A well-known Victoria theatre has removed a controversial and critically acclaimed play set in Israel from its festival lineup this year, citing the ongoing and deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The Belfry Theatre, which was set to showcase Christopher Morris’ The Runner during the SPARK Festival in March, announced the cancellation on Tuesday.
The decision comes more than a week after the theatre was vandalized with a spray-painted “Free Palestine” message and a protest against the show’s inclusion in the festival took place.
“We believe that presenting The Runner at this particular time does not ensure the well-being of all segments of our community,” reads a statement on the Belfry Theatre website.
“Given the current conflict in the Middle East, this is not the time for a play which may further raise tensions among our community.”
More than 1,250 people have signed an online petition launched last month that calls for the play’s removal from the schedule. The petition describes The Runner as “a story of Israeli settlers in a dehumanizing exercise of whether Palestinian and Arab life is of value.” It also claimed Belfry was choosing to centre “the voices of the oppressors instead of the oppressed.”
A second petition, launched days later to keep The Runner in the schedule, has attracted more than 2,150 signatures. It describes the play as following the moral dilemmas faced by a member of an Orthodox Jewish volunteer force that conducts search and rescue operations in response to natural disasters and terrorist attacks, and in the process of triage, treats an Arab woman who is supposedly a terrorist attacker.
“We do not need to resolve the Middle East war in order to see the value of The Runner as a work intended to bridge rather than break,” the counter-petition states.
In a previous online statement, the Belfry Theatre said it would take time to consider the diverse “convictions” expressed by the community about its decision to host the show and provide an update in the new year.
In a Dec. 29 interview with Global News, the vice-president of the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island said calls to cancel The Runner at the Belfry are a form of anti-Semitism.
“If the ethical dilemma of the person playing this role was not an Israeli Jew, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Sharon Kobrinsky.
“As I understand, they’re linking the moral dilemma that’s written about in this play to the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s response to the Hamas attack.”
Gaza has been under bombardment since Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing an estimated 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.
Israel launched a retaliatory attack in the Hamas-controlled territory that has seen more than 21,900 Palestinians killed, according to local authorities.
Two-thirds of the Palestinian casualties are women and children, Gaza’s Health Ministry says.
— with files from The Canadian Press