The course will examine Israeli and Palestinian theatrical activity, by exploring the basic components of theatre – body, space, and time – and the socio-political meaning given to those onstage. We will look at theatre as an art form that functions within the national community, that plays with identities, reaffirming and destabilizing them, and as an arena in which cultural myths, memories and histories are constructed and deconstructed. By a close reading of some key plays in Israeli and Palestinian theatre, and by placing them in their historical and theatrical contexts, we will try to understand some of the fundamental conflicts and tensions that characterize the local theatrical activity since 1948.