A stage for masculinities : Representations of Israeli Soldiers in the Theater (original) (raw)

This paper is based on my PHD dissertation, and reflects a study of 84 plays and theatrical performances written and staged in Israel since the Six-Day War (1967), depicting the Israeli soldier as a protagonist. The methodology draws upon an inter-disciplinary approach, combining Theatre Studies, Sociology, Masculinity and Feminist Studies and Cultural Studies. The Theater represented transitions and crises in the social acceptance of this figure, which occurred due to events that took place in social reality: wars, terrorism, peace treaties, and occupation. Socio-psychological structures and collective beliefs that characterized Israeli society in different periods of time were detected through theater performances. An analysis of the figure of a man, a soldier, a father and a son, both in private and public domain, over a period of four decades, has enabled the diagnosis of three different generations.