Caviar and Lentils is one of those plays that has half the audience laughing non-stop, and the other half staring and wondering: what’s so funny? Written by Giulio Scarnicci and Renzo Tarabusi, and adapted to Hebrew by the legendary Nissim Aloni, the play follows the merry adventures of a family of con-artists.
Director Moni Moshonov has a knack for comedy, complemented here by a talented cast. Moshonov himself, Avi Kushnir, Yevgenia Dodina, Sandra Sade, Gassan Abbas, Yaniv Gelfgott and the rest of the gang are all in good form. The play begins with a hilarious premise: Salvatore (Moshonov), patriarch of the motley crew, supports the family by crashing weddings, filling his trick pockets with food to be sold the next day by his wife Valeria (Dodina). The plot thickens when attending a wedding disguised as a Colonel, he rallies a Countess to set up a charity to support indigent families – first and foremost – his own.
It’s a comedy of situations and silliness, entertaining enough, but not quite the quality of caviar, nor the hearty nutrition of lentils. Yevgenia Dodina is a wonderful actress, any stage she graces is fortunate to have her presence, yet perhaps less suited for this type of broad comedy. Some of her most interesting moments here are when she is on the margins of the action, the nuance and subtlety of her expression conveying the potential depths of her range.
While not quite filling or fulfilling, it does make for a fun evening. My favorite scene is the wonderful entrance of Roberto (Yaniv Helfgott) – kudos to Zahi Patish – that sends the family into a wild, wacky frenzy of dance in a moment of comic absurdity.
