The performance "Falling Out of Time" is an adaptation of David Grossman's book, set within the spaces of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. It combines acting, a cappella singing, and visual imagery, woven together to create an experience that soars above pain, drawn from our existential sphere. In the current days, David Grossman's writing keeps resonating like a beacon in the darkness. The characters embarking on this journey with the audience, those who have been deprived of their parental identity on one hand, carry the presence of the absent, all the more forcefully, on the other hand. Their names were determined by their profession or occupation, marking the presence of each and every one of them. The existent and the non-existent define them. The Elderly Teacher, the Shoemaker, the Midwife, the Centaur (half-writer, half-desk), the Chronicler, the Wife who becomes the Woman in the Bell Tower, and the Walking Man – all moving towards the lost children, seeking the longed-for moment, a final chance to say goodbye, the farewell they never had. This is a parting away journey of a parent from their child that is gone. A journey of a parent letting go of their gone child, while life, stronger than they are, demands they carry on and continue living.

Rehearsals began in mid-August, and the performance was scheduled for mid-November. Then, on October 7, 2023, we all fell out of time. Our skin became punctured, shrunken, and wrinkled with pain, like the fabrics from which the costumes were sewn. Iris Mualem, my partner in the creative journey, and I, decided to keep the visual imagery as it was before October 7, 2023.

Yael Cramsky

Translated into English by Tal Bilu