For Immediate Release: March 29, 2000
NeWorld Theatre and Rumble Productions present
I am your spy
(a day in the life of Mordechai Vanunu)
Written and performed by Camyar Chai
Directed by Norman Armour and Andreas Kahre
Lighting design by John Webber
Stage Managed by Guy Fauchon
For thirteen years Mordechai Vanunu has been in solitary confinement for blowing the whistle on his country's secret nuclear weapons program. A technician at Israel's Dimona Nuclear Facility, Vanunu supplied the London Sunday Times with photographs of its operations. The Israeli government, with the help of a female Mossad posing as an American tourist, lured Vanunu to Rome, kidnapped him and illegally took him back to Israel. There he was tried as a traitor, and sentenced to eighteen years in prison.
Israel has had to fight for its very survival since it was founded; does this justify a nuclear arms program that violates international law, or the torture of a single man? Does the end of the cold war make nuclear arms easier to defend, as the spectre of automatic global destruction is replaced by the proliferation of "tactical" nuclear weapons? And, closer to home, what makes us accept Canada's exports of nuclear reactors, knowing that they are used to produce weapons-grade plutonium? This is the complex environment which makes the imprisonment of Vanunu so highly charged and his the most compelling case of modern day 'whistle blowers'. Vanunu - young, educated, and idealistic, at odds with himself and his country's nuclear policy - he and his life in solitary confinement is a microcosm of the modern human condition.
A first draft of I Am Your Spy, co-written by Mara Coward, was performed to high acclaim as a multi-cast fringe show in 1997. This new version, written and performed by Camyar Chai, dramaturged by Governor General's Award-winner Guillermo Verdecchia, directed by Norman Armour and Andreas Kahre, has a much sharper focus. This one man show depicts Vanunu's isolation and anguish, and his struggle between hope and pessimism, for himself, and for humankind. The production's stage manager is Guy Fauchon and the lighting design is by Rumble Associate Artist John Webber.
The driving force behind last year's highly acclaimed production of The Devil Box Cabaret, NeWorld Theatre is establishing itself as one of the most inventive and audacious voices in the Vancouver theatre scene. The company's latest creation, The Leaky Heaven Circus, sold out to many brave families who, along with the press, have called out for its return for a shot at cult status.
I am your spy
(a day in the life of Mordechai Vanunu)
April 21-29, 8:00pm
Performance Works, Granville Island
Friday April 21 - 2 for 1 Preview
Saturday April 22 - 2 for 1 Preview
Sunday April 23 - Pay What You Can Preview
Tuesday April 25 - Opening
Performances: Tuesday to Saturday $16/$14