Yay for Primi!
Nov. 14th, 2006 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semiotic_pirateA friend of mine is in the New York Times theater section. W00T for good reviews. I just hope that CoB and I will be able to get into the city before the run time ends.
November 14, 2006
THEATER REVIEW | 'JOB'S PASSION'
Job and Jesus Combine to Overcome
By ANITA GATES
There are bad days, and then there are bad days. As Job, a prosperous, gregarious man living in biblical times, is napping after a dinner party, messengers begin arriving.
One tells him that an earthquake has destroyed his iron mines in Lebanon. The next informs him that his shipyards in Alexandria have collapsed. “I’m going to go to the office and straighten everything out,” Job tells his guests. Luckily he has insurance on his holdings, through Caesar. Unfortunately a third messenger arrives, with news of a military coup and Caesar’s death. Then Job learns that all four of his children have died.
The biblical Job, faced with these disasters, agonized but never cursed God. The Job in Hanoch Levin's "Job’s Passion," now at Theater for the New City, quickly announces his conclusion that God does not exist. Although the play sometimes flaunts irreverence for irreverence’s sake (the vomit metaphor is particularly hideous), this dizzying array of images finds both humor and rich meaning in misery.
Mr. Levin, who was 55 when he died in 1999 , spent much of his career getting on the nerves of would-be censors in Israel, where he was born, lived and worked. His 1982 play, “The Patriot,” depicted a Jewish settler shooting a Palestinian. “You, Me and the Next War” (1968) questioned Israel’s self-congratulatory militaristic self-image, and “The Queen of the Bathtub” (1970) ridiculed Prime Minister Golda Meir.
In “Job’s Passion” (1981), which benefits from lively direction by David Paul Willinger and clever translation by Shay Azoulay , it may seem that Mr. Levin has gone to an awful lot of trouble just to declare God’s nonexistence. But the play is also an indictment of humanity. (If some entity created us, it wouldn’t necessarily want to stick around and take credit.) And the play suggests that persecuting people for their religious beliefs is both awful and inevitable.
Mr. Levin combines the stories of Job and Jesus, having Job (Primy Rivera in an excruciatingly brave performance) sentenced to death by a particularly painful method of impalement. So much for the nobility of suffering.
A character in the Felliniesque circus scene clarifies what may be Mr. Levin’s most heartfelt thought: “Don’t ask for a reason. Just observe the spectacle.”
"Job's Passion" runs through Dec. 3 at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, at Ninth Street, East Village; (212) 254-1109.
November 14, 2006
THEATER REVIEW | 'JOB'S PASSION'
Job and Jesus Combine to Overcome
By ANITA GATES
There are bad days, and then there are bad days. As Job, a prosperous, gregarious man living in biblical times, is napping after a dinner party, messengers begin arriving.
One tells him that an earthquake has destroyed his iron mines in Lebanon. The next informs him that his shipyards in Alexandria have collapsed. “I’m going to go to the office and straighten everything out,” Job tells his guests. Luckily he has insurance on his holdings, through Caesar. Unfortunately a third messenger arrives, with news of a military coup and Caesar’s death. Then Job learns that all four of his children have died.
The biblical Job, faced with these disasters, agonized but never cursed God. The Job in Hanoch Levin's "Job’s Passion," now at Theater for the New City, quickly announces his conclusion that God does not exist. Although the play sometimes flaunts irreverence for irreverence’s sake (the vomit metaphor is particularly hideous), this dizzying array of images finds both humor and rich meaning in misery.
Mr. Levin, who was 55 when he died in 1999 , spent much of his career getting on the nerves of would-be censors in Israel, where he was born, lived and worked. His 1982 play, “The Patriot,” depicted a Jewish settler shooting a Palestinian. “You, Me and the Next War” (1968) questioned Israel’s self-congratulatory militaristic self-image, and “The Queen of the Bathtub” (1970) ridiculed Prime Minister Golda Meir.
In “Job’s Passion” (1981), which benefits from lively direction by David Paul Willinger and clever translation by Shay Azoulay , it may seem that Mr. Levin has gone to an awful lot of trouble just to declare God’s nonexistence. But the play is also an indictment of humanity. (If some entity created us, it wouldn’t necessarily want to stick around and take credit.) And the play suggests that persecuting people for their religious beliefs is both awful and inevitable.
Mr. Levin combines the stories of Job and Jesus, having Job (Primy Rivera in an excruciatingly brave performance) sentenced to death by a particularly painful method of impalement. So much for the nobility of suffering.
A character in the Felliniesque circus scene clarifies what may be Mr. Levin’s most heartfelt thought: “Don’t ask for a reason. Just observe the spectacle.”
"Job's Passion" runs through Dec. 3 at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, at Ninth Street, East Village; (212) 254-1109.
