Deb Reiser: 75 years old, theater, television and film actor, voice actor, comedian and announcer. A resident of Ramat Gan. Winner of the Kalchkin Award (1996) and the Maskin Award (2019). He acted in films, TV series and hundreds of plays in the Beer Sheva Theater, in the Camry and in the Bhima. He currently plays in the theater ("Intel", "The Craft of Life" and more) and voices in the children's film "King", which was released
When was the last time you recorded a dub?
"Last week. I voiced the series 'Winnie the Pooh', which I already voiced 20 years ago, and it is now back again. It is a beautiful and nostalgic animation and also an opportunity to see, because the humor and wonder of Winnie the Pooh will remain forever. I voice, as always, Rabbit. It I feel like it out of inertia today, because it's a technique you learn. Once, in the field of dubbing, if someone made a mistake we'd all start the whole scene from the beginning. That's how it was in 'Duboni care me', for example. Then you'd wait 50 seconds to make sure there was no mistake, And then continue working. Today you read like you read subtitles, and you improve over time and become more skilled. I really liked Mosh HaShor, Shealtiel Kwak and Ogipaltza, he was one of my first dubs in 1979."
When was the last time you received a compliment?
"Now, about the 'Craft of Life' by Hanoch Levin. An audience comes after the play, both on the stage and in other halls, telling me 'you are the actor' and giving me very emotional and enveloping compliments. I am currently acting in five different plays, and up until four months ago I was acting in eight Plays at the same time. There was interest from 'Guinness World Records' about me, but it turned out that there is no such category of actors who play in a large number of plays at the same time. I wrote down the names of all the plays I participate in, because at my age it doesn't get any easier.
"I studied the text for the 'Malakat Ha'ayim' on Eve and on Yom Kippur. I sat tight and deaf, as I always insist, until I knew the texts, until the 'Eureka' came, I made a significant discovery. I found a small physical thing that did the whole job for me I have been on stage in the theater for 53 years, I started at a very young age and have reached 131 productions ('The Work of Life' is no. 131), and it has never happened to me that I came to the first rehearsal, and in the first click I found the special movement of my character. This is Lite A small motif, something physical that I found and repeats itself in the show, and from which everything became clear to me, like a puzzle of 2,000 pieces that I solved in seconds."
When was the last time you were angry?
"I am angry about what is happening in Israel today. I cannot direct it in a specific direction, but I am angry. I am worried about the situation, mainly because there is a moment before an explosion. This is my feeling. I am very connected to the news, I feel that I am a masochist but Can't disconnect. We are currently in a situation where we need to be responsible adults. President Herzog tried to calm down, but there is a sensitive situation here. I am not afraid, my age is not afraid, but on the one hand the media should be open and there are a lot of fakes, so you don't know what the truth is, And on the other hand, this whole discussion is explosive, it's all fire, and I want to avoid it and not rekindle the fire.
"My more personal and intimate anger is when I hear something behind the scenes, when there is a lack of concentration regarding what is happening on stage, a fake. It annoys me that I am angry about it, and I have a partner who says, 'Then don't listen,' but I don't succeed. I preach to students mine for the play that they have to be within the energies and the spirit of things, otherwise the show doesn't get the same movement and the same concentration, the same essence and the same energy that it needs. Even if it's a comedy, it has to be strong, and sometimes when it falls - I get angry and I can't hold back From commenting. Then there is anger at me for commenting."
"I'm angry about what's happening in Israel today. I can't steer it in a specific direction, but I'm worried about the situation mainly because there is a moment before an explosion here. That's my feeling. I'm very connected to the news, I feel like I'm a masochist but I can't disconnect."
Dov Reiser, photo: Efrat Eshel
When was the last time you missed me?
"I constantly miss my wife Chaya, who died three months ago. It was a terrible trauma, because she was next to me and collapsed from a brain hemorrhage. She died a few days later. It happened the day after her 75th birthday. I am functioning and going to work, but on - A day I miss all the time. It happens every day, when I come home from a play, when I get up in the morning, it's a resounding absence. Suddenly you have no possibility to share. At the funeral, I said at her grave: 'What a situation it is that everything I would say, you would answer me , either jokingly or angrily or seriously. And now I'm talking and you don't answer. And I'm talking and... you don't answer. Chaya is very responsive. About a year ago we celebrated 50 years of marriage at the Allenby farm with the extended family. We didn't often celebrate big celebrations, but you That's all we got."
Where did you meet?
"We met at Beit Zvi. We studied together in the same class, in 1968. After school, she acted in at least eight plays, at the Khan in Jerusalem and at Kammeri. Immediately after finishing school, she got a coveted role at 'Beit Bernarda Alba' and she did the role wonderfully, but after a few years she She stopped playing. She said that 'there is one player in the house and that's enough for us'. We had no problem with that, we were of the same opinion about this profession and there was no competition between us."
When was the last time you flew?
"About three weeks ago I flew to Portugal with my son Dani and his girlfriend Nega. Today he lives in Emek Hafer because he works in the area, and with the traffic situation on the roads we don't see each other much, so I asked the theater for a vacation. A week after Chaya's death we went on a great and refreshing trip. We are very close. Danny is 46 years old today. He was born in the general of Tartif. They told me to go to the hospital, I went to Soroka, and that's where Danny was born."
When was the last time you saw a play in the theater?
"I watch when I have time or a free evening, which doesn't happen often. When I go, I go with joy. I've been teaching at the Beit Zvi Theater for 37 years, and I love watching my colleagues and students. Lior Ashkenazi, Itay Tiran and Michal Yanai were my students, and there are more Endless players. I like to teach especially when there are several talents in a class, and when the students teach me things. When I teach, I learn. When you are a teacher, surrounded by 20 plus year olds, you stay updated, know the jargon and the slang, stay close to the generation.
"It takes time to recognize talent, and some actors need even two or three years until they open up like flowers - suddenly there is a role that suits them, or in a certain exercise something there opens up, breaks through, and you need patience there. When I come to watch the plays I'm like a child. I don't judge , I give myself completely. If the show is not good, I don't make such a big deal out of it, because in the essence of our profession, for every seven shows that come out, one is really great, and another two or three are good, but that is the essence of this business."
When was the last time you quit an addiction?
"I haven't smoked for 40 years. I had pneumonia, and when you have an infection you can't smoke at all, it's a terrible taste, such a cabbage. One of the qualities of actors is that they conjure up a sense memory to use in the game, so every time I wanted a cigarette I brought up the The terrible taste and it prevented me from going back to smoking, and so on for 40 years. Today news is my addiction, and when I have time I also really like to watch good series. I just started watching the BBC's Unforgettable. Watching it proved to me that actresses, actors and script - That's all it takes.
"I wrote down the names of all the plays I participate in, because at my age it doesn't get any easier."
Dov Reiser, photo: Efrat Eshel
I also really like watching sports;
I saw the World Cup, I watched the games on delay, without knowing the result.
I was very much in favor of Messi.
Although he is only 35 years old, and in his industry it is a retirement age, but this puts him on a par with us, older theater actors who do a wonderful job."
When was the last time you were jealous?
"Never. We know from the Bible that jealousy led to the first murder in humanity, and it went downhill from there.
When I see someone great on stage, I give myself to it like a child.
There is no such thing in the profession where I would say 'how would I do it', absolutely not, and it's not that I deny what I want.
When I got the main and leading roles I said ok, and the same when I got small or medium roles.
In seven of Hanoch Levin's plays I had a medium or even a small role, and I never said 'why did he get it?'
I probably wasn't jealous, because I come from a place of a boy and a boy actor and I know the logic in the theater.
I'm also a Libra, and I have a quality where I weigh things and understand considerations.
I think to myself 'this is the consideration of the theater and it is a professional consideration', and I believe it, that it is a professional consideration free of protections and politics.
If you don't believe in it professionally, you're in trouble."
When did you first
go on stage?
"I was 9 and a half years old when I played in Menachem Golan's Talil-Tilon Theater. I came across a news item in the Ma'ariv for Youth newspaper, which was looking for 10-year-old actors and actresses, and even though I was 9 and a half years old, I went alone to the craftsman center in Tel Aviv and signed up for the play 'Treasure Island'. I was accepted for the role of a deck boy, and then I played in 'Eight Following One', in which I played the Yemenite Yahya. Tiki Dayan and Shlomo Vyshinsky also played in this theater, and I remember being as excited going on stage as I am today. I tell my students, 'To study a text is to learn Until you reach a place where you go through the text to be freed from it', and what I did then I also do in my plays today."
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