The Lamenters
When we see a picture of unimaginable grief – a picture of loneliness, of meagerness and misery, of the end of all things – what pops into our mind is the thought of God…!
Translated by: Jessica Cohen and Evan Fallenberg
Premiere:
2000
Directed by:
Ilan Ronen
Theatre:
The Cameri Theatre
Number of characters: 11
Subjects:
Old Age,
Death,
Illness,
Greek Mythology Adaptation
Costume and stage design: Rakefet Levi
Original music: Yossi Ben Nun
Choreography: Daniel Akilov
Light: Avi Yona Bueno
Participants: Dov Navon, Makram Huri, Gabi Amrani - the Dying patients; Asjer Tsarfati - Agamemnon; Meirav Gruber - Clytemnestra; Sandra Schonwald - Cassandra; Yossef Carmon - Orderly; Shabtai Konorti - New dying patient; Roni Halperin, Simon Krichli, Roman Krichli, Shai Feinberg, Boaz Rosenberg - Orderly's helpers
Choir: Efrat Elazar, Keren Hadar, Shiri Lee-Weiss, Limor Oved, Anat Eyni, Hagar Rish
Orchestra: Gury Agmon - saxophone; Yossi Ben Nun - piano; Roni Hollan - drums; Avner Yifat - contrabass; Vered Yaacov - flute; Shuky Wolfus - trumpet
In a room at a Kolkata hospital, three patients lie in one bed - waiting to die. Since they suffer in great pain, the staff decide to entertain them by performing the Greek tragedy, "Agamemnon's Suffering and Death". And so the patients become - and not of their own volition - not only spectators, but minor actors in a play they didn't choose.
Based on Aeschylus's classical play, the tragedy they enact tells the story of Agamemnon, King of Argos, who has returned home the victor after ten years at the Trojan war. His wife Clytemnestra, aided by her lover Aegisthus, murders him in the bath as revenge for his sacrificing their daughter, Iphigenia, before leaving for war. Then Clytemnestra goes on to murder Cassandra, Agamemnon's lover, who was brought as prisoner from Troy.
In time, one of the patients dies when a new one takes his place.