ABOUT THE PLAY: Written in 1986 and premiered at Habima – Israel’s National Theatre in 1993, “The Child Dreams” is considered to be one of the most poetic texts ever performed on the Israeli stage.
The first drafts of the play were titled “The MS St. Louis – Death Chants” and as the name suggest, Levin initially wrote an historic text based on the true events of the St. Louis: a vessel that sets sail from Hamburg to Cuba, on May 13, 1939 – with 937 German-Jewish refugees, following the Kristallnacht pogrom. The refugees were denied entry to Havana. They then attempted to find refuge in other ports but were denied entry to the United States and Canada. Sailing back to Europe, the refugees were accepted in several countries, but ultimately, many perished in the Nazi concentration camps of WWII.
The finished play drifted away from an attempt to write an historic piece and became a much more poetic, open and dreamy text.