Precisely in the most difficult year for theaters, Beit Lessin celebrates 40 • On the occasion of the celebrations, a filmed show with the theater stars will be broadcast here on Saturday • "Performing arts have an amazing right to exist," says CEO Pines
"The Corona is the greatest tragedy that has happened to the theater in the last century."
Pines
Photo:
Joshua Joseph
The 40th anniversary of the Baruch Ivcher Beit Lessin Theater came at the most problematic time: a year in which the theater was closed. But the theater decided not to give up the celebration and created a filmed tribute show to the theater's 40th anniversary, which will be broadcast on Saturday evening : 00 here 11.
The show was directed by Ido Rosenberg and features artists who have played in the theater over the years, including Sasson Gabay, Yona Elian, Lior Ashkenazi, Avi Kushnir, Meshi Kleinstein, Maggie Ezerzer, Yedidya Vital, Rita, Israel Katorza, Tuvia Tzafir, Tom Avni , Laura Ravlin, Tiki Dayan, Natan Datner, Anat Waxman, Dov Navon, Maggie Ezerzer Yaniv Bitton, Rivka Michaeli, Miki Kam and more.
"Until 1980, there was a 'Beit Lessin Club' with singing evenings and a few plays, run by Yaakov Agmon," says Tzipi Pines, the theater's director since 1993. "40 years ago, Agmon decided to turn it into a theater.
I got there after 12 years of running the Be'er Sheva Theater.
It was a small theater with a few individual plays and a small technical staff.
I appointed myself a management and started recruiting players, including Yona Elian, Sasson Gabay and Anat Waxman.
"The treasurer helped me survive the first two years, and then I submitted to the High Court claiming that there was no equality in the state's allocations because it did not give money to Beit Lessin. That's how the criteria for theater budgets were born and I started getting some money from the state."
According to Pines, "It took me a while to realize that Tel Aviv is not Be'er Sheva, that I am in a different playground. I realized that I could not fight the big theaters with their high rations, and that I had to reinvent the theater. So I took the best actors on the market and decided to upload materials. "I started with Shmuel Hasefri and his trilogy of plays 'Chametz', 'Kiddush' and 'Shiva'. I understood that the name of the force, in that Beit Lessin differs from other places. This is my worldview that grew in the first year of running the theater."
After the terrible year of the theater, did you not think of giving up the celebration of the 40th?
"I decided not to give up because the theater is celebrating 40 and this is just the beginning. We filmed the show while there was a feeling that the theater was dying because no one remembers us. So I decided to draw public attention. It seemed important to me to mention the issue and the status of Beit Lessin, that I Very proud of him. And besides, during this horrible time, I wanted to produce identity and kind of work for the actors. We worked for almost two months on the show, writing and rehearsals. We went into the empty hall and filmed everything. Of course the show was written in the shadow of the corona. The last few years. The question is whether we can take it from here to a better place. "
Was there no concern about the future of the theater?
"No. For a moment I had no such apprehension. It was clear to me that we would return, that this art was not dead. There is nothing to compare the screens with the stage art, it is a different world, and it has an amazing right to exist. We are starting again now and very excited for the theater opening. "April 19 with four plays."