{"id":12092,"date":"2011-05-02T20:39:06","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T03:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=12092"},"modified":"2011-05-04T11:53:05","modified_gmt":"2011-05-04T18:53:05","slug":"les-souffrances-de-job-directed-by-laurent-brethome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=12092","title":{"rendered":"“Les Souffrances de Job” Directed by Laurent Brethome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Job\/Photo: Llabres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even before the actors take to the stage, the visual impact of Laurent Brethome\u2019s production of Hanoch Levin\u2019s Les Souffrances de Job is strong. A long, empty white banquet table stands towards the back, and an array of plastic bottles covers the floor \u2013 testimony to the cult of transience and excess. Enter Job (Philippe Sire), a proper representative of affluent society, complete with bow tie, who asks \u201cWhat is a satiated man?\u00a0 He is finished, lost. What more can he hope for?\u201d Yet the relentless passage of time will inevitably relieve him of this burden of over-abundance; render him light, empty and hungry for more.<\/p>\n

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The beggars\/Photo: Llabres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once Job and his guests have had their fill of the feast, the beggars enter to consume the remains, but even the beggars have their own hierarchy: first beggars, then beggars of beggars, then last of all, the beggar of all beggars. Brethome\u2019s rendition of this procession towards nothingness is striking. Hands emerge suddenly from the banquet table, reaching up, with one beggar seen naked from the waist up, speaking for the rest.\u00a0 The second round of beggars are at first represented by one hand, with one beggar\u2019s head peeking out; then all five heads pop up and speak. The ultimate beggar walks out, covered entirely in what appears to be dark mud. There aren\u2019t even any bones left for her, but that\u2019s all right \u2013 she doesn\u2019t have any teeth. Yet her presence is beautiful, the movements of her dark body, the delicate gestures of her hands recall classical Greek sculptures, and her role is, in some sense, that of a prophetic chorus. Resigned to wait until someone vomits so that she can drink those ghastly remnants, she exits, singing, cheerful in her affirmation that sooner or later, someone is bound to vomit.<\/p>\n

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The last of the beggars\/Photo: Llabres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is a constant tension between excess and deprivation \u2013 Job indeed receives more and more as the play unfolds, accumulating losses: his wealth, his children, and ultimately, his life. Levin\u2019s stark poetry with its harsh precision and witty assessment of human existence is given a sensual, aesthetic expression in Brethome\u2019s interpretation. Brethome employs minimal means \u2013 plastic bottles filled with paint \u2013 to create a brightly colored, symbolic representation of Job\u2019s loss and suffering. The play is imbued with a sense of ceremony and ritual. Yet the references are not necessarily those an Israeli audience would tend to associate with Levin\u2019s work, or with the story of Job, for example, when Job cradles the dead body of his son, their figures evoke the image of the Piet\u00e0.<\/p>\n

Each new pain displaces the previous loss, survival is the name of the game and almost everything, even a dying man, has the potential to become a lucrative commodity, a spectacle in a grotesque cabaret. Brethome and Le Menteur Volontaire convey a contemporary sensibility to Levin\u2019s work in this production, capturing the cruelty, evanescence, and vulnerability of our lives with beauty and humor.<\/p>\n

Les Souffrances de Job by Hanoch Levin, directed by Laurent Brethome and performed by Le Menteur Volontaire Theatre will be performed May, 3, & 4 at 20:30, The Cameri Theatre, 19 Shaul Hamelech Street, Tel Aviv. Tickets: 03-6060900.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even before the actors take to the stage, the visual impact of Laurent Brethome\u2019s production of Hanoch Levin\u2019s Les Souffrances de Job is strong. A long, empty white banquet table stands towards the back, and an array of plastic bottles covers the floor \u2013 testimony to the cult of transience and excess. Enter Job (Philippe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}