The new translation of Levin’s comedy is available to read on the website.

Translator Naaman Tammuz has translated the play, The Rubber Merchants by Hanoch Levin, into English, under the auspicious of a new project from the estate of Hanoch Levin.

The flyer from the 1978 production at the Cameri Theatre described the play in these words:

Yohanan Tzingerbei, an aging bachelor with a certain amount of savings, and an occasional user of rubber contraceptives, goes into a pharmacy, and not only does he buy two boxes of condoms, but he also acquires the address of the pharmacist, Bella Barlo, a single woman who is also getting on in years. Enter Shmuel Sprol, he too is a not-so-young bachelor, charming but unwell, who has inherited from his father a giant stock of condoms, and is now trying to unload them for cash.

Sprol hopes to sell the merchandise to Tzingerbei, who has fallen in love with Barlo. Barlo is enamored on the one hand with Tzingerbei’s savings, and on the other with Sprol charms. While Tzingerbei rejects Sprol’s offer to buy his stock of rubbers and live a life of pleasure and yearns only to win over Barlo, he is not prepared to offer her his savings without her giving him a sizable share in the pharmacy. Barlo refuses his offer and yearns for Sprol, who is indifferent to her. His conditions for agreeing to put his neck into the noose of marriage are too expensive, while his price for the stock of rubber is too high for Barlo, who wants to buy cheap in order to sell at a profit.

Can you find a way out of this mess?

Neither can the characters.

The play has been translated so far into French, Polish, and American English, and has been staged in new productions all over Europe.

Pictured from the debut of the play: Albert Cohen, Yosef Carmon and Zaharira Harifai | Photo by Yisrael Hermeti, courtesy of the Cameri Theatre archive