{"id":252338,"date":"2026-08-17T08:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T08:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/252338\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T08:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T08:34:11","slug":"israels-peter-pan-revival-offers-audiences-an-escape-from-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/252338\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s Peter Pan revival offers audiences an escape from reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere\u2019s something very magical in this show … a moment away from reality, some kind of fantasy, and that\u2019s powerful,\u201d Linoy Cohen, who plays Tiger Lily, told The Jerusalem Report.<\/p>\n

The three years since October 7 have been a turning point in Jewish life all over the world, but in Israel the whole population lived a common trauma, leaving scars.<\/p>\n

In the field of the performing arts, however, those bruises were reshaped into something meaningful.<\/p>\n

Waiting at home<\/p>\n

In times of such uncertainty in the Middle East, when families send their fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters to fight for Israel\u2019s safety, either on reserve duty or during regular military service<\/a>, Peter Pan brings to the stage a deep reflection: how it feels for the parents who wait at home for their sons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly, it dawned on me that there is something to that \u2013 parents who wait for their kids to come back home, kids who don\u2019t want to grow up,\u201d Ofir Weil<\/a>, who plays Smee, told the Report.<\/p>\n

In the play, the children do not want to go back home, and wish to never grow up, like Peter Pan.<\/p>\n

As the current Israeli reality includes frequent scenarios where kids need to wake up from their dreams to run into bomb shelters, the \u201cdream of never growing up,\u201d as Weil put it, became \u201ca reality where beyond the joy and the laughter, we move to an underlying sadness of children who want to remain forever young.\u201d<\/p>\n

Healing through theatre<\/p>\n

As a young actress who has lived the perks of being an artist during long periods of war, Meshi Kleinstein<\/a>, who plays Wendy Darling, explained that part of what gave her the drive to continue acting was the fact that Israelis find in art a cure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the actress, playing Wendy brought waves of mixed emotions, connected to this need for healing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like longing for something good and sweet that we\u2019re all yearning for, especially in the last few years, a moment to put everything on pause,\u201d she told the Report.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe cast of the Peter Pan musical. (credit: YUVAL EREL)<\/p>\n

Kleinstein said she sees the musical as something \u201cpowerful,\u201d a place where the public can \u201cfeel as Peter for a moment. It\u2019s our duty to go and try to take a breath, because there\u2019s enough hardship and pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that being an artist became much more of a mission than what I used to think. […] You have to make people, even if only for a moment, breathe, to feel something that isn\u2019t an enormous pain,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that when I go up on stage, when every actor goes up on stage, for a moment, it blows away all those negative feelings,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Almost 40 years after playing Peter Pan on stage, Hanoch Rosen returns as the play\u2019s director, reviving the feeling of a childhood when \u201ceverything seemed possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Having followed the path his younger self always dreamed of, Rosen told the Report that, even if \u201cin the end, we all grow up,\u201d every person deserves to \u201cfeel that childhood magic again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the time the magic begins, you must not forget to let your mind fly along with the boy who never wanted to grow up.\u25a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere\u2019s something very magical in this show … a moment away from reality, some kind of fantasy, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[37,69851,12623,69857,69858],"class_list":["post-252338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-israel","tag-israeli-actors","tag-jerusalem-report","tag-musical","tag-peter-pan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117109932990680961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}