[Earlier this week (26 March), I posted two of Helen
Kaye’s reviews from the Jerusalem Post,
Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance (1906)
and :Paula Vogel’s Indecent (2017), both
at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv. A few
days after Helen sent me those pieces, she sent me four more—from the end of
2018 and the beginning of 2019. Here are
those notices: one from the Habima Theater, Israel’s national theater (My
Mika by Gadi Inbar); one from the Gesher
Theater (Lolita/Jeanne d’Arc by Yeheskel
Lazarov); and two more from the Cameri (Who’s
a Jew by Jean-Claude Grumberg and One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Dale
Wasserman). It’s an eclectic collection
of productions. As for the rest, I’ll
let Helen tell you. ~Rick]
My Mika
By
Gadi Inbar
Directed
by Moshe Kepten
Habima
Theater, Tel Aviv; 10 October 2018
“These
are the songs I grew up on,” exuberantly declared a lady in the foyer of Habima,
“this is the second time I’ve come to see the show.” The songs she speaks of
are those by much loved song-writer Yair Rosenblum (1944-96), all 22 of them,
plus a five-song medley that fuel the close to three hour overlong musical My
Mika, a superbly conceived and executed revival of an epic melodrama that
was first done at the Bet Zvi Drama School in 2003.
The
story concerns a fraught period in Israeli history, stretching from just before
the 1967 Six Day War, and the triumphalism that ensued, to the chastening
aftermath of the almost disastrous 1973 Yom Kippur war.
Mika
(Amit Farkash) and her friends are graduating from high-school, exhilarated by
a future whose possibilities they anticipate. Then comes the ’67 war. Mika’s
boy-friend Gidi (Nadir Eldad), deeply traumatized (PTSD) by it, repudiates her,
his holocaust survivor mother Hanka (Miki Kamm) and all his friends, and
decamps for America. When, after several years, he returns it is to find that
Mika is about to wed Ari (Matan Shavit) who has become religious and divorced
Noa (Revital Zalman), his childhood sweetheart. Kadosh (Ya’akov Cohen), Mika’s
shopkeeper Dad, hovers approvingly. Venal, yet goodhearted Meni (Moshe
Ashkenazi) and Debbie (Oshrat Ingedashet) are a happy family, and Elisha (Doron
Brookman) observes – as he tends to do – from the edge. Then comes the Yom
Kippur war and their world almost shatters.
Realising
that adverse criticism may well be considered sacrilege, it still does not
really do to take what is essentially a high-school level musical – perhaps to
educate an oblivious generation to the time – and dress it up in adult
trappings. That said, these are truly amazing from the intricacies of Eran
Atzmon’s multilevel smoothly mobile set to Yelena Kelrich’s spot on period
costuming, to Keren Granak’s dramatic lighting and to Shai Boder’s stunning
video art. Oz Morag’s choreography achieves masterpiece level. That it and the
music incorporate echoes of West Side Story are not coincidence as some
of the musicals’ thinking is similar.
Above
all, punctuated by wars as our existence here is, Mika shows the all but
overwhelming centrality of the Army to Israeli life and values.
As
always, when it comes to musicals Kepten’s direction soars and his actors take
flight. It goes without saying that both Kamm and Cohen are superb. Indeed,
Cohen’s sly humor has the audience giggling mightily. The rest, soloists and
chorus are also very, very good, with a ‘but’ in there. As Mika and Gidi,
Farkash and Eldad need to inhabit their characters more from within, and the
same goes for Zalman and Shavit; Eldad, however, beautifully portrays Gidi’s
self-absorption. Ashkenazi’s Meni is a steady and steadying presence, but most
of the acting honors go to Ingedashet and Brookman whose empathic Debbie and
principled, brave Elisha are very real.
This
is a musical. A musical has songs and singing actors to present them.
Unfortunately they were so over-amped that who knows what their voices, often pleasing
despite the elevated decibels, actually sound like.
The
Ammunition Hill number in Act I was breath-taking. Act II, the lead-up to the
Yom Kippur War was tighter, more dramatic and stronger for it, and if you are
not awash in tears by the powerful ending, then you have tungsten for a heart.
Fitting
or not, quibbles or not, if you freeze dry this My Mika, then shrink
wrap and export it as the distillation of what it means to be Israeli, perhaps
we’d be better understood, not to mention that it’d sell out in a moment.
[Bet
Zvi (or Beit Zvi as the school spells its English name) School for the
Performing Arts in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, is the first theater school in
Israel that’s unaffiliated with an established theater. Established in 1950, Beit Zvi emphasizes acting
in real productions and established a theater at the school for graduates that mounts
plays not staged by the country’s repertory theaters.]
* *
* *
Lolita/Jeanne d’Arc
Adapted,
staged and designed by Yeheskel Lazarov
Gesher
Theater, Tel Aviv; 10 December 2018
First
of all, congratulations are in order to Gesher, Yekezkel Lazarov, Israel
(Sasha) Demidov and Doron Tavori. To Gesher, which, since its first
performances in the early ‘90s, has never been afraid to stick its neck out, to
Lazarov for, on the face of it, a most unlikely combination of heroines, and to
actors Demidov and Tavori for bravura performances.
Lolita follows the iconic
book by Vladimir Nabokov on Humbert Humbert, an aging and mentally unstable
pedophile’s (Demidov) obsession for the 12 year old daughter of his landlady
whom he nicknames Lolita (the voice of Alona Tzimberg). Like the book, the play
follows the uneven, exploitive, and ultimately fatal sexual and emotional
relationship between the two and between Humbert and the other men (Tavori) in
Lolita’s life, from a dogged detective to a famous playwright whom Humbert
murders in a jealous rage, thereby leading to his own downfall.
Jeanne
d’Arc
deals with the trial for heresy in 1431 of Joan (Kiki, a robot with Tzimberg’s
voice), canonized in 1920 as a saint. The Inquisitor (Tavori) tries every trick
in the book to get Joan to incriminate herself but she eludes him to the end.
To
say this pairing is unusual is to put it mildly. On the one hand we have
Lolita, a not-so-innocent, conniving, perhaps even amoral, teen. On the other
we have Joan, an illiterate 15th century peasant girl, burnt at the stake for
heresy, whose (blatantly political) conviction was overturned in 1456, her
innocence legally and morally confirmed.
Does
it work? Yes. And no.
Yes,
because of its daring, because of the staging, because of its two actors,
because the juxtaposition of its characters is not a gimmick but a means,
shockingly, to communicate ideas that we, the audience, need to acknowledge.
No,
because at its worst, specifically in Lolita, it got a little
self-indulgent, which is to say that what was needed is more ruthlessness and
less dazzle, which Jeanne provided
And
Dazzle there is. A group of girls dressed in white practices ballet at the
barre. Those same girls bear witness in Jeanne. A white Cadillac
convertible – here also the symbol of impermanence – dominates the stage in Lolita.
Kiki (Jeanne) is white. White is the color of purity, and of innocence.
In Jeanne faith/innocence meets real-politik. Neither
has a chance. In Lolita innocence never has a chance either, because
there isn't any. Both the girl and the man are damaged goods. The one exploits
the other. In the program Lazarov talks about morality but actually the key to
both plays is innocence, also known as virtue, which has gone from the world –
World War I took care of that in the previous century – virtue in its most
literal sense that is. When last did we hear of someone who is deemed virtuous?
The word itself arouses only a snigger nowadays . . .
Lolita also put a strain on the actors in
terms of text. There is so much of it that both Demidov and Tavori gabbled to
such an extent that a lot of the text was simply unintelligible, the brunt
borne by Demidov.
That said, Demidov’s Humbert is a chronically restless,
pathetic, uncoordinated, self-justifying, by turns craven, by turns full of
bravado creature, all of which makes for a towering performance, a
characterization that is utterly believable. The same may be said of Tavori
whose various characters emanate slyness and corruption. As the Inquisitor in Jeanne,
he is wonderfully intense and focused, so much so that one almost forgets – as
one is supposed to – that his antagonist is a robot. Let us not forget the
voice of Tzimberg that powers both Lolita (whom we never see) and Joan, both
females, both abused by the male world, both in their way indomitable.
So, Lolita, a little flawed, a little prolix and Jeanne,
terse, powerful – both worth seeing.
* *
* *
Who’s a Jew
By
Jean-Claude Grumberg
Hebrew
by Rami Baruch
Directed
by Amir Wolf
Cameri
Theater, Tel Aviv; 29 January 2019
Here’s
all you ever wanted to know about being a Jew, belief versus atheism, the
Occupation, the Jewish-Palestinian conflict, the difference between a Jew and a
non-Jew, and more, all wrapped up in a smart, gloriously funny, marvelously
French comedy. To top that Who’s a Jew? also has Rami Baruch as the
Jewish neighbor, a playwright, and Shlomo Vishinski as his Catholic
counterpart, retired, who’s quizzing his neighbor on behalf of his wife (she
gets all her info from the internet), not that he cares one way or the other,
of course.
Their
encounters take place in the stairwell of their unpretentious Parisian
apartment house deftly designed by Shiran Levi who also did the costumes, as
unremarkable as the apartment of course. Amir Castro and Rotem Alro’i did the
apt lighting.
At
first neighbor Jew runs rings around neighbor Catholic, but gradually the boot
gets transferred to the other foot, and then . . . . but why spoil the fun?
To
say that Baruch (in a curly wig), and Vishinski are a perfect foil one for the
other, to say that they hold the audience in the palm of their hand, to say
that every line that comes out of their mouths is honed to brilliance is no
more than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Laughter,
they say, is the best medicine, and we’re in dire need. Who’s a Jew?
provides a 90 minute welcome alternative to the reality surrounding us.
* *
* *
One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest
By
Dale Wasserman
From
the book by Ken Keasey
Translated
by Ilan ronen
Directed
by Omri Nitzan
Cameri
Theater, Tel Aviv; 25 February 2019
To
paraphrase Dickens, Cuckoo’s Nest is wonderful, Cuckoo’s Nest is
dreadful. Wonderful, because director Nitzan and his actors have avoided
sentimentality to dig unflinchingly into the dark underbelly of mental illness,
save for the (necessarily) mawkish ending, which is not their fault. Dreadful,
because Cuckoo’s Nest is an indictment of the human race which gives no
quarter, doesn’t allow us to wriggle off the hook as Nitzan’s chilling opening
set to the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and which ends with
a looming Mushroom Cloud, amply demonstrates. The play is an allegory with the
mental hospital and its inmates as a microcosm of the world we live in.
The
story concerns Randle McMurphy (Oz Zehavi), a pugnacious, charismatic
non-conformist petty criminal who is sent to the state mental hospital for
evaluation. There he comes into contact not only with a motley crew of voluntary
and involuntary inmates whose overriding characteristic is fear, but with the
manipulative and sadistic Nurse Ratched (Ola Shur-Selektar). The ultimately
deadly conflict that develops between the two drives the events of the play. On
her side Ratched (an interesting combination of ratchet and wretched) has and
exploits the power of the System. On his, Mac (though definitely no angel), has
an innate compassion and an irrepressible lust for life. He doesn’t stand a
chance, poor sap!
Let’s
face it. Despite the relatively enormous strides we have made in treatment of
mental illness, we still understand only a very little about it. If we are to
be honest, we flinch from it, we would rather not have to face it, let alone
deal with it. The mentally ill themselves are still subject to comprehensive
abuse, and if they complain ‘who’s gonna believe them? They’re nuts, right?’
These
attitudes/ignorances are what Cuckoo’s Nest addresses.
Zehavi
makes a persuasive engaging McMurphy, out to get his, to get the best of things
and people, but not oblivious to the nuances he finds at the hospital. It’s
Shur-Selectar’s unyielding body-language, the small vain touches to her person,
the refusal to crank out a stereotype, that make her Ratched so compelling. Top
marks too to Ruthie Asarsay for her loose-limbed, uninhibited, unself-conscious
Candy – one of her best performances yet, while Mia Landesman cameos riotously
as Sandra. Cameri stalwarts Ohad Shahar as Harding, Yitzhak Hiskiya as Scanlon,
Ezra Dagan as Martini and Uri Ravitz as Ruckly lean hard on their roles, making
each an individual whom we know is leaving so much more unsaid, except that
Ruckly – basically a zombie - says never a word. Eran Sarel’s anguished Chief
tears at the heartstrings and Moti Katz imbues loud-mouth Cheswick with a humor
that would be funny if it weren’t so despairing. As Billy, Shlomi Avraham
skillfully manages to be absent most of the time, until he isn’t, and your
heart about cracks.
Adam
Keller’s functional set and sad-sack costuming allow no illusions, neither does
the music which unrelentingly bids “Hello darkness my old friend” (Simon &
Garfunkle) amid the hard-hitting rest.
Cuckoo’s
Nest
is not fun. It’s hard, it’s necessary, and why, you have to ask yourselves are
we watching this “j’accuse” in the Israel of today?
[It’s
not terribly relevant, but I’ll note it anyway: I played Dr. Spivey, the
hospital’s chief shrink, in a production of Cuckoo’s Nest back in 1975. (It was the same year the film adaptation of
the novel [1962] and play [1963] came out.)
It was my first role after getting out of the army in 1974 and attending
the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
for a year and studying at HB Studio.]
