in the more intimate expression of a complex relationship between a man and the family of a long-loved woman ("Three Days and a Child")—there is always a strong dramatic kernel, a striking and unmistakable focus of tension and struggle which dictates the development of plot and simultaneously serves as the climax of narration. Moreover, the dramatic culmination—this artistically contrived turning point—very often takes the form of a catastrophe, an absolutely subverting disaster which inevitably leads to a new perspective of life, its meaning and values. This is the case, for instance, in the story "The Evening Journey of Yatir": the inhabitants...