Romanian theatre director in London says life has changed since October 7

Theatre director Aviva Benjamin relished the opportunity to stage an exciting new work as part of the Sidestep Festival at London’s Colab Tower earlier this month.

The play Best/ Brightest tells the story of a group of schoolboys who remain at their boarding school over the Christmas holidays. At the suggestion of their teacher, Mr Talbot, they innocently start a computer coding exercise. But this develops into something far more sinister, and they use Artificial Intelligence as a dangerous tool.

What made this performance particularly interesting is that the playwright decided, because the boys use their computer skills to sexually harass people and make revenge porn, to have them played by female actors. She felt that it would be wrong to write a play with themes of misogyny and to not include women.

Staged as a performed rehearsal, it a cross between The History Boys and Lord of the Flies.

Aviva welcomes the opportunities theatre creates. Born in Romania, her family fled the country under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s leadership. They moved to New York, but it was always Aviva’s dream to come to London. Having studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School she studed theatre direction in the UK and has lived in London since then.

“Having lived in Ceaușescu’s Romania, I appreciate the power of theatre,” she says. “It allows one to throw off the constraints of censorship and to tell your stories. It gives people the space they need to escape from the world. I love classical theatre but also love the freedom of experimental theatre. It is not just about catharsis, it is about enabling people not to need catharsis.”

Life has changed for proud Jew Aviva since October 7. “I lost a lot of family and friends in Israel,” she said. “I have always had ‘Am Yisroel Chai’ on my social media but, post October 7, a large number of people unfriended and unfollowed me, and I also missed out on some work projects because of my support for Israel. I still find it hard to deal with the antisemitism that I face on a weekly basis.”

A full-time theatre director, Aviva’s next work role is as resident director of the international tour of Murder on The Orient Express.