Review: Ballad of a Burning Star

Scrimping on cash, like a typical student, I walked from Oxford Road to The Lowry theatre to witness Theatre Ad Infinitum’s current production, Ballad of the Burning Star. An hour later, my legs burning and a yawn creeping its way onto my face every three minutes, I was ushered into the Quays Theatre where nine tables were set out in the style of a cabaret show. Sat on Table Nine I was beside several women with notebooks, presumably press, gushing about the unconventional audience placement while a lone drummer on stage filled the time with a steady beat. The stage itself was adorned merely with a microphone stand, drum kit and a chair, each decorated with a gold Star of David. That’s right; as the Director, writer and drag star of the show, Nir Paldi, states, ‘This is not a soap opera it is a serious political piece.’ Told through Paldi’s narration, as a drag queen called Star, and five dancing Starlets, the show is a daring exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It relays the history of the violence, alongside a heart wrenching tale of a young boy’s experiences of growing up in Israel, in the midst of a militant settlement, leading eventually to his confusion at becoming an oppressor.

There is a lot of unsettling oscillation between the humour of the cabaret and the tense enactments including a tour of Auschwitz – is it okay to laugh at something which discusses hundreds of years of oppression? Can we laugh at Star’s witticisms when she mocks the mispronunciation of a Japanese Starlet? In the denouement of the play the bald, topless man who sat before the audience no longer embodied Star, but a shameful, torn Israel, ‘In his eyes. There was hate. So much hate.’

Staged arguments between Paldi and his Starlets maintain an air of light hearted amusement throughout, and the energy of the entire cast was contagious. Much like Paldi’s bomb warning in the exposition; ‘A man with a bomb may run into the theatre in the middle of the show, shout ‘God is great!’ and press the little red button’ – the atmosphere for the entire seventy minutes is explosive. Whatever moral questions the show may raise I remained on the edge of my seat for the entirety of the show, forgetting the exhaustion from my hour long walk. Now, surely that is the definition of excellent entertainment.