Artistic Statement from THE creators

Danny Paller & Myra Noveck: 

“These days, most people view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as tragic, deadly, and intractable. It wasn’t always that way.  In 1993, Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed a peace agreement, and as the second phase of that agreement was being implemented in fall 1995, a 25-year-old, right-wing religious law student, Yigal Amir, assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, sabotaging so much. In light of what has happened in the subsequent 30 years, it has proven to be one of the most successful assassinations in modern history, radically altering the course of history.  This musical explores both the political dynamics of that time and the personalities and family lives of its two protagonists – Rabin and his assassin. It raises bottom-line questions for an American audience: What happens when civil discourse breaks down and polarized groups live in their own bubbles? What difference can leaders make? When and how can hope overcome fear?  Most of the drama is conveyed through songs in a range of styles and emotions, capturing the many voices and viewpoints of this turbulent historical moment.”

Artistic Statement about the project

from VFP’s Ari Roth: 

“There have been other artistic lamentations on the death of Rabin, presented as documentary film, string concerto with spoken oratorio, or even a commedia dell'arte fever dream. Indeed, the long-running Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival, initially launched in 2000 at Theater J and now living with vigor at VFP, began its first festival with a premiere reading of Motti Lerner’s THE MURDER OF ISAAC in that inaugural year. Danny Paller and Myra Noveck’s NOVEMBER 4 is the most compelling, dynamic, and provocative of all tellings of Rabin’s death that I’ve encountered because of its powerful, realistic focus on the collision between leader and assassin, with full dialectical combat embedded in its piercing lyrics, told in a style and métier that resembles a cross between the political chronology of David Byrne’s HERE LIES LOVE (and its recreation of the Ferdinand Marcos-ordered assassination of rival, Ninoy Aquino), Stephen  Sondheim’s ASSASSINS, with a bit of the balladry of Jonathan Larson’s RENT. In other words, it’s enormously compelling stuff.

I traveled to Israel in October of 2023 to work with Danny Paller and Myra Noveck and hear a reading of the musical with English speaking Israeli actors.  We scheduled the reading for October 8. Our reading went ahead, in spite of the atrocities that took place 32 hours earlier. We didn’t know, of course, the full extent of the horror of October 7th.  We skipped the theater hall as a gathering spot and instead sat at a big dining room table situated next to a safe room, in case a missile attack on Jerusalem might result in warnings to shelter-in-place. The creative team’s commitment to seeing a reading through for a dramaturgically-minded American producer’s benefit – and to leave hours of time the next day for follow-up script meetings – speaks to the importance of this project in all our hearts and minds. We know that this material, when artfully presented in text and song, with character stories touching the heart, and a journalist’s scrupulousness adding veracity to the telling, will command attention and soul searching. As I wrote to the creative team just a few days ago upon reading the newest draft:

I think you've done a really strong and efficient job of updating the framing the play and repositioning the thematic focus to drive home points about anti-democratic mob assaults on institutions, the rule of law, and the gunning down of an aged, still-evolving, visionary leader. The play strikes me as more devastating today, particularly because... we're in danger of losing Israel's legitimacy as never before in the camp of world (and younger American) opinion. What is the way forward now? Or to quote the David Essex song, “Rock On,” from the 70s: "Where do we go from here?  Which is the way that's clear?" This play will create the most profound kind of questioning, while providing illumination through the aspirational qualities of musical theater song.”