PINK PAVILION 2022

WOUNDS ARE
FOREVER
(Self-portrait as National Poet)
BY SIVAN BEN YISHAI
“National poet of whom, exactly?” Sivan asks. “The title
hints to this discourse of the Israeli, Palestinian, German
Bermuda triangle, where many valuable, important
discourses are sinking and disappearing. National poet
of whom, exactly?” she repeats. “In English you have no
name nor word for the place where one was born, holding
all the emotional aspects of what it means to have been
born in one place.”
PHOTO: CHRISTIAN KLEINER
Originally from Tel-Aviv and currently residing in Germany,
Theater Director and Playwright Sivan Ben Yishai has a
transnational story and a desire to find “the genome of
questions” through her writing. Originally focusing on
directing, it was a connection with writing once she allowed
her voice to manifest itself, becoming a prolific writer soon
after. Her plays have been shown at the Deutsches Theater
Berlin, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin and Theater Lübeck,
among others. A fragment of Wounds Are Forever is
presented as part of Pink Pavilion Festival.
“In this play, I have a protagonist whom I call after my own
name, Sivan Ben Yishai, and she calls in her, as we do,
immigrants... holding several discourses in a way that could
throw a very interesting light into political and national
discourses that we are witnessing all the time, without
being intellectually exhausting. Being an immigrant is to
have all these perspectives and identities clashing and
colliding withing ourselves.”
Playwright: Sivan Ben Yishai (TY/ISR)
Director: Helle Rossing
Performers: Lila Nobel, Tina Gylling Mort
Maria Cordsen & Ernesto Piga Carbone
Translator: Mathias Raaby Ravn
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