Chefetz
A play in two acts
I feel bad, very bad, my heart pounds and gives me no peace, I am constantly sweating. I would willingly crumple into a little ball and roll under the cabinet. What really bothers me is my spine. It claims to be on my side, holding up my body, but in fact it denounces my head in public, does not let me crumple into be a little ball, ha ha, a little ball. I appeal to my spine: let my head droop, let me fall and roll, let, me, ha ha, down, ha ha. It will not let me—my enemy, a true enemy. I carry an enemy inside my own body.
Translated by: Jessica Cohen
Premiere:
1972
Directed by:
Oded Kotler
Theatre:
Haifa Municipal Theatre
Number of characters: 8
Subjects:
Relationships,
Desire,
Sex,
Family
In the weeks before their daughter Fogra's wedding, Teyglakh and Klemanopea head out to celebrate with her and her fiancée. Heffetz - their relative and perpetual sub-tenant - begins acting out against his landlords, hurt for hearing only now of the upcoming wedding. In return, all out war is declared, and Teyglakh and Klemanopea spend the following fortnight plaguing Heffetz with re-enactments from his own miserable history in an attempt to beat him down. When the morning of the wedding arrives, Heffetz breaks down and declares he will kill himself that very day. He invites all of his acquaintances to the suicide ritual: Teygalakh and Klemanopea, whose free will has by this point in the play been totally debased and supplanted by Fogra’s own; Hanna Cherlich, the weary waitress whose romantic inclinations towards Heffetz were rejected; Adash Bardash, Heffetz's feeble friend; Shookra, the local bully; and the newlyweds Fogra and Varsheviak.
Participants: Natan Meizler - Teyglakh; Miryam Gavrieli - Klemanopea; Liora Rivlin - Fogra; Ilan Toren - Varsheviak; Amnon Meskin - Heffetz; Mordechai Ben Zeev - Adash Bardash; Helen Kupilevitch - Hanna Cherlich; Gdalia Besser - Shookra
This work was translated to: Polish, French
French éditions Théâtrales, France (2011)
Polish ADIT Publishing, Poland (2015)