Theater program for Napoleon Alive or Dead, Bimot Theater
Written and directed by Nissim Aloni
Israel, 1970
Courtesy of the Israeli Center for the Documentation of the Performing Arts
Must Know
This is a comedy play directed by playwright, theater director, writer, and translator Nisim Aloni. he was one of the most prominent and important playwrights in Israel. The premiere of the play was staged by Aloni and composed as a musical play by Gary Bartney and staged in 1970 in the Bimot Theater. Among the actors: Yossi Pollak, Shula Chen, Hanna Roth, Dovi Gal, and many other famous actors. It had so far been the theater’s greatest production. The play won critical acclaim, although it did not attract many viewers and the theater stopped playing it after a few weeks. Many of Aloni’s plays deal with the aristocracy, kings, and princes. The play combines historical events and fictional plots. The story starts at the end of the 20th century and centers around the demon of Napoleon, who manages to escape from the world of demons and return to the 19th century to warn himself not to conquer Russia.
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The themes in the plays gave insight into human qualities. Aloni used fantasy in his magical and poetic style to discuss the issues of reality, something that required from the viewer to process the connection between the unusual and strange and the familiar and known. His contribution to the Israeli culture is known due to the sketches he made for the comedy trio The Pale Tracker (hebrew HaGashgash HaHiver). In 1996, at the age of 70, he won the Israeli Prize for Stage Art.
