{"id":13446,"date":"2011-07-05T22:28:43","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T05:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=13446"},"modified":"2013-10-12T02:06:52","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T09:06:52","slug":"queen-of-the-bathtub-the-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=13446","title":{"rendered":"Queen of the Bathtub – the Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Israel Gurion\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A tender, unsentimental, hard-rocking tribute to playwright Hanoch Levin and composer Zohar Levy took place at Tmuna Theatre, on Saturday, July 3, 2011. Levin\u2019s controversial cabaret \u201cQueen of the Bathtub\u201d directed by his brother David Levin, with music composed by Zohar Levy, premiered in 1970, and was taken off the stage after only 19 performances.<\/p>\n

But the songs remain, achingly relevant in their harsh beauty. Levin\u2019s scathing wit reveals the perversion of a life in which war is a routine matter. A voice of daring lucidity, the power of Levin\u2019s lyrics demands to be heard, and through Levy\u2019s music they will rock on forever. Although a recording had been made at the time by Zohar Levy with Tiki Dayan and Israel Gurion, the record almost immediately became a collector\u2019s item, as did a new CD released by the Third Ear.<\/p>\n

The concert at Tmuna was a once in a lifetime experience, the crowd an amazing mix of different worlds and people \u2013 those who were \u201cthere\u201d when it all happened, and those who were born decades after. Musically produced by Stav Ben Shachar, and produced by Guy Hajaj<\/a>, the concerts at Tmuna brought the songs back to the world, performed by contemporary Israeli musicians Noam Inbar<\/a>, Zeev Tene<\/a>, Yehu Yaron<\/a>, Ruth Dolores Weiss<\/a>, Talia Eliav<\/a>, Kriminal Project<\/a> and one of the performers from the original cast -Israel Gurion. The evening performance was full of as many people as could legally crowd into the bar at Tmuna, all fortunate enough to be moved and honored by the presence of revolutionary rocker, drummer and composer Zohar Levy.<\/p>\n

The songs were performed in order of their performance in Queen of the Bathtub. A brief description of the concert with my rough translations follows, based on notes taken at the concert \u2013 in other words, a very rough sketch.<\/p>\n

Israel Gurion opened the concert with the song \u201cAnshei Beseder\u201d \u2013 The OK people who release \u201cblue farts of self-satisfaction into the night.\u201d Apparently, not much has changed in the past 40 years, anyone who has been in Israel longer than half an hour will have heard someone say \u201cit will be OK\u201d (\u05d9\u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 \u05d1\u05e1\u05d3\u05e8). Gurion was accompanied by Stav Ben Shachar on drums, Amir Zuskovitch and Oded Schecter on guitars and a chorus \u2013 Tomer Damsky (assistant producer), Kami Meltz and Merav Schaham (who designed the flyer for the concert).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Noam Inbar\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Noam Inbar sang \u201cIt was at the age of Three,\u201d saying \u201cI lost my youth on the way from nursery school to the bomb shelter\u201d and warning babies, \u201cyour finest hour is almost past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yehu Yaron in \u201cMy ghetto\u201d sang, \u201cwhen I tried to fix my nose I discovered that I have a tail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Nadia and Anton Kucher\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anton and Nadia Kucher of Kriminal Project sang \u201cThe Brothers Chembalulu\u201d \u2013 \u201conce every 10 years they create a war for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each song was given a different feel and approach by the artists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ruth Dolores Weiss\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Ruth Dolores Weiss\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ruth Dolores Weiss moved from quiet restraint to a roar in \u201cBeautiful Moments\u201d \u2013\u201cBetween one battle and another you may see something in the newspaper about a man who went for a walk, suddenly felt bad and collapsed in the street or a man who was depressed and jumped off a building for personal reasons\u2026 there are still beautiful moments, there is still hope, there is still faith, it will comfort us\u2026these everyday deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomer, Kami and Merav on flute belted out an upbeat \u201cTen Commandments,\u201d getting rid of them one after another.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Zeev Tene\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zeev Tene, rebel with a cause, came out and challenged the audience, saying \u201cAre you enjoying yourselves? That wasn\u2019t the idea. You should be suffering.\u201d He sang \u201cA Promise,\u201d \u2013 \u201cI promise you blood and tears and I am a man of my word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Zeev Tene\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A stylish Talia Eliav sang \u201cI met a shy cannon\u201d \u2013 who confessed to “feeling very uncomfortable about shooting everyone.”<\/p>\n

“When You Stand Over My Grave\u201d is an unforgettable song, written in the voice of a dead soldier singing to his father \u2013 \u201cDon\u2019t say that you made a sacrifice father, I was the one who made a sacrifice\u2026then ask my forgiveness father.\u201d Israel Gurion\u2019s performance was heartfelt and stirring.<\/p>\n

Talia Eliav returned to the stage with \u201cBut the Kingdom is Whole,\u201d and Noam Inbar sang the closing song of the show, \u201cLick Brothers Lick\u201d \u2013 \u201click your fingers, lick them, the ones you haven\u2019t lost in a war.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second part of the evening was composed of a selection of Hanoch Levin\u2019s songs, performed by the participating musicians, with the addition of Haim Rachmani<\/a> and Talik Adir<\/a> who gave an eclectic rendition of a song that embodies the Levin sensibility: \u201cWhen I am big I will be small, small and miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n

An inspired initiative, one can only hope that this encounter between the songs and musicians is just the beginning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A tender, unsentimental, hard-rocking tribute to playwright Hanoch Levin and composer Zohar Levy took place at Tmuna Theatre, on Saturday, July 3, 2011. Levin\u2019s controversial cabaret \u201cQueen of the Bathtub\u201d directed by his brother David Levin, with music composed by Zohar Levy, premiered in 1970, and was taken off the stage after only 19 performances. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13446","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=13446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}