Dolan Cummings
posted 13 June 2007

It is refreshing to see something from Israel on in London that isn’t about the Arab-Israeli conflict, human rights abuses, or even ‘notions of identity’. Ya'akobi and Leidental is about two men in pursuit of a woman with a big arse. This is not what most people think of as Jewish humour, but then if you’ll excuse my skirting notions of identity, some things are universal.

Unfortunately the play itself is not one of them. Despite three likeable performances from Cally Lawrence, Peter vanDoorn, and Stephen Connery-Brown (four including the pianist), Ya’akobi and Leidental is strictly for people who enjoy bawdy, even kitsch, musical comedy. For much of the play the three characters follow each other around the louche set with fixed grins, occasionally bursting into song, in what too often seems like a slowed-down Benny Hill sketch. I guess this sort of thing is an acquired taste. Of course, one simply has to enter into the spirit of such things, but this is made all the harder because what is engaging about the play is so jarringly at odds with its form. To wit: it is unexpectedly philosophical.

Ya’akobi and Leidental is by the late Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin, and was first performed in 1972 in Tel Aviv. Presumably the reason Levin is remembered, and the reason director Ariella Eshed and Tik-sho-ret Theatre Company have chosen to revive the play, is that his work is infused with a worldly wisdom and an engagingly quizzical temperament. Thus, Ya’akobi and Leidental are constantly reflecting on their own behaviour, and are never under any illusions about the absurdity of their actions; but they carry on regardless. Both desperately pursue Big Tush when she seems to be unattainable, but get all ambivalent when she seems to be available. Then they start wondering about life and death.

At one point Ya’akobi convinces Leidental to declare himself miserable, which Leidental does enthusiastically, embracing his misery with glee until he discovers that Ya’akobi is no happier, which seems like a kind of betrayal. This seems to me promising material for a short story, perhaps, but this is a musical comedy, and all the while the characters are gurning and intermittently bursting into song. Perhaps this is meant to seem theatrically grotesque and emphasise the dark absurdity of the story. Perhaps it does do those things, but unfortunately this sits uneasily with the show’s bid to be entertainingly kitsch. The result is a bit like watching Waiting for Godot performed by pole dancers, which is rather worse if you’re not really into pole dancers.

Till 23 June 2007