by Helen Kaye
[I’ve published many articles by my friend Helen
Kaye, aka Helen Eleasari, including
eight previous selections of her reviews from the Jerusalem Post. The last installment of “Dispatches from
Israel,” number 8, was just this past 12 September, and “Dispatches 7” was only
as far back as 13 July. Though past
reviews have covered productions of translated contemporary plays from Europe
and the U.S. and classics from William Shakespeare and others—little Israel is
as theater-crazy as many much more populous nations—this pair are both new
Israeli plays. For our purposes on ROT and in the U.S., that may be more interesting
since it reveals what Israeli writers are interested in and what Israeli theaters
want to present. I expect you will find
that so in this installment of Helen’s periodic “Dispatches.”]
Immoveable Mountain
By
Gilad Evron
Directed
by Irad Rubinstein
Bet
Lessin, Tel Aviv; 27 July 2016
The
play takes place in 16th-century feudal Japan, and is, of course, a parable of
our lives and mores here. The mountain of the title is the land-hungry Takeda
clan whose military ambitions aspire to the capture of Kyoto, the imperial
capital, but in a crucial battle on the way, the Takeda is mortally wounded.
“Keep
my death a secret for three years,” he orders his samurai, “lest the enemy be
emboldened to march against you.”
To
do that requires a Takeda in place. By a strange coincidence, a captured thief played by Yoram Toledano giving the
performance of his life, is his exact double, so he is bullied and threatened
into compliance by the dead man’s brother, Itami (Nimrod Bergman) and his
implacable samurai lieutenant, Murata (Daniel Brusovani). Eventually he is
deemed ready, and is taken to the Takeda’s palace where he must successfully
fool the First wife Kyoko (Yael Vekstein), son Yamada (Shadi Mar’i) and the
Heir, Maso (Amit Moreshet).
Itami
warns him “You’re a thief. You’ll always be a thief. If you forget that, you
won’t be able to play the Takeda.”
But
pretense is tricky because, of necessity, truth aka reality, tends to insinuate
itself with unforeseen, sometimes disastrous results, as happens here, its
metaphor being a pellucid fabric river pulled slowly across the stage whose
color slowly turns to blood.
Its
creator is set designer Paulina Adamov; her set for Mountain is
extraordinary. There are three curved screens on wheels, at least 5 meters
high, covered with a rusty scrim, that reveal, conceal, bedevil, deliberately
bewilder according to how they’re moved; they become the maze that is the
palace, Kyoko’s bedchamber, the council room. When the scrim is opaque, huge
shadows menace. When it’s transparent we often glimpse what we should not.
Evron
based his play on Japanese director Akira Kurasawa’s film Kagemusha
(1980), taken from actual events in Japanese history. Reviewing the film, Roger
Ebert wrote that “Kurasawa seems to be saying that great human
endeavors . . . depend entirely on large numbers of men sharing the same
fantasies or beliefs . . . whether or not the beliefs are based on reality . .
. But when a belief is shattered, the result is confusion, destruction, and
death.”
But Evron is saying something else. He’s saying that
we’re in danger of mistaking the pretense for the real thing, that we are
betraying who we are and what our purpose here is, but that the result will be
the same – confusions, destruction and death.
Before we turn to the actors, let’s praise the technical
staff – costume designer Maor Tzabar, Roy Yarkoni’s music, Ziv Voloshin’s
marvelously moody lighting and stage battle coach Uri Bustan, all of whom have
successfully labored to create on stage the aura of 16th century Japan, spiced
by deliberate anachronisms like sunglasses, zippers and a chestful of medals.
To the acting: Toledano dominates the stage. His
character must be and is both larger than life and diminished by it. His character adapts in seconds, from
terrified to confident, to wary, to tender, all underpinned by a nobility that
grows and grows. He deserves every award going!
Vekstein is both vulnerable woman and
steely-courageous samurai as Kyoko, Bergman is a properly wary, politically astute
Itami and Brusovani’s Murata is most marvelously arrogant.
It’s almost superfluous to add that the laurels for this
production must go to director Irad Rubinstein, whose opening scene for this
production is breathtaking. But then, so is the show.
* *
* *
The Wolves
Written
& directed by Hillel Mittelpunkt
Cameri,
Tel Aviv; 28 July 2016
“We
can't live moral lives if state policy is immoral,” Hillel Mittelpunk has said,
and in play after hard-hitting play, he
has turned over the rock and laid bare our seamier side, often going to our
past to express the present.
So
it is with Wolves in which nothing is as it seems and lying is the norm.
It’s set in 1978, the year after “Hama’apach” (the upset) which overturned
Mapai’s (the then Labor Party) heretofore unbroken dominance, and brought to
power Menahem Begin and the Herut – that has since morphed into Likud – an
event that transformed both the body politic and society.
“The
underdogs are on top, and don’t you forget it,” continues to reverberate.
And
so to Zeeva (Tikki Dayan) on her failing flower farm well reflected
by Alexandra Nardi’s sad-sack, shabby, peeling dwelling that features
kitchen, living-room, yard and public space.
That’s
where Zeeva – the name means she-wolf -
lives with her eldest son Dov (Alon Dahan) and her
music teacher brother Schneur (Yitzhak Hizkiya), a sad and aging gay
man.
She’s
just about the only Revisionist (as the followers of Zeev Jabotinsky, the
father of Herut/Likud) were called) on the moshav among a gaggle of Mapainiks
who’ve lorded it over her for years. The occasion is the anniversary of her
husband’s death, but she’s afraid that no-one will come because for years her
own party has shunned her – we discover why later – but perhaps this year…
Then,
suddenly, there in the doorway is Nerik (Dan Shapira), her younger son, the
success story, the PhD who’s a lecturer at Georgetown University, and has a
daughter by his American wife. He’s home
for the anniversary, he says, smiling easily.
Except
that he isn’t.
“You’re
lying,” his mother says. It takes one to know one. Zeeva lies as easily as she
breathes, and that’s what drives Wolves. It’s the lies, evasions, and
half-truths about ourselves and the way we live here that we make ourselves
believe, and that will now envelop the family as Nerik is rebranded as an
honest politician with only his light tan leather shoes – these and a dark
business suit don’t mix – to remind us that’s he’s a phony.
They’re
a neat touch, these, of a piece with costumer Raz Leshem’s other clothes, like
Zeeva’s tasteless muumuus or scuffed boots, or
Dov’s too well-worn work clothes.
The clothes are as scruffy as the character, basically the only honest one in
the bunch, but wearied to the bone of the way he lives. Dahan, amazing actor
that he is, shows us the muddle that Dov lives in and under as well as a kind
of desperate integrity that will allow his escape from the lies – a hint to the
rest of us?
Dayan’s
Zeeva is a survivor, no matter what. She drinks. She spouts dead slogans, but
she’ll survive and win. She’s not nice, but you can’t despise or dislike her
because she’s so real. The same is true for Hizkiya as the pathetic, lonely
Schneur. On the other hand, Shapira is a
good choice for Nerik because the actor is always a little too conscious of
himself, which works here.
Yossi
Kantz as a political fixer and Tamar Keenan as Nerik’s former girl friend Yaira
are effective but their characters seem to be fillers: the play would probably
work without them.
And
it does work. We’re left, as we’re meant to be, with a bad taste in our mouths.
[I will continue to publish Helen’s reviews, journals,
and articles as long as she sends them to me.
Not only do I find her perspective interesting, but as a practiced
cultural journalist, she knows how to get her point down in writing. Since Helen’s also an actress (that’s how we
met, way back in 1978) and a director, she has a great deal of practical knowledge
about theater. (She also did the
costumes for the showcase in which I directed her 38 years ago, so she has some
experience in production design as well.)
She’s been writing about culture for the JP since the ’80s,
she can really take the long view. I’m constantly
in search of additional voices and points of view to include on ROT, especially from people who can write about
subjects I can’t cover, and Helen offers a perfect example of what I look for.]
