Iris Bahr

June 27, 2007

Few actresses have as many accomplishments as Iris Bahr, who’s managed to serve as a sergeant in the Israeli army, study neuropsychology at Brown University, and write a memoir of her travels in Asia entitled “Dork Whore.”
That’s in addition to appearing on television programs including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The King of Queens and starring in the 2006 film comedy, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector.
But her biggest role is literally the one she’s starring in at present: playing the roles of 11 people who are the victims of a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv café.
Bahr’s one-woman show, Dai (“Enough”) will be performed this Friday, June 29 at 8 p.m. at the Traverse City Opera House.
Bahr plays a British reporter whose interviews serve as the play’s framework, giving voice to 10 customers in the restaurant and their views of life spent under the constant threat of violent death.
Although the play is set in Israel, Bahr notes that it could just as well be located in Iraq or any other country where terrorist bombings are a daily fact of life.
The Off Broadway show has been reviewed favorably in publications across the country and Bahr was nominated for a New York Drama Desk Award this year for Outstanding Solo Performance.
Bahr has led a picaresque life. As a child in the Bronx, she attended a school for Orthodox Jews and then moved to Israel at the age of 13 with her mother when her parents divorced. She worked for Israeli intelligence while serving her compulsory hitch with the military.
Just out of her teens, she also spent time traveling in Asia, which became the basis for her newly-published memoir: Dork Whore: My Travels through Asia as a Twenty-Year-Old Pseudo Virgin (Bloomsbury).
Thereafter, Bahr came back to the U.S. to enroll in Brown University, where she studied neuropsychology and religious studies. Concurrently, she developed an interest in acting, and after graduating magna cum laude from Brown, she moved to New York where she enrolled in the Actors Center Conservatory.

CLOWNING AROUND
Acting took center stage in her life in the wake of a bicycle accident. Bahr was riding to clown class one day when she was hit by a truck. A period of soul-searching in the hospital led to a decision to devote her life to acting. She moved to Los Angeles and her career as a comedienne took off. In addition to the TV shows mentioned above, she’s performed on Star Trek, The Drew Carey Show and The Big Bang Theory.
This is a big year for Bahr, who is now in her early 30s. In addition to the publication of her book in March, she is on a roll with Dai.
On May 31, she performed the play for an audience of 100 ambassadors and diplomats at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Given her background, it should come as no surprise that Dai is a pro-Israel play, according to a review in the New York Times. The Times credits the play as being an “extremely unnerving one-woman show” which takes a refreshing twist on the subject of suicide bombers: “... if nothing else, this production gives you a visceral sense of what it must be like to live in Israel, Iraq or any other hot spot where death strikes quickly and often.”
The Times also notes that while Bahr tries to accommodate every viewpoint in her cast of characters, some of the phrases in the play “read as gratuitous propaganda” for Israel. Nonetheless, there’s enough food for thought in the play to guarantee that it isn’t an exercise in flag-waving. Overall, Dai gets a winning review: “... the play has a literal and figurative jolt that’s undeniable.”

“Dai” will be performed Friday, July 29 at 8 p.m. at the City Opera House on Front Street in downtown Traverse City. Tickets are $30, available at the box
office. For info, call 941-8082, or see
www.cityoperahouse.org.