This story about an Egyptian band that heads to the wrong town and ends up in Israel is based on the film of the same name by Eran Kolirin. Underlying both the film and the musical is a story about people you wouldn’t expect to necessarily help one another, if you believe that the politics of the two country’s leaders is mirrored in the belief system of all its peoples.

This was just one topic I discussed last December when I had a chance to speak with Janet Dacal who plays “Dina,” Coby Getzug who plays “Papi” and Joe Joseph who plays “Haled.” You might recall I also spoke with Sasson Gabay who plays “Tewfiq.” He played the same part in the film. To see my interview with Gabay, please go here.

As The Band’s Visit continues its tour across America through the end of July, my conversation with the three actors seems more timely than we could ever have imagined. What follows are excerpts from those conversations that have been edited for length and clarity.

There is a lot of the story that isn’t specified for the audience in The Band’s Visit. How much latitude do you and the creators give audience members to fill in the blanks or come to their own conclusions about these character’s lives?

Dacal: What’s so beautiful about art is we see ourselves on the stage and the things that aren’t explicitly exposed, those illusions, we get to fill in the holes. It’s like any piece of art, right? You see it. You connect to it in whatever way you see what you see through your own life experience and your lens. And that’s one of the most beautiful things about the musical theater art form. You fill in the silences, fill in what’s not obvious, because of the life that you have led.

Joseph: You’re picking up on something that’s my favorite aspect of the show. You see this very sort of short glimpse of these people’s lives and the things that happen to them are not momentous. They’re not these big, dramatic changes of character. Human lives are not that exceptional and people don’t change as dynamically as they do in musicals. We love to see that on stage because it’s so different from human life. But the beauty of this show is that there is this ambiguity that’s preserved in the show.

Getzug: I think one of the one of the most powerful aspects of it is that there are those silences left for people to draw their own conclusions because those are the windows that people are able to make their own connections to the show and relate to. I think that there’s something powerful about leaving some of those questions unanswered because it allows an audience member to interpret it in the lens of their own experience and maybe give them new perspective over things that have happened in their life or their own experiences.

I also feel like there’s a bigger picture here, which is that government ideologies and differences are not always reflected in the people. How much of that is part of the subtext of what you are trying to get across in the show?

Getzug: I think that there’s something really special about seeing people that you would expect not to get along based on whatever is happening on a larger scale from the countries that they’re from. That’s what’s happening in the world, too.

Dacal: It’s one of the big things that we’re intentionally getting across in the show is that when there is a problem I think human nature is to want to help each other and that is what happens in the show.

Joseph: When you take [The Band’s Visit] around the country you get to share, especially a show like this, and realize that there’s a universality to these experiences denuded of the specificity of this literal physical world that this story exists and in the film existed in. And that as a species of social animals, as people who longed to have our soul sort of acknowledged, that there are people all around the country who want that experience because sometimes they feel like they’re just not getting it.

Getzug: I think that what’s so cool about this piece is that these people are from a region that has historically been steeped in conflict and a lot of tension. But the story is not about that. It’s about people immediately reaching out and saying how can I help you and how can we connect and how can we get through this together? That’s a really beautiful example of how no matter what’s going on politically in the country that you’re in or where you’re from we still have that ability to connect with each other.

Perhaps it’s time for many of the world’s leaders to catch a performance of The Band’s Visit. If you’d like to see if the show is coming to your town, click on the link in the fourth paragraph.

Main photo: The company of The Band’s Visit (Photo by Evan Zimmerman, Murphy Made/Courtesy Segerstrom Center for the Arts)

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Eight years later the actor found himself reprising that role in the David Yazbek/Itamar Moses musical version of the film that won 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical. Gabay took over the role originated on stage by Tony Shalhoub.

Gabay, who was born in Iraq and raised in Israel, is back on stage as Tewfiq in the touring production of The Band’s Visit. This wonderful musical is concluding its run in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre this week. After the holidays the tour will resume in Portland and continue performances across the country through the end of July.

Last week I spoke by phone with Gabay about revisiting Tewfiq, his relationship with the character and what the musical is saying about international relations. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Mr.Gabay, in a 2008 interview director Eran Kolirin said that this was a very personal role for you. What made it so personal then and how personal has it been for you to revisit the character of Tewfiq on stage in this musical?

[Eran] wanted to met me and he wanted to audition me for the part. And he gave me just the short synopsis of the script and I think four or five lines about the character. And immediately, just from reading this, I felt connected to it. And I told him, “Look, I don’t want to do the audition, but I know this man. I know this character and I feel it.” After a while he called me to say, “OK, let’s let’s not waste our energy on this and continue working on the casting.”

It’s true. The minute I read a little bit about the script, about the story and the character, I knew. Sometimes you get it on the spot immediately. That’s what happened with Tewfiq. I felt connected. I think that his personality is something for me. In one way, he’s formal and he’s very strict. And inside he’s very soft and very artistic. So that kind of a paradox within his personality I felt it instantly.

In 2010 the producer of the musical Orin Wolf came to Israel and asked me about the idea of doing the musical out of it. It’s a crazy idea because this film is so delicate. And I mean, they managed to do it beautifully. He approached me again at 2018 and I did join the play on Broadway and then managed to do this very delicate musical – which is not a typical musical on Broadway. I spent one year on Broadway and then I joined the tour for the first year until the COVID crisis. And now when they resume, I joined it again. So it’s personal in many ways.

How has your relationship with the character evolved since the time you first portrayed him on stage?

You know, I matured during this year in age and then also in experience as an actor. I think I added more weight to the character, more maturity. And I allowed myself to be more and more patient with the character. I think I take my time. I think I allow ourselves to be more confident enough to take the right pauses and to breathe within the character. We are changing all the time so it’s got an effect on how you project the character. 

One of the things I love most about the musical is the amount of subtext there is. What is your role as an actor in making that subtext accessible for the audience and hopefully translate that into an emotional response?

If you’re precise and exact in the specific moment in the scene and you are transparent emotionally, the audience sees things are really revealing. I think it was quite tricky and very nice. David Yazbek and Itamar Moses adapted and David Cromer directed it. They’ve done a beautiful job – all three. It’s not all of a sudden the characters sing the song. It’s done within the situation to the moment that words aren’t enough and and the characters start to sing. And so it reveals the subtext and the inner emotions of the characters.

You expect there to be great confrontation because of what we’ve understood about the politics of each country’s relationship to one another. But it seems to me that the film and the musical basically say that the people are not necessarily the politics of their country. And I’m wondering how important you think that is as part of the story that gets told. 

First of all, I agree with you completely. It’s the exact description of the thing. I don’t know if it was intentionally intended to project this idea. But you know, politics is politics and people are people. People need each other and they are very alike wherever they are. I think you can transfer this play and this script into other places in the world where there used to be confrontation and now the people are meeting and it’s so different. It’s very different from from the headlines, from the politics, from the news on TV. So I think it emphasizes our need to open up to one another. Because of politics people tend to protect themselves, close themselves towards something that is not familiar to them. But once this has opened it becomes whole life and the relations of people. 

Getting that message out today must be deeply gratifying.

The journey is wonderful for all of us. In a way we are kind of messengers of humanity. I remember when we shot the film we had a feeling that we had something really special, but we didn’t know to what extent. I’m really grateful that after so many years this film became such a beautiful musical and so many people see this. It’s a privilege for me.

For tickets at the Dolby Theatre go here. For details of the tour schedule and tickets go here.

Photo: Janet Dacal and Sasson Gabay in The Band’s Visit (Photo by Evan Zimmerman/Courtesy Broadway in Hollywood)

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