{"id":33575,"date":"2019-11-08T03:58:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T11:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=33575"},"modified":"2019-11-06T22:00:16","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T06:00:16","slug":"bahrs-many-personas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/11\/08\/bahrs-many-personas\/","title":{"rendered":"Bahr\u2019s many personas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer and comedian Iris Bahr performs at the Rothstein Theatre on Nov. 12 and 13, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Gail Hadini)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Award-winning writer, actor, director and producer Iris Bahr delves into serious issues using humour \u2013 and by being someone other than herself. She will bring some of her many characters to the Rothstein Theatre stage Nov. 12 and 13 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival.<\/p>\n

Bahr hosts the weekly podcast X-RAE<\/em>, as alter ego Rae Lynn Caspar White. In her one-woman show DAI<\/em> (enough<\/em>), she portrays 11 different characters in a Tel Aviv coffee shop. In her comedy series Svetlana<\/em>, which ran for a couple of seasons, she starred as the Russian prostitute and political consultant. These are but a few examples of the personas she has created.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I was about 6 years old,\u201d Bahr told the Independent<\/em> about when she did her first impression. \u201cMy family went on a trip to Italy and I began to imitate the tour guide, who kept going on and on in a heavy Italian accent about \u2018marble from Carrera\u2019 and so, for years after that, I would always be asked to \u2018perform my Italian woman\u2019 when my parents had company over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using the example of the character of Rae Lynn, Bahr explained how an alter ego allows for a better conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI host my X-RAE<\/em> podcast in character because I find it puts people at ease and they open up about topics they wouldn\u2019t otherwise,\u201d she said. \u201cRae Lynn flips from highbrow to lowbrow in a heartbeat and talks openly and outrageously about parenting, marriage and various R-rated topics. During my interview with Lawrence O\u2019Donnell, for example, we veered from Marxism to Penn Gillette\u2019s sex parties in a single breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

A magna cum laude graduate of Brown University, in Providence, R.I., Bahr studied neuropsychology, and has done brain research, as well as cancer research.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I gravitated towards neuroscience because the inner workings of the brain fascinate me and I\u2019m equal parts cerebral and highly emotional, and so that translates into all my work,\u201d she explained. \u201cI have a splintered identity, but not in a 50-50 kind of way \u2013 I actually feel 100% American and 100% Israeli at all times and that feeling of connection yet constant alienation lends itself to me inhabiting different characters and being able to truly commit to different viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bahr was born and raised in the Bronx but moved to Israel as a teenager, staying there through military service; she still has family there. Her latest satire, The Olive Tree<\/em>, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recently had a soldout reading in New York and is set to open in spring of next year. DAI <\/em>came to the stage in 2006 and audiences have included the United Nations, in 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was invited to perform the show for over 100 ambassadors and delegates and the experience was unforgettable,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were highly attentive and laughed at all the right moments, which I was not sure was going to happen. I felt like a diplomat for a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bahr said she wrote DAI<\/em> \u201cto communicate the intricacy and complexity of life in Israel, the inner conflicts prevalent in Israeli society, and how they are affected by living under constant threat of suicide bombings\/sudden death, which, as any Israeli will tell you, instil not a feeling of helplessness but a vibrancy and love for life. On the flip side, is how that very fact is perceived by visiting outsiders and Palestinians affected by the conflict. The characters we meet in the caf\u00e9 \u2013 from all walks of life, ideological spectrums and backgrounds \u2013 have no idea their lives will be ending abruptly [by a suicide bomber] and so their monologues range from outrageously humourous, vengeful, disillusioned and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

She first performed DAI <\/em>at Baruch College in New York City, \u201cas part of a festival sponsored by the Culture Project,\u201d she said. \u201cI had no idea it would get picked up immediately for a commercial run, and so that was a phenomenal development.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot has changed since I first wrote DAI<\/em>, in terms of how the conflict is manifesting itself on both sides, and yet the situation has sadly stayed the same. Thankfully, suicide bombings seem to be a thing of the past, but my dear childhood friend and father of four was stabbed to death only last year while out shopping, the Palestinian plight has not improved and the political climate is worse than ever. Nevertheless, the characters in DAI<\/em> have sustained their relevancy; my German character talks about rising antisemitism in modern-day Germany, for example; my Israeli former military man talks of his son who doesn\u2019t want to serve in the military; and the snooty ex-pat woman who lives in New York City, well, those types of women only seem to multiply by the minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stressed, \u201cThe play is not a polemic \u2013 it is a collection of social observations that speak from many different viewpoints. The piece aims to entertain, offer a visceral theatrical experience and, hopefully, also illuminate and enlighten. Thankfully, it has been warmly received amongst extremely \u2018pro-Israel\u2019 audiences and also \u2018pro-Palestinian\u2019-leaning crowds both in Europe and here in America. Of course, certain right-wingers think it\u2019s too leftist and left-wingers think it\u2019s too right, which is all I could really hope for as a piece about humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to see Bahr perform at Chutzpah!, and for more festival offerings, visit chutzpahfestival.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writer and comedian Iris Bahr performs at the Rothstein Theatre on Nov. 12 and 13, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Gail Hadini) Award-winning writer, actor, director and producer Iris Bahr delves into serious issues using humour \u2013 and by being someone other than herself. She will bring some of her many characters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[31,5278,9433,4330,175,3034,9432],"class_list":["post-33575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-chutzpah","tag-comedy","tag-dai","tag-israel","tag-rothstein-theatre","tag-united-states","tag-x-rae"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}