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Plonter (Tangle) was devised with a small team of Israeli Arab and Jewish Israeli actors and was intended to increase the diversity of voices that comment on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In particular, the play sought to respond to team members' perception that most theatre shows that integrate voices from both sides of the conflict are directed towards foreigners. There is little treatment of the subject by and for those who live in the situation. The voices of young adults whose lives have been saturated with the conflict are particularly under-represented, and one of the group's aims was to address this.
The play presents a set of scenes that depict situations or concerns from both the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives of the conflict. The scenes are based on extensive research by cast members. For two months the cast members conducted interviews with family, friends, neighbours and strangers - including Israeli soldiers and ordinary Palestinians at the checkpoints that separate the two populations. Following the research phase was a four-month process of devising using research material, personal experience and political issues. The cast members argued, debated, fought and played football together during this long and trying process. One of the main theatrical devises used during the devising phase was to encourage actors to play characters from the other side of the conflict. This broadened the theatrical features of the characters and promoted understanding amongst the actors. In the performances of Plonter , scenes based on the Jewish Israeli experience and the Arab Israeli experience are presented in Hebrew and Arabic respectively with subtitles in the other language. Actors, however, are often speaking languages other than their own.
