Plays

Three plays that Shimon wrote during the late 1980s: Slave Ubu (a collage), Bingo and The Phantom Strikes Again are reproduced in this section in full (each link opens as a PDF in a new window) . They were written in English; two of them, Slave Ubu and The Phantom Strikes Again, also have Hebrew versions, written by Shimon, with the titles, Mered Haavadim o Spartakubu and Im Tirtzu veim lo Tirtzu, Ein zo Agada [H] (link opens as a PDF in a new window). The Phantom Strikes Again has also been translated into French, by Jean-Jacques Schakmundes, with the title Un Crime, un Chatiment.

The plays were published by New Soncino Press, Shimon's own publishing house and were sold via wholesale booksellers. Shimon made various unsuccessful attempts to stage all three plays in London, but he was especially keen on The Phantom Strikes Again being performed in Israel. In 1989 he visited Israel for this purpose. He spoke about the play to Natan Zach (1989a) [H], who published extracts from it in Ha'olam Hazze (1989b) [H], and Orly Toren [H]. During this visit he was in contact with the Habima theatre in Tel Aviv,, where David Levin expressed interest, but nothing came out of it.

The Phantom Strikes Again is a play about Hitler. In the play, Hitler did not commit suicide in Berlin at the end of the war, and managed to escape to South America, where, being exposed to the media, he becomes aware of the enormity of his crimes against the Jewish people, and decides to go to Israel to atone for them. The play describes his adventures in Israel.

Shimon was always interested in the possibilities of theatrical writing for making a point, and in his satirical page ‘Ha'olam Habba', in Ha'olam Hazze weekly, he often had a short sketch under the title of A Play for the Week'. (see Ha'olam Habba, Oct 19 1960, Oct 26 1960, April 14 1961 and 1962) [H].