A clever idea wonderfully executed via by a very polished script is my best way of describing Jeremie Bracka’s eclectic show ARAFAT IN THERAPY currently playing at NIDA.

Bracka has crafted a satirical play about the perennial Middle East conflict out of his own Middle East experiences, in particular his times as a human rights lawyer working in Israel and at the United Nations.

The play sees Bracka, who trained at the National Theatre School of the Performing Arts in Melbourne, skillfully playing more than 20 colourful characters including the infamous Palestinian leader along with some of his bosses.

We follow Bracka on his extraordinary personal journey from his student days at the prestigious Mount Scopus College Melbourne and his hilarious attempts to dance the hora. After leaving school he decides to rebel against his parents (his father was from Egypt, his mother from Poland) and goes to live in Morocco and take Arabic lessons. The play sees him effortlessly switch languages from Yiddish to Polish to Ivrit to Arabic.

My favourite of his characters was his Israeli boss, a diplomat who was an IT Luddite and a man totally obsessed with the latest celebrity news with  a definite thing for Sharon Stone.

Bracka structures the show around him narrating his own odyssey and then slipping into characters and situations. Props are simple, a sofa his therapy sessions, a tea towel to represent Arafat, and a large multi-media screen that, at one time, hysterically shows Bracka playing a hilarious female anchorwoman pouting as she reads the latest terrible Middle East news.

ARAFAT IN THERAPY only has a short season at NIDA. Bracka’s show opened at NIDA’s Parade Theatre on Wednesday July 10 with the final performance taking place on Sunday July 14 at 8pm. Try and get to this show and be entertained by this talented comic as he does his shtick.