UNKNOWN
Premier – Nekodat Katze Festival, Notzar Theatre and Smartoot Group 2021. 

Director and Creator: Roni Tobias Gideon

Designer and Creator: Annie Atedgy

Musical Editor: Cnaan Levkovich

Lighting Designer: Nadav Barnea

Artistic Advisors: Nitzan Cohen, Gibson Bar-El

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Actors and Creators: Maya Thomas, More Ayala Engel, Michaela Elkin

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A beautiful young woman drowns in the Seine River. Her body, drawn from the icy waters, is placed on display in a store window to be identified – such is the custom in late nineteenth century Paris – but no one recognizes her.

A local pathologist fascinated by her delicate features and seductive smile preserves the unknown woman’s face by sculpting a death-mask.

The stunning beauty of the death-mask fires the imagination of Parisians, and this unknown woman suddenly becomes a “social celebrity” – poets sing her praise, artists paint her portrait, writers create fictional biographies, young men fall in love, and women are smitten with envy. 

Years later, medical technicians invent a mechanical dummy for the practice of resuscitation techniques, and fashion the face on that famous Parisian death-mask. Resuscitation Anne immortalizes that unknown woman as “she who has the most kissed lips of all times” and the mask of the woman who died a tragic death becomes the “face that saved thousands from death”.    

The performance unKnown traces the interwoven fabric of truth and myth behind that face of mystery.