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The Gospel According to Hanoch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Shimon Levy
Shimon Levy
Affiliation:
Shimon LevyLectures in the Theatre Arts Deparment, Tel Aviv University
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Extract

Hanoch Levin, born 1943, is one of Israel's best known and most widely performed playwrights, and the author of some 20 strikingly morbid plays (as well as numerous short stories and many beautiful lyrics). Levin's drama has proved to be both an artistic and a commercial success. His political cabaret shows You, I and the Next War (1968) and Queen of the Bathtub (1970), ridiculed the self-righteous complacency of Israeli society after the overwhelming victory of the Six Day War in 1967. Levin, like the slave in triumphal processions of ancient Rome, stood behind hubrisridden Israel, whispering ‘memento mori’, and so, quite naturally, caused a local scandal. Levin mocks highly esteemed army generals, and he uses (or abuses) the sacred myth of the Akeda, the binding of Isaac, when he is about to be offered as a sacrifice by Abraham (Genesis 22): ‘Dear father, when you stand by my grave … do not be too proud … and ask me to forgive you’, says dead Isaac, a ‘live’ metaphor for the blood spilt in vain, in Levin's sacrilegious version. The Israeli censor found it necessary to ban The Patriot (1983), a reaction to the stupidity and futility of the Lebanon War, until some modifications were entered.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Summer 1988 , pp. 146 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1988

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References

Notes

1. Levin, Hanoch, What Does The Bird Care? (Tel Aviv, Siman Keria and Hakibbutz Hame'uchad, 1987), p. 92.Google Scholar

2. Ofrat, Gideon, Israeli Drama (Tel Aviv, Cherikover, 1975), p. 233.Google Scholar

3. Sachs, Arieh, Introduction to the English Version of Yaakobi and Leidental (Tel Aviv, Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, 1979), p. 6.Google Scholar

4. Shoham, Chaim, Admetus and Pozna Want to Live, Alei Siach vol. 24 (1986), p. 29–37.Google Scholar

5. Zach, Nathan, Air Lines (Tel Aviv, Ketter, 1983), p. 11ff.Google Scholar

6. Miron, Dan, On ‘The Sorrows of Job’ (Tel Aviv, Kameri Theatre Programme, 04 1981).Google Scholar

7. Driver, S. R., An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Cleveland and New York, Meridian Books, 1967), p. 408.Google Scholar

8. Leibowitz, Yeshayahu, Judaism, Jewish People and the State of Israel (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Schoken, 1975), p. 330.Google Scholar