Theatre
The Torments of Job
ייסורי איוב
Hanoch Levin · 1981
Synopsis
Job gives a sumptuous feast; after the meal, beggars quarrel over ever scantier leftovers and are happy with them. Then the blows fall: three messengers announce his ruin, the bailiffs seize everything, down to his gold teeth, and three others announce the death of his children. His friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, who have come to console him, barely recognise him and end up convincing him that God exists. Then the soldiers of the emperor of Rome arrive: anyone who believes in the God of the Jews will be impaled. The friends renounce their faith; Job affirms his.
Context
The first performance took place at the Cameri in April 1981, in a staging by the author, with Yossef Carmon as Job and music by Poldi Shatzman. The scene in which a naked Job remains impaled until the end earned the troupe an attack in the Knesset: the deputy minister Miriam Glazer-Taasa declared that the State had no business funding a theatre where a naked man hangs for twenty minutes. Carmon nevertheless received the Kinor David for best actor. The play was staged in New York in 2006 and in France by Laurent Brethome in 2010.
Who it is for
A play lasting an evening, translated into French. It is better to know the Book of Job, whose plot it follows before overturning it.
Prizes and reception
Kinor David for Yossef Carmon; the critic Michael Handelzalts sees in it Levin's move toward the great theatrical allegories.
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