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"I wish we could talk about something more important than 'Mama Mia' every night. But it's impossible" - Walla! culture

2022-06-19T07:10:43.459Z


Moshe Kaftan, the artistic director of Habima, directed a series of glittering productions on stage and on screen, but is often accused of persecuting the audience. In an interview, he responds to critics - and does not apologize


"I wish we could talk about something more important than 'Mama Mia' every night. But it's impossible."

Moshe Kaftan, Habima's artistic director, has directed some of the most glittering productions in recent years on stage and on screen, but is frequently accused of pursuing audiences and promoting entertainment over quality.

In an interview, he responds to critics and does not really apologize: "Is it a sin that I like to direct musicals? Maybe in the eyes of the zealots"

Sagi Ben Nun

19/06/2022

Sunday, 19 June 2022, 10:00 Updated: 10:07

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"My prize is the applause."

Moshe Kaftan (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Moshe Kaftan, Habima's artistic director, is at the center of controversy in the cultural swamp.

On the one hand, he has directed some of the most glittering productions in Israel in recent years, both in theater and on television - including successful reality shows and even a Eurovision that garnered much praise.

On the other hand, there are those who accuse him of persecuting audiences, entertaining the National Theater, excessive proliferation of musicals and recycling old material - and in fact even after a long career, Captain did not win and was not even nominated for a personal award at the Theater Awards.



"I did not gain institutional recognition from the elite, the clique, the veteran guard," he admits in an interview with Walla!

Culture, but not excited.

"True, I was not even nominated for the Theater Award. I think we are a country that likes to put people in boxes. One director of musicals, second director of dramas and third director of Shakespearean classics. I do not understand the distribution of these boxes. The old guard has a hard time moving people out of a box. It's probably related to the fact that I'm busy with a lot of things, and am always in the eye of the storm, busy with a big TV, a big special, a big show, a big cast, I'm here because I love the place, I'm here because I love the actors and I care about them. "My prize is that 900 people stand and applaud every night in my show. This is the best prize I could ask for."

Shortly after it transformed from a national theater into a municipal corporation, the Habima Theater launches today (Sunday) the new repertoire, which includes stage adaptations of Asi Dayan's films "Aviva Ahuvati" and "Life According to Agfa" (the two productions were first published here);

A single play written by Hillel Mittelpunkt to Lia Koenig, a kind of cabaret of her life story, which will be in collaboration with the Hebrew Theater;

The play "The Craft of Life" by Hanoch Levin directed by Kaftan;

As well as another musical directed by him - "The Beautiful Year of My Life" written by Ohad Hitman, in collaboration with the Haifa Theater and starring Roni Dalumi.

Yes, again the phrase "captain", "Roni Dalumi" and "musical" is so common, some say too much.



You are directing a play by Hanoch Levin for the first time.

Why has it not happened until now and why is it happening now?



"True, this is the first time in my life that I'm directing Levin, and I chose to do 'The Craft of Life.' I want to direct something that I feel I have something to say through, and when I meet some existential or essential question in life that I am interested in talking about, then I find myself directing. Most of the time I connect to such materials, because you can not always choose what you want Say. Sometimes you have to do things for the system. 'The Craft of Life' is a material I really like, it's one of the best plays he's written. "Essentially, it seems to me that this is my time to touch on this material. I look forward to it."



For a long time I ask for an interview with you, and you reject and reject.

It may now be convenient for you to wave under the direction of Hanoch Levin, as part of an answer to the issue of the strong identification of your work - both as a director and as an artistic director - with excessive proliferation of musicals, plays with chants and theater entertainment, and received much criticism.

Maybe directing a play by Hanoch Levin is convenient for you as a fig leaf for other entertainment things you do?



"It's not really a fig leaf. I'm a bit stuck with this thing of musicalization. I'm very identified with it because I also direct. Is it a sin that I like to direct musicals? It's not a sin. Is it a sin that I do it well and the shows succeed? It's not a sin. .Perhaps in the eyes of others, whose eyes are narrow and they are jealous. Tzipi Pines and Ilan Ronen are here in this place.

Take a look at what the repertoire of the last four years looks like against the governor of a repertoire of ten years ago made by my predecessor Ilan Ronen.

No one said a word about Ilan but it is more comfortable to say about a captain.

"The feeling of multiplicity in musicals in percentages from the repertoire stems only because these materials are more public, more interesting and more box office, so you hear more about them - but 80% of the repertoire is completely normal - Israeli plays, classical plays, international plays."



Industry sources claim that it is no coincidence that Habima, after years of not staging a play by Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin, received the rights to stage two plays by Levin, "by chance" while giving a large role to his widow and estate manager, actress Lillian Berto.



"Well, really. There's really no connection between the things. Lillian Berto is a great, excellent and appreciated actress."

"Is it a sin that I like to direct musicals?".

From "Mama Mia" at the Habima Theater (Photo: Or Danon, courtesy of the Habima National Theater)

Shlomi Bartonov, a grandson of Joshua Bartonov, one of the founders of Habima, said in an interview with Haaretz that "the theater is becoming an event of public singing instead of a public head-splitting, as it can be."

Director and playwright Prof. Yossi Yizraeli wrote a response to an article in which he called you "the diligent producer impersonating the director, a manipulator of the audience's weakness for common nostalgia," and called your work "public singing on board the Titanic."

Many more claim similar things.



"I really appreciate Jezreeli, he was my teacher for two years, I do not know what happened to him, what this upheaval happened to me and where he was 10 or 15 years ago when the musicals reigned here during Ilan Ronen's reign. I directed 'Mrs. Nava' and 'Evita' I was a director who hired his services, but the artistic director who did it was Ilan Ronen. "Now the melody is back." , "The Avengers, A Love Story", "Intel", and "Spring Awakens" - all plays that include more than one musical number).

More on Walla!

Endless yawning: The play "Another song returns" on stage is a complete waste of time

To the full article

"I do not despise claims, but I must reject him because he does not relate to the reality we live in," Captain adds.

"There is interest in this claim, but when you look at the economic situation of theaters in Israel, not just Habima, and the system of the Ministry of Culture and the budgeting policy of cultural institutions in Israel, you will see - if you look 20-30 years back, the budget was about 75- 80% subsidy from the state, and 20% self-income. Today the situation is almost the opposite - today the theater lives in its budget on self-income. You get from the state about 20-25% of your budget, and need to bring another 70-75% in Connie's money Tickets. How do you expect me to blow someone's head off publicly and with that I'll sell tickets that will hold this theater, and pay salaries to 400 workers? How? So what should be done. For something more important than 'Mama Mia'. I wish we could. But in the Israeli reality,

When you look at the roles of managers in public institutions, you find that it is an impossible task.

You can not do without running the big stage as an engine that also knows how to bring in money. "



When the Broadcasting Authority became a corporation, it underwent a radical change both in content and in terms of personnel, to a place that is more focused on quality and statement that does not depend on ratings.

Habima has become a corporation and nothing seems to have changed - the same faces that have dominated theaters for years, you and Noam Semel, and the same increased degree of audience persecution and entertainment materials that there was before.

Will anything change with the transfer of the theater from the days of the state to the Tel Aviv Municipality?



"One can argue about the place of the public theater in the State of Israel and the lack of the commercial theater and the private producer in the State of Israel. Once upon a time there was and is no longer a commercial theater in Israel. The public theater swallowed it. Last week a meeting was held at the theater with the director general where we begged to receive a grant from the municipality to meet the budgetary targets as they are today, and that too is still under discussion, whether or not it is possible to budget this theater, and allow him some degree of well-being.

That is: this mercury sword is still threatening.

At the same time, there is a constant attempt to produce a mix in which there are both so-called quality materials, as well as popular-entertainment materials.

More than that: I'll tell you, and I'm not sorry about it - in the eyes of a national theater there should be a theater for everyone.

That is,

Every person in the State of Israel needs to find at least one thing that will interest him in the National Theater and perhaps thanks to him he will later see something he has never seen.

I have been insisting on building this mix for several years now, the theater will be both and both and both and both.

"People who saw 'Givat Halfon' here after that came back and saw 'curves' here."

An attempt to decipher what a national theater is.

Ricky Bleich (Photo: Courtesy of the photographers, Avital Peleg)

In a preliminary interview, Habima actress and Shaham chairman Ricky Bleich told Walla!

A culture of things in a spirit similar to that of Captain, which reinforces his position as to bringing other audiences closer to the theater.

"With the repertoire on stage today, it is very possible and even quite certain that I would not buy a ticket for quite a few theater performances. At least half of them are not my cup of tea and do not interest me, it is not the theater I consume. I probably would not buy a ticket for a play "Road signs on Naomi Shemer's life," Blich admits, but immediately explains the paradox.



"I've been playing in this theater for 22 years, and my whole family is repenting, they've all been dossiers. For 18 years I could not invite them to any show I played in, they did not enjoy it and it was not for them, shows like 'perfect strangers' where every second word is prostitution And cock. And all of a sudden I was playing this show about Naomi Shemer. At first I was indignant. She's a right-wing, nationalist woman, and the show is full of these messages. In life there is a play for me in the National Theater. I had a real chill from it. For the first time I felt the essence of the word 'national' in the National Theater. With you - and yet he created something that is closest to the definition of a national theater I know.

I am willing to admit that it has a certain artistic price.

In my farcical view - as if of what theater and quality are - not all plays meet this requirement.

But when we talk about national theater one has to think really deeply what its meanings are.

And Captain, even if there are those who claim that he is not successful, he is at least trying to decipher what a national theater is. "

"I'm not connected to the collapse of Habima"

Captain also rejects criticism for promoting celebrities as leading stars in his shows.

"To judge a person with talent and not to cast him because he is a celebrity - in my eyes it is to do him an injustice," he says.

"Do you know how much they clicked when I cast Maimon's songs for the role of 'Evita'? And I knew that if I cast my songs she would also bring the publicity profit and she would also bring the stage profit.

Many others did not believe.

And the fact that after presenting the professional critique to all those chirping elitists - Shiri Maimon won all the best possible critiques of her life's role in Israeli theater.

If I believe I can deliver the goods at eight in the evening when a show opens, and also stimulate your journalistic, media and publicity instinct and that of your sandwich, then I did my job because I brought the audience and did not hurt the artistic quality of the show I directed. I did not cast my songs Funding to do a role in a Shakespearean tragedy. I cast her to do Evita Perron in a musical. I cast Amir Dadon,

And all the clinkers said 'what is he related to'.

This play ran 400 times at the Habima Theater, where he played the lead role, and received rave reviews.

What's wrong with that?

Amir Dadon does not play cement here.

Ben Yossifovich plays cement here. "



Ben Yossifovich is a huge and wonderful actor.

I would have been happy to see more Ben Yossifovich on stage.

There are not enough of these here.



"I, too, would like to see more of them. But if I cast Ben Yossifovich for a lead role in my musical, would journalists come and see and write about it? No. But if I cast Noa Kirl for a show, suddenly everyone will write about it. For Habima's press conference "Not many journalists will come if there are no celebrities there," he says.



"If the situation was such that the theater was supported with enough money, in 80% or 90% of the country, like Western public theaters in Europe, the picture would be completely different. But we are not in that situation. The ticket office downstairs must put in money every night. "Sergeant] and I, with the basic existential need to bring in money from materials that bring in an audience, and the artistic insistence on continuing to play cement in the Bartonov Hall."

"I would also like to see more players like him."

Ben Josipovic (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Complaining about Habima's budgetary distress is a bit funny, after Habima won huge budgets from the state for many years, and as part of the scandalous settlement before the court, the theater's huge debts to masses of creators and theater workers were erased.



"The comment about the money and the budget concerns not only Habima but the public theaters in general, and the ratio of self-income to public support in general. One can talk endlessly about Habima's doubling of support from the state, Lessin and Gesher. "



In 2016, the State Comptroller ruled that Habima had received tens of millions from the state but was run in a "failed and inefficient manner," and among other things sent an accusing finger at former theater director Odelia Friedman and saw its conduct severely.

Do you have a part in this collapse or do you claim it does not concern you?



"The man sitting here in front of you holds two debt claims against Habima, which employs me. One personally for my salary that I lost, for my compensation that I lost, I owe several hundred thousand shekels that I will probably never receive. Like the other creditors I will receive about 10-15% of the value General for ten years. So I'm also one of those who suffers from the terrible and tragic crash of Habima. I did everything I could, including not getting paid full months, three or four months. I worked 24/7 to continue to maintain this place despite and despite it. I did not. "I think I did something wrong in the management of the theater, certainly not at the artistic level. I had no financial involvement in its management. Sorry I have to apologize for that, but I am not connected to the collapse. On the contrary: I am one of those who suffer from the collapse to this day."

"Drowned into an impossible situation."

Former theater director, Odelia Friedman (Photo: Danny Maron)

You sat for many hours with Odelia Friedman.

Were there things in her conduct that bothered you?

And maybe you tried to prevent?



"The artistic director's room is where we sit. The CEO's room is two rooms downstairs.

My presence in the CEO's office is minimal even today, when Noam is the CEO.

I ran my affairs here, and she ran her affairs there.

I was not aware of what was going on.

I have no claim against Odelia.

I think she was swept into an impossible situation, believing that the beliefs in nurturing the theater in the Ministry of Culture would do anything to prevent it from collapsing.

I think she should have stopped the snowball, put the keys on the table and said 'no more.

not like this'.

It is impossible to question her love for the theater or to erase the time she spent years trying to manage it under the difficult conditions that have been created. "

More on Walla!

Intel with Roni Dalumi is a very fun musical, very limited and most importantly - very striped

To the full article

"There's a lot of menstruation, I wish it was different"

Kaftan, who will celebrate his 51st birthday next week, grew up in Bat Yam and studied at the Bnei Akiva yeshiva.

In his military service he served as a singer and commander of the Military Rabbinate Choir.

At age 26 he came out in question.

He then completed a bachelor's and master's degree in theater at Tel Aviv University.

In 1998 he first directed the Festigal.

Over the years, he has served as the artistic director of the Meditech Theater and as the artistic director of the Israel Festival.

In 2014 he was appointed Habima's in-house director, and since 2016 he has served as the theater's artistic director, first as acting director after Ilan Ronen left the position, and since the end of 2017 as permanent artistic director.



Captain is particularly identified with the many musicals he has directed, including "Fiddler on the Roof", "Intel" and "Hair" in the Cameri, and "Madame Nava", "Evita", "Poor Life" and "Mama Mia" on stage - and the list goes on .

However, he has also directed plays of other genres, including "Comedy of Mistakes" at the Cameri, "33 Variations" at Beit Lessin, and on stage - "If There's a Paradise," "Stopped at Midnight," "Shakespeare in Love" and the powerful "Curves."

In addition, he directed many television broadcasts, including the 2019 Eurovision held in Tel Aviv, the reality shows "The Singer in a Mask" in Keshet, "The X Factor" and "De Weiss" on the network, the last Miss Universe ceremony held in Israel and more.

"Opinion CEO. Sergeant (Photo: Reuven Castro)

In the eyes of many, and I must say that in my opinion, there is something jarring about the fact that someone who holds a senior and important public position as the artistic director of the National Theater will engage in so many gigs and some embarrassing directing - from reality shows, through entertainment events to Nicole Reidman.

Didn't you overdose, even if you are diligent and have a great time as your critics say?



"Maybe not so much more work needs to be done. Maybe the dose needs to be lower, it's something I take to my attention. I strongly oppose anyone who tells me 'do nothing else'. But what hurts someone, that I gain Some money from the outside as well? Every job I did was approved by the CEOs and the board, and was not at the expense of my work days but at the expense of vacation days.

On my vacation days I do not think it is in anyone's interest what I do.

I can on my day off I can from morning to evening hold a camera and make a documentary about Nicole Reidman.

This is my day off, why should I hold you accountable?

It's not so many days either.

You say 'the singer in a mask'.

That's a total of eight days of photography.

The X Factor is a seven-day filming.

In the end it is not so much about.

Equally I must add that I believe my ability to direct television is an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

In Israel of 2022,

And in a world where actors are required to develop additional abilities and skills on top of their stage ones for example for TV and web series, even a director in this era should be and should be one who is able to do more things related to directing.

Exposure to advanced technologies, working with video art and other parameters that television or huge entertainment shows allow to meet - are a huge school for a director in this era.

Also, the connections I have made over the years in television and in the world of entertainment have always been helpful in everything related to the publicity promotion of the theater I run. "



Listen, it's a farce in my eyes that the artistic director of the National Theater is simultaneously directing Nicole Reidman.



"I do not want to get into salary matters in the theater, how much you earn in the theater and how much more you will earn if you do not work in the theater. I remember this Reidman event was during a catastrophe stage here, and there are things you do for a living and end the month. I'm a director, not a cook or a bank manager. I do what I do in the highest professional parameters and at the highest stage level. "At the highest professional level. The Reidman music video launch event was at the highest professional level."



On the other hand, I will compliment you on the great directing you signed at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Israel, which is short of praise.

Unfortunately, there was someone who "stole your credit"



"The Eurovision period was very complex. We worked for a whole team for a year. We sat in one room, we threw a lot of ideas all together, a lot of creative meetings, where you offer ideas. Eventually you realize you end up serving a system and less my own credit. No. I understood at first this move, that everything I throw in the basket at the end is not mine and someone else says he did it. But whoever needs to know what I did and whoever needs to know what I do - knows. My grandfather taught me at a young age the sentence: 'Whoever chases "After the honor - the honor escapes from him." And since then I have not pursued credit. "

Won praise.

The general rehearsal of Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv, directed by Kaftan (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

Noam Semel, Habima's CEO, has many rights, and he is also remembered as the one who gave you a chance at the beginning of your journey to direct "Fiddler on the Roof" at the Cameri. .



“In the Western world of theater, the director of the theater is the artistic director, and the director works alongside him.

In Israel, because of the economic situation of all Israeli theater, there has been a tendency for the last 15 years to say that the CEO is at the top of the pyramid, and the artistic director is below him.

Noam Mishpat once told me: 'If we do not quarrel with each other, we will be hanging in the town square next to each other.'

That's pretty true.

There is no confrontation between me and Noam.

"There is a professional conflict, which characterizes the relationship of a CEO and an artistic director wherever they are, when everyone tries to preserve the interests of their job



. There is a high degree of recycling of plays that have already been staged in the theater or elsewhere.Recycling is harmful to the environment, no?



"I agree with you, there is a lot of recycling, I wish it would be different. Whether it's 'best friends' that is shown a little after he leaves the theater or whether it is 'Intel' that is shown ten years after it went down. It's the kind of things that are also in dialogue and conflict with CEO L, who thinks that a certain thing that has been very successful in the past, is worth returning because it may also be successful in the future, and you are trying to live within the situation.

This is a very complex situation, which we are discussing and sinning against. "

"Social temperature affects us"

In April, a captain came out of the closet in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, and when he looks at the two months that have passed since then, he describes a great sense of relief.

"Relief is the release from the environmental perception of you, because I in front of myself do not feel that I have changed. But I see that the environment has changed around me and makes my life easier and more embracing," he says.

"But nothing substantial has changed. Always on the wedding day one asks: What has changed? And you say: nothing, consume nothing. We live together, we eat together. Same thing here. I am the same person, live my life. And I hope whoever is around me, Did not know and now knows: Walla so what? Su wat? ".



Last week, complainants against Eyal Golan filed an appeal against the closure of his case.

This fact reminded during the interview that the musical "It's Me", which was based on Golan's songs and came up in the chamber, was first offered to the captain - who rejected him, as the writer of those lines revealed at the time.

We then published a claim that Habima's rejection also had a moral reason.

Now, Captain officially confirms the publication and tells us that the play was also postponed because of "social temperature".

"I told Odelia: this is not the right thing to do."

From "It's Me" at the Cameri Theater (Photo: Yossi Tzabker)

"'It's Me' was rejected because there was no dramatic enough interesting material there," says Captain.

"They were here in two meetings, did not even present a play, but presented an idea, and said who might participate, talked about an option for cooperation and that's it over. I think the idea did not mature into action at all. Artistic. The social temperature then was such that it probably affected me in a way that I said to Odelia: 'I do not think it's a good enough idea. It does not seem the right thing to do.'



So you actually confirm that you rejected "it's me" also because of the minors affair.

But then she directed Golan and others in the entertainment show "NEXT" last Hanukkah.

Where did your social temperature go then?

Or is there only money and not morality at play?



"It's not the same thing. When you do an entertainment show for a wide audience, on Hanukkah, with a private producer, which is his money, and an audience that buys tickets to see it, it's not like a public theater. You do not test your considerations on the same parameters. You are somewhere else."



How about the community's memo wave, which began with Gal Ochowski, and continued with Itai Pinkas and the testimonies I unveiled at Walla!

For the alleged harassment by Asi Ezer against Yehuda Nahari?



"He's two, no matter if it's a man or a woman, no matter if it's LGBT or straight, it's a period that is evolving and issuing us new codes of conduct.

Every day that passes is no longer the day it used to be.

I'm not talking about 10 or 20 years back.

I want to hope that we will all be educated to learn these codes and adopt them and make them the culture of our daily lives, and that this thing we call today Mi-Tu will become a title we will forget because it has established for us a different life framework in which we live.

On this matter, I was now in Canada, and in the room next to me in the theater sat an intimacy instructor all the time.

This is a new role born in the United States and Canada.

I promote here on Habima that there will be such a role here as well. "

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Tags

  • Moshe Kaftan

  • Habima

  • Noam symbol

  • Eyal Golan

  • Eurovision 2019

  • Nicol Raidman

  • The singer in the mask - Israel

Source: walla

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