Lab 3

Title: Glutton

Statement of Intention:  To explore the financial strain the ultra-orthodox community is putting on Israel.

Objects: 1 performer, 1 audience member, 2 meals.

Direction: The performer eats from the plate of the audience member but does not offer food from his own plate.

Conclusion:  The performance concludes with the audience member demands that the performer stops eating his/her food.

Reflection: For my performance, I went out to dinner with a friend.  When we received our food, I asked to have a taste of hers.  She said yes and I had a bite.  After a couple of minutes, I asked for another bite, then another, then another.  I could see she was beginning to get annoyed, but she still did not resist me.  Eventually I was taking more bites off of her plate than I was off of mine.  It was at this point that she finally asked for a bite of my meal, to which I said no.  Then she got angry and told me that I can’t eat both of our meals by myself.  It was at that moment that the performance ended.  I then explained my performance to her and offered her the rest of my meal so she would not be upset at me anymore.  We then spent the remainder of the meal discussing the issue and the protests that had been going on in my absence.

The ultra-orthodox community in Israel is a very vocal, very powerful minority.  They do not have to work (as long as they study the Torah), they do not serve in the army, and they do not pay taxes.  What is more is that the government puts almost all of them on welfare because they cannot support their exceedingly large families.  Their political views are far right, and they are gaining more and more power without contributing at all to the country in which they live.  It means that those of us who do work and who do serve in the army have to pay for their lifestyle.  What makes even less sense is that this is a community that  very vocally disapproves of the secular community without whose resources they cannot survive.  Recently, there have been protests in Israel regarding the rising cost of living, and I cannot help but wonder if this issue would exist at all had it not been for the ultra-orthodox community.

I felt that the performance could have been more effective had I done it with someone I didn’t feel as close to.  Because my friend and I are so close, she didn’t have a problem with my eating her food, at least, not at first.  I believe that had I worked with someone else, they might have complained sooner.

Overall, I felt that the performance was successful.  It led to a very interesting (albeit mostly one-sided) discussion of the issue being presented.