Above: (1 min) Trailer for You Will Not Play Wagner, 2020.

Performing Wagner has been unofficially banned in Israel since the state’s creation because Wagner was a cultural touchstone of Nazism. But, could Wagner’s music transcend the antisemitic views of its creator?

You Will Not Play Wagner takes place in New York City and Tel Aviv as the characters Zoom across the COVID-19-plagued world. Ya’akov, a young Israeli upstart, provokes an uproar when he chooses to perform Wagner in the finals of an international competition for conductors. He comes into conflict with Esther, a Holocaust survivor and competition patron who has her own tragic connection with Wagner’s music, and Morris, the competition’s organizer.

Their arguments push the competition to the brink. Should Ya’akov conduct Wagner? Should the politics of the composer interfere with the quality of his art? To what extent do we honor the memory of the Holocaust, its survivors, and their descendants, without stifling the next generation? And would a Jewish Israeli conducting Wagner be treachery or triumph?

South African playwright Victor Gordon adapted his play for Zoom just before he passed away from COVID-19. This film is in his memory.

FIND A SCREENING NEAR YOU.

Run time: 64 minutes

Original language English, some Hebrew

Directed by: Lilia Levitina

Starring: Annette Miller, Ofek Cohen, Avi Hoffman

Playwright: Victor Gordon

Screen Adaptation: Anna Ampleeva, Lilia Levitina

Boston Crew: Director of Photography Rick Macombe, Assistant DP Norman Lang, Assistant DP Christo Tsiaras, Sound Billy Rosenthal, Make-up by Elizabeth Stockman, Production Assistant Melody Mason, Violin player/Esther’s childhood self Olga Kamiinsky

Tel-Aviv Crew: Producer Ernest Aranov, Director of Photography Rolik Novitsky, Assistant DP Arina Ger, Sound Michael Gurevich, Production Assistants: Lena Charash and Moti Zahavi, Tamir Kurtatinsky, Alexei Benshtain, Musical Score: Mark Galinovsky, Lucas Syed

Editor and Sound Editor: Christo Tsiaras

Special Thanks: Anat and Yael Zahavi, Nadine Rosinoer, Olga Minsky, Michael Miller, Max Lifshin, John Escobar, Claudio Ragazzi, Michael Savikovsky, Zvi Polunsky, Emily Romm, Eugene and Eva Kaminsky, Michael Teplitsky at Theater Malenky, Gilad Alon & Bruno Amir at Cafe May 6, Govane Lohbauer at Shakespeare & Co, Ido Solomon at F.A.B. Defense, Mark Levitin, Ella Nikolaevsky, Maria Koreneva

You Will Not Play Wagner is an original piece by JArts TheaterWorks, commissioned by JArts and created in partnership with the Forward and the Consulate General of Israel to New England.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“You Will Not Play Wagner is dedicated to the memory of Victor Gordon, a South African Jewish playwright, who passed away from COVID-19 in the middle of the play’s adaptation for the screen. As the cast and I faced the responsibility of honoring Victor’s legacy, we poured over the characters’ psychology and uncovered layers of meaning in Victor’s text. Beyond the central plot question of ‘to play or not to play Wagner in Israel,’ there are Jewish and universal questions of tikkun olam, the healing of the world. How does a person position themself and their people within the narratives of individual and collective trauma? Is tikkun olam possible without personal healing? In today’s polarized world, can a conversation between people on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum bring hope? And of course, and always, what role does art have to play?”

Above: (30 min) Hosts of the Miami Jewish Film Festival 2023 in conversation with director Lilia Levitina and actor Avi Hoffman of You Will Not Play Wagner.