Golgotha
Written by Shmuel Refael
Directed by Geula Jeffet-Attar
Adapted by Haim Idissis
Translated by Howard Rypp
Theater | US Premiere
Golgotha is a one man show, performed in English by Victor Attar.
Albert Salvado, a Holocaust Survivor, re-lives the atrocities of the concentration camps as he prepares for his long awaited dream to come true: the honor to light the torch at the annual Holocaust commemoration ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. However, Albert’s honor is compounded by the intense guilt and pain surrounding his being chosen as the torch bearer, which makes Albert question not only his right to the honor of lighting the torch but also his identity as a Sephardic Jew.
The estrangement many Ladino-speaking Jews felt is captured in the play through the inner turmoil experienced by Albert in the isolation of his own, dark apartment where he has nothing but a photograph to remind him the family he left behind as the only survivor of his household.
Performances of Golgotha coincide with World Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27).
Actor Victor Attar, born in Baghdad, immigrated to Israel at 14. He was a leading member of Tel Aviv’s municipal theater, Hacamery, and later of Jerusalem’s repertory, The Kahn Theatre. He wrote and performed the avant-garde play, “The Road” and achieved prominence in New York for his performance in the La MaMa production of Fernando Arrabal’s “The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria.”