https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/theater/theater-review/2025-05-26/ty-article-review/.premium/00000197-0b70-dc94-ab97-0f7c08b00000?utm_source=App_Share&utm_medium=iOS_Native
Nano Shabtai, Review of Birthday in “Haaretz” Newspaper
26 May 2025
"Birthday": A Show That Is A Gift Full Of Compassion And Love
With harp and guitar, Danny Neyman and Hila Gluskino grapple in their show “Birthday” with the longing for parenthood — and the fear of it. It is a delicate, bewitching and powerful work that represents a private world, which is also deep, broad and timeless.
"Birthday" is a unique work that cannot adequately be described as a “theater play”. It is a creative duet which also can’t easily be narrowed down to the definition of a “musical performance”, although its creators, Danny Neyman and Hila Gluskinos, take the stage, sit behind musical notation, and play musical instruments throughout — Neyman on the harp, Gluskinos on the guitar. Both will speak, play and sing, with speech and music combining in different ways throughout the work. As for the subject: A title like "A piece on the subject of parenthood" is inappropriate, even though the content touches on parenthood. The work transcends definitions of artistic forms, touches on many topics, and rises above them to possibly reach spiritual spheres, where the content transcends any simple plot.
Nevertheless, many words and stories are present in the work, concrete and clear. They are shared between the creators, like a translucent ball they toss between them. In a revealing but also carefully curated manner, we are witness to different life struggles and questions. Neyman unfolds a personal text that describes his and his boyfriend's journey towards parenthood. It begins with a dialogue, which purports to be moral, with his Japanese masseuse who admires his playing of the harp, but also comments: "There must have been a lot of forests where they started playing this instrument." The harp is made of wood. But it doesn't end there, since the harp's strings are made of animal intestines.
With a subtle tone of humor, a moral issue is revealed to us, but one that is far from being reduced to one "correct" solution. Of course, we are against the exploitation of nature and its resources, as an implicit but prominent fact in the persona of Neyman and his friends. But things are not arbitrary: each issue opens up countless nuances, contradictions and completions. Thus, according to the masseuse: "It is the spirit of the animal that plays with you," and also: "The spirits really love to have music played for them.”
Already from this short and somewhat humorous dialogue, an almost mythical, yet contemporary, world is revealed. The cycles of death and life in the universe are not reduced to exploiter-exploited. Those who are supposedly exploited may enjoy the products of their alleged exploitation, and return in another incarnation, in an infinite circle. Later, in a more expanded and detailed manner, the moral dilemma concerning bringing a child into the world is unfolded. Obviously, Neyman is reluctant to use a woman's body, in a "surrogacy process," and a woman friend reinforces his instinctive opposition, in a text of immense power: "Surrogacy, it’s not OK. It's not cool, like, it shouldn't exist in the world. For a woman to go through a pregnancy, which is an insane thing, and not have a child at the end of this process, it's not something that should exist in the world. It’s not OK. It’s Gaza, I'm sorry to say this to you, but it's like what's happening in Gaza right now, like, it just shouldn't be happening.”
A Fascinating Stream Of Consciousness
The journey develops into more and more topics: long-term monogamous relationships, gender issues, virtual infatuations, guilt and intergenerational trauma. The text is received as a fascinating stream of consciousness, funny at times. A text that stands on its own as literature, and which takes on a new beauty when accompanied by the gorgeous playing of the harp or by the enchanting voice of Gluskinos. Alternately, she weaves a second intimate-emotional narrative, of a woman debating about questions of fertility and life.
The starting point for her is actually the choice not to bring life into this world, so full of injustice and sorrow. Her journey is no less fascinating and full of contrasts: Gloskinos lists for us, for example, the names of the babies she has cared for so far, as a celebrated babysitter: "Atara, Talia, Malka, Ella, Jonathan," and a dozen more names. She sings an exceptionally beautiful lullaby she invented for the baby Nina: “Nina Nina nai / So many leaves before your eyes / Whispering tish kish shish pish / Nina nina speaks with the garden's shimmer / Nina Nina nai / A brand new world opens wide / Here is mommy now / And daddy's laugh by your side”
It is difficult to convey in words the intense emotional effect of the music and the lyrics, some of which are seemingly obscure, but also bewitching because of that. The baby sounds are sung in an inner, intimate language, with a wild, tender intensity that exists in our world only between a mother and her baby. Although Gluskinos is not the biological mother of this baby, she has all of motherhood in her. The singing casts a spell, enchants, revives, and lulls to sleep. The founding sentence of the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott came to my mind: "There is no such thing as a baby. There is only a baby-mother." And they are one unit at the beginning of life's journey, when it is precisely the absolute symbiosis which is a condition for independent life, for a person who will grow out of the baby, who is entirely dependent on the creating, holding, life-giving mother, far beyond mere biology.
And perhaps unconsciously, there is also an almost symbiotic dependence acted out on the stage, spectacular in its beauty and richness. It is a creative human dependence, greater than the sum of its parts. Neyman mourns and yearns for the creation of life, and in the meantime he creates music, text, movement, around the temporary lack and in collaboration with a woman, Gloskinos. For her part, she carries within herself the power of creation as a self evident fact, but it is she who has deep doubts about the path of motherhood. She tells us, for example, that she does not want to feel the embarrassment and recoiling that comes from contact with her own parents, as an adult. She does not want to be the object of a similar recoiling from her own unborn son or daughter. She ponders the possibility of reconciliation with the parents, in a kind of renewed union with them, a physical union of love, which at a certain point is taken from us, and we are not guaranteed to find again, possibly with a romantic partner.
However, alongside the psychological, rational thoughts, however strong they may be, there is a powerful axis of instinct that repeatedly hints at a power greater than us, humans. It is what will lead us, perhaps, to the creation of life. The tension between our rationality and a primal and instinctive power runs like a thread throughout the piece, telling us again and again, not necessarily in words, how small we are in the face of nature, how little we know, even though we are sure that we are so wise, and also moral.
“‘Birthday” is an exceptionally delicate piece, and at the same time it holds immense power, that bewitches its audience. It is an entrance into a deeply private world that is, simultaneously, vast and profound, which treasures an inner wisdom, like an ancient legend. There is a timeless relevance to the work, like a ritual that we are immediately tempted to enter, drawn into the depths of its beauty the way an insect is drawn into the depths of a flower's nectar. The great talent of Gluskinos and Neyman—who move, play, and sing with exquisite skill—provides a ground, just like good soil. But the two don't make a big deal of their talent, it flows like a river in nature, almost without ego. On the waves of that talent and the dazzling beauty, the work is offered to us as a gift. It is not just an aesthetic gift of beauty, it is a gift of humanity in its glory, rich with compassion, acceptance and love. And in simple words: this is a gorgeous, ritualistic piece, that you should not miss out on.”