It has dawned on Yacobi that he was born to live. So he decides to break off his friendship - officially and permanently - with his best friend David Leidenthal. He thinks David's existence is an obstacle to this bubbling flow that is pulling him. In a wink of an eye he meets the voluptuous Ruth Chahach. She claims to be a pianist and dreams secretly of finding a man whom she can dominate. He can only see a perfect marriage of mind and matter, and persuades himself that he has found the ideal woman, the one who, at his funeral, will follow his coffin. The day of the wedding, Leidenthal offers himself to them as their marriage gift. By nature a faithful and devoted servant, he will try hard to suffer in order that the couple may enjoy every moment. Can the misery of one be a guarantee of happiness of the other ? Can one hope, in a game of humiliator/humiliated where the positions continually reverse, to overcome one's basic incapacity to live ? Is failure unavoidable ? A master in the art of handling the fierce humour that is in despair, the late Hanokh Levin, who died last year, one of the most brilliant Israeli writers, weaves with unrelenting originality, a fable where cruelty and triviality aspire towards an inaccessible sublimation and where the profoundly human characters, in their pathetic attempts to exist, are mirror of ourselves
Distribution
stage direction Michel Didym
French script : Laurence Sendrowicz
Music : Johann Riche, Philippe Thibault, Alexandre Authelain
artistic collaboration : Cécile Backès
cast : Christine Murillo, Philippe Faure, Charlie Nelson
Production
production : L'Hippodrome de Douai-scène nationale, Centre dramatique de Normandie-Comédie de Caen, Parc et Grande Halle de la Villette-Cabaret sauvage, Compagnie Boomerang subventionnée par la DRAC de Lorraine, le conseil régional de Lorraine et la Ville de Metz
avec le soutien du : Festival d'Avignon
avec le concours de : l'Adami et de la SPEDIDAM
Yacobi et Leidenthal est édité par : le Théâtre des Treize Vents, à l'initiative du Centre international de Traduction théâtrale-Maison Antoine-Vitez
Remerciements : Pierre Walfiz, Label Bleu, l'Apostrophe-scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise, le Théâtre du Campagnol, Théâtre Ouvert-centre dramatique national de création, le service culturel de l'Ambassade d'Israël en France
La Mousson d'été-Méditerranée a présenté ce texte en lecture à : l'Abbaye des Prémontrés, Pont-à-Mousson (Meurthe et Moselle)
édition : CITT - Maison Antoine-Vitez