Deterritorializing Theatre: Habima and the Makingof the Modern Stage Language

The history of the Habima theatre, the first Hebrew language company in the world, spans over at least three territories: Russia (soon to become the Soviet Union), United States, and Mandatory Palestine (on the place of the future state of Israel). Coming from Central- Eastern Europe to Russia, accepted as one of the four studios of Stanislavsky’s MAT (Moscow Art Theatre), the migrant troupe will set on a famous world tour in 1926, before reaching Jaffa. Its director Yevgeny Vakhtangov connected the troupe, involved in the project of representing the old Jewish tradition, to the avant-garde and developed a new rhetoric, forging what will be later called the “theatrical theatre”. The new poetics, apt to cross language barriers, will become a stylistic signature in the representation of Jewish Holocaust, migration trauma, and deterritorialization to a worldwide audience.