Between stage and screen, Yishai Golan maintains a busy and varied career. Over the weekend, a new play starring him at the Cameri Theater, "What Happened to the World," premiered, and according to him, "this is a play that could only have been written in Israel."
The play was written by Gur Koren and directed by Tamar Keinan alongside Golan, starring Odya Koren, Moti Katz/Rami Baruch, Andrea Schwartz, Neta Spiegelman and Shiran Bohnik. "What makes him unique is that he manages to grasp the Israeli reality even before you realize it's reality. It reflects our present with perspective on it, which is pretty cool," Golan says.
"The play opens on the last day of shiva about Dor's mother, whom I play. When it comes to the stage, it becomes a theatrical moment, and the viewer immediately understands that he is part of a culture that many people share. Dor and his sister try to hold on to the bubble that shiva allows, and to dwell on the memory for a moment. Through this, the fabric of the Israeli family and the intergenerational gaps are exposed, which are reflected in several areas."
Engaging in open relationships, for example.
Yishai Golan, Photo: Arik Sultan
"That's right. Dor insists that it's not exactly an open marriage, so he prefers to call it an enabling marriage. Our parents' generation believes in conservative and conventional family values, and today the reality is very chaotic in this context. There is a big crisis in the play when Dor tries to mediate this worldview to his mother."
On the similarities between him and the character he plays, Golan shares: "I know the encounter with death really well. My father died of cancer when I was 30, and it was very fast, like in a play. The day of the premiere will mark the 20th anniversary of his death. We continue to deal with the death of our parents all our lives – it's been 20 years, but I'm still overwhelmed by it. I think it's something that never goes away. In his shiva, I realized for the first time that death introduces us to some unequivocal truth. This week, suddenly special things happen, more open and vulnerable people come, very unique meetings are created for the shiva, and this is what happens in the play as well.
"As for the open relationship, it's a more complicated challenge for me as a player. I've been really happily married for 20 years," he laughs. "When I was 30, my father died, I got married and had a girl. I'm just 50 years old, and that was a turning point in my life. I'm a very monogamous person."
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