The Room Theatre as an Other Theatre in Israel: innovative or traditional? Innovative or traditional?

The Room Theatre (Teatron Hacheder) is an alternative theatre in Israel established in 1985 in a little apartment in south Tel Aviv. It received its name because the performances took place in a small garret which held only 14 spectators. The Room Theatre has a unique perception of art, both theoretically and practically. It is independent of the establishment and has, in principle, refused to accept financial support, which is a rare phenomenon in Israeli theatre. Amir Orian is the artistic and administrative director of The Room Theatre. Through The Room Theatre's activities he has developed The Open Circle – an acting method – which he claims is his original and innovative creation. He has been teaching theatre and creating performances according to The Open Circle method for the last 26 years in The Room Theatre. This article query whether Orian's method creates a new perception of the theatre, one which differs from the Israeli mainstream and Western theatre overall. It argues that although Orian claims that The Open Circle is an original method, it implicitly corresponds tothe alternative theatre wave of the 1960s and 1970s, primarily to two ‘leaders’ of this movement: Schechner and Grotowski.