In 1987, Beitar Jerusalem won the Israeli soccer championship for the first time, Uri Fink began publishing a weekly comic called "Zabang!" and the first video of "The Simpsons" aired. Humanity had just crossed the 5 billion people mark, while in the U.S. Only over 20 thousand people died within five years from the AIDS epidemic.
That same year, playwright Tony Kushner began working on the ambitious play, "Angels in America."
It will take him three years to complete his magnum opus.
Another 40 thousand Americans will die during this time from the disease.
A complete reading of the play takes seven hours, so Kushner divided it into two parts, long in themselves.
This is also one of the reasons that, although it is considered one of the peaks of the theater of the 20th century, it is rarely staged nowadays.
The last and celebrated production of the play in London in 2017, for example, lasted 10 hours gross, including intermissions.
The audience would arrive at one in the afternoon and finish watching around midnight.
Enormities of compassion.
Abigail Harari in "Angels in America" (Photo: Oded Antman)
But the real reason for the paucity of productions of Kushner's masterpiece lies in the question "Is it still worth the investment?".
Can a piece written in the 1980s, first shown in the 1990s and dealing with very specific issues of that period still captivate an audience, certainly in light of the fact that its unforgettable television adaptation is available on any self-respecting VOD.
The answer is complex, but it's hard not to appreciate the courage of director Gilad Kimchi's decision to stage the challenging play at the Chamber Theater these days.
This challenge is doubled not only because 70 years have passed since the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, one of the background stories that shaped the play, but because, as the title suggests: it is a very American play, which requires recognition of deep currents in American society of the Reagan administration, including.
Young people thirty and under don't know the brutal stages of the disease that finally led to death from the HIV virus, and that's a good thing - but they also probably won't recognize key figures like Roy Cohen, the democrat who persecuted gays even though he was gay in the closet himself (or as he calls himself in the play: "a heterosexual man who sleeps with men").
Much more than an Al Pacino impersonation.
Yoav Levy in "Angels in America" (Photo: Oded Antman)
This is the third time that the first part of the play - "The Millennium is Approaching" - has been staged in Israel.
The first time, directed by Shmuel Al-Shepri in 1993, was also at the Chamber Theater.
Thirty years have passed since then and now Kimchi returns to this work from the prism of a completely different world.
Eli Bijawi's wonderful translation succeeds in making the play relevant even for today's Israel.
The truth is, it's even easy, certainly when homophobic McCarthyists (in the closet? Time will tell) paint the government in Israel in crude colors that would have embarrassed even Ronald Reagan.
With an attempted corruption in the American justice system in the background, Martin Heller's character says in the original play (free translation of the HM): "Within a decade we will strengthen our position in the court with our own judges, with a conservative blocking block in the Supreme Court.
There will be Republican judges everywhere you turn, lay them down like landmines.
Affirmative action?
Boom, mine!
This is how we will achieve what we want regarding every issue - from abortion to family values... This is the end of secular liberalism." He touched on the greatest fears of the American left.
In 2023, these words feel closer to home, literally, and even prompted a spontaneous pause in the show for thunderous applause from the Tel Aviv audience.
This is not the most usual thing in the theater, but from the reaction of the actors it seems that they expected it.
A lot of Israeli current affairs within the genius surrealism.
Angels in America (Photo: Oded Antman)
It is worth dwelling a moment longer on Bijawi's excellent translation, which rarely succeeds in being very faithful to the original - while at the same time juggling with required local adaptations.
For example, Pryor's cat in the original play is called "Sheeva", but in Hebrew it became "Lassie".
The essence remains, in both cases these are the names of famous dogs that were lost - but there is no doubt that Lassie is a little more familiar to the average Israeli.
In another case, Roy Cohen talks about a judge with a female voice, and notes that he has the voice of singer Kate Smith, an opera singer who became famous in the early days of radio in the US. In the Hebrew version, she becomes Barbra Streisand, and that's a good thing.
It's amazing how many scenes written about the political climate of the USA 35 years ago are still relevant today. For example, the conversation in which Lewis the Jew talks with the black Belize about racism (or the lack of it) in the modern USA at that time, continues to be painful and bloody in its lack of awareness even today - and yes, also in Israel.
He talks about how "there are no angels in America" in the sense of the spiritual world that was destroyed in the American melting pot, and it seems that all that is needed is for the speaker from the other side to be Avishai Ben Haim to explain to him the place of spirituality in the second Israel.
But Kushner's text, as brilliant and timeless as it may be, is only part of the Camry's excellent production.
Take for example the bastardized setting of Eran Atzmon, which can look simple for a moment.
What a wonderful visual lie.
On one side is a residence, with a kitchen and a bed.
On the other side is a bench.
Not something we haven't seen before.
But the setting takes an active part in the play, and helps it remain dynamic and frantic, with one scene penetrating another (sometimes with the very same characters), without cuts or fade-outs that would interrupt the long and sophisticated narrative sequence.
On the second level of the stage, the Revolution Orchestra, conducted by Roy Oppenheim, stands static throughout the show.
If you're looking for an "excuse" to come see the show, even for those who know the HBO version by heart, then Amir Lekner's original music, which is performed in wonderful harmony with the text, is the reason to run to Kameri.
Rare game views.
Matan On Yami and Elad Etrakchi (Photo: Simcha Barbiro)
The last to be praised here will be the players themselves, precisely because it is so obvious in this case.
There is not a single actor in this play who does not deserve thunderous applause for his roles (Kushner himself stipulated in the original play that each actor would play two or more characters).
This happens in the main characters as well as in the secondary ones.
Mia Landsman, for example, plays three small roles in the play - the nurse Emily in the hospital, the homeless woman in the Bronx, and the angel, who had a very secondary part in the first part of the play (in the second part, which hopefully will also be shown in Israel, she is probably part of the best dialogue in the play).
And yet, Landesman brings to the stage all the abilities that made her a huge star.
It's hard not to compare her to Emma Thompson, from the TV version.
For example, when Thompson - in the role of the nurse - switches to speaking in Hebrew for a moment, it's an amusingly surreal moment.
For the viewer who does not speak Hebrew, Thompson is just reciting some gibberish.
In Israel, when the character speaks Hebrew anyway, Landsman puts a complete trance into the section, when she recites "
It is amusing to think that there is someone who was forced to enter "the character of a Jew" in a play in Israel, but that they are Shiner in the character of Lewis, he was able to really make everyone else look gentile next to him, at the Pantheon concert.
Shiner channels the neuroticism of Woody Allen, alongside a visual likability (and entertaining in a non-obtrusive way) in the style of Chris Pratt.
This is at least the most loving version of Lewis I've seen.
On the other hand, Yoav Levy, who plays Roy Cohen (also Jewish of course) does something different - and manages to make a kind of local version of Al Pacino.
It's hard to deal with the history of this character.
In the history of acting, there was no one who knew how to scream better on screen than Pacino, and Levy's scenes of demonstrable rage successfully brought these strengths to the stage.
Compliments also go to Abigail Harari, who brings a surreal innocence to the character of Harper.
While the original play mainly treats her as a prescription drug addict who suffers from hallucinations (with a subtle touch of misogyny typical of the eighties) - the visual emphasis this time is on her agrophobia, and Harari adds a lot of sensitivity to the character.
If we were still in the eighties I would probably write that she is just sweet.
The help against her, Nadav Knights, who in recent years has become one of the most prominent actors on Israeli stages, gives a great performance.
Knights steps into the shoes of Joe, the Mormon Republican, and adds some local flavor to Joe's own war, and the inner demons of the closeted gay man imprisoned in a cult that views homosexuality as a sin (a matter that has somehow only gotten worse since the 1990s in Utah, but that's another story to be told another time). .
There are no minor roles.
Mia Landesman also steals the show as a homeless woman in the Bronx (Photo: Oded Antman)
It is also worth mentioning to praise Irit Kaplan and Dodo Niv, who play small roles (which, again, will become bigger in the second part).
But the biggest compliments are reserved for two actors who left the audience speechless throughout the show.
The first is Matan On Yemi, in the role of Norman Ariga, the medical brother who is better known by his drag queen name: "Blize".
This is a character that is very easy to shape in a comical way, but under the loyal hands of Gilad Kimchi, On Yami simply rebuilds the character as a strong and mysterious man, when even the prominent feminine sides of him are only evidence of his strength.
And finally Elad Etrakchi, that words cannot begin to describe the experience he gives the viewers on stage in the central role of Prior Walter.
Atrakchi is a declared gay, who grew up in a completely different time than the atmosphere in the play, and his "homosexuality" brings an authentic and unique angle to the familiar character.
Many times in the past they chose to cast a straight actor for the character of Pryor, but in the 30 or so years that have passed since it was first put on the stage, "Angels in America" of 2023 is not afraid to step out of the closet of stereotypes, and proves that it pays off.
Instead of characterizing Pryor's character as a gay man or a gay woman (not to mention, "gay"), this time they choose to emphasize his humanity.
Atrecci's Pryor is a strong and uncompromising man - and above all, full of humor, unlike his TV version, whose humor was mostly evidence of self-pity.
In doing so, Etracci presents a more faithful version of Pryor's original, easy to fall in love with and to be drawn into her pain.
Pryor's character stands at the heart of the play, and is a constant reminder of the death that is in the air.
This is one of the greatest tragic-comic characters ever written, and Atrecci recreates it with great naturalness and grace, all while he is lying in bed for most of the play - a huge challenge for any actor.
This is one of the most exciting and compassionate displays of the game that I have seen in Israel, one that deserves every award, and it alone justifies the price of the ticket.
One of the greatest tragic-comic characters ever written.
Elad Etrakchi in the role of Prior Walter (photo: Oded Antman)
In the bottom line, this is one of the special stage events that have appeared in Israel in recent years, which also poses a great challenge to the Israeli audience beyond praise.
In the age of the binge, is it even possible to go to the theater to see a show that is interrupted in the middle, right at the climax (literally, as will become clear in the next section)?
After getting used to Netflix, does it even make sense to spend three hours on a show that is only the first part of a play?
Those who choose to do this will discover that life consists of small moments of beauty and thorny herbs of compassion.
Life does not necessarily have a beginning, middle and end.
There is death, there is a body that is heaven for the soul and there is Jewish guilt that hovers above with painful eternity.
In Hebrew, it turns out, it's even more beautiful.
Now we can only hope that Kamhi and Bijawi have already started working on the second part.
Heaven can wait.
The big work begins.
in the small
In the last image of "The Millennium Approaches", the first part of "Angels in America", we are exposed to the figure of "the angel".
The appearance of the angel, who enters Pryor's room through the ceiling, is described by Kushner in the original play at surprising length that lasts two pages.
Finally Pryor responds: "God, this is very Steven Spielberg."
In retrospect, this became a self-fulfilling prophecy, when Kushner became one of Spielberg's favorite screenwriters, and he worked with him on a number of films, including his last and most personal film of all, "The Fivelmen".
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Angels in America
Tony Kushner
The Chamber Theatre
Gilad Kimchi
Nadav Knights
The Revolution Orchestra
