Adam's Zirkus

The story of a group of Jewish actors, who´ve escaped from the disintegrating Soviet Union and arrived in Israel, becomes a parable for the human condition in the movie “Adam´s Zirkus”. Setting in Tel-Aviv in the beginning of the 90´s the group of actors-immigrants present a grandiose, frenzied and horrifying drama inside a real circus tent, about a group of Jews from Berlin, led by the renowned clown Adam Stein, who arrived in Israel at the end of the 40´s directly from the Nazi extermination camps. The events of the circus drama gradually pervade the daily lives of the actor-immigrants – the difficult and complex reality of modern Israel- until the dividing line between their true identities and the Jewish characters they play becomes blurred. The movie too, like its characters, clings to a nonexistent border between reality and fantasy, between theatre and life, between time and place: a missile attack on Tel-Aviv marges into civil war Moscow, which merges into nightmares of the Nazi death camp... “It has to be an arena, there´s no other way; a closed circle, without begining or end... “ says Yevgeny Arye, the group´s director, in a scene from the movie in which the conducts a stubborn argument with the producer. “All actor puts on your masks...” says Michail to this terrified fellow actors, huddle against the wall, one month after their arrival in Tel-Aviv, in the “sealed room” scene which transpires during the Gulf War, while outside Russian-made SCUD missiles can be heard exploding. “No. There aren´t enough masks to conceal the horror that you have no face of your own, why do you cover your faces, they can´t be seen anyway, like the face of your God...” reflects Russian-born Sasha during the play, in his Nazi commandant´s uniform, as he gazes at his “Jewish” fellows, shuddering in their striped uniforms... “Adam´s Zirkus” offers a dairing and original combination of cinematic styles. Woven within the dramatic plot of immigrant actors (played by members of the “Gesher” Troupe and Israeli actors) is a documentary consisting of magnificent circus scenes, accompanied by a live band and cabaret singers, taken from the play “Adam Resurrected” (book written by Yoram Kaniuk, adapted for the stage by A. Chervinsky) as performed by the “Gesher” Theater as well as archival material from Israel and Russian in the 90´s.