‘Until Death Brings Us Together’ play lights the dark - review

A young widow cleans the grave of her late husband during the yahrzeit of his passing. She is informed by the rabbi serving the cemetery that the one-year anniversary is meaningful, as the soul of the departed cannot rise to heaven if it is weighed down by the pain of the bereaved. Abigail (Shira Naor) soon receives a surprising email from beyond the grave read to her by her late husband’s best friend, Tomer (Doron Ben-David). Her partner loved her so much that he arranged for her to meet three available men, whom he considered good matches for her, one year after he is gone. This is the starting point of Until Death Brings Us Together, a new original production by Beersheba Theater.

Moving within a clear, precise set designed by Niv Manor, characters pace back and forth between a large mound of earth and a moon-like sphere in the heaven. Their encounters, arguments, and discussions – like ours in the real world – take place during the short time allocated above ground.

Built around an idea discussed by the late writer Nevo Ziv with his widow, Dafna Zilberg, who directed this play, and playwright Noa Lazar Keinan, the performance shows a remarkable sensitivity to language.

Abigail often employs sarcasm to push back against well-meaning intruders only to use similar phrases in the following scene. When one of her suitors, Tal (Ron Bitterman), explains to her that his divorce led to him speaking plainly and not holding back, she uses this waiver to be blunt to push back against her mother-in-law, Zillah (Dorit Lev Ari). When a schoolteacher (Oren Cohen) attempts to lead her and her son Noam (Avishai Levi) in an exercise titled “The Drawer of Emotions,” Abigail snaps and informs him he can lock this drawer and toss away the key.

Lev Ari is wonderful as the well-meaning yet overbearing mother. Her criticism of Abigail’s inability to water the succulents planted near her son’s grave gained a laughing approval from the audience. Cohen, who plays three roles in this production (the rabbi and Boaz, the second suitor), got many laughs as the teacher.

Everything in Israeli life functions

In Until Death Brings Us Together, everything in Israeli life functions. The teacher is caring, the grandmother is eager to help, Tal is able to make a living as a wood worker, and Abigail runs a home-based baking service. This is in contrast to Ziv’s play Kaban, offered at Habima three years ago, in which a corrupt IDF-employed psychologist (Yaakov Zada-Daniel) betrays the trust placed in him by the military, and his patient, due to an unchecked ego.

In that sense, this production is a halfway point between Kaban and Ziv’s family-oriented musical Euphoria, about a group of children invited to live in the happiest city on Earth. It touches pain, but gently. It is a mirror of Israeli life as we would like it to be.

The play is packed with technology. Abigail uses headphones to listen to her late husband’s recorded voice messages; he used Tinder to find the suitors for her during his illness; Noam speaks to a bot on his phone to answer all sorts of questions – among them – what happens to a body buried in the earth for one year?

Zilberg seems to have a special brilliance in fleshing out a theatrical presence we immediately accept as valid. Tal, a former hi-tech worker now-turned-carpenter, is a useful man to have around the house but has a paper-thin personality.

Levi, cast as a blunt teenager with new morbid interests, begins the show by literally riding loops around his now-single mother on a scooter. The scene when he finally removes his jacket (he is afraid to get skin cancer and die like his dad) during a surfing lesson would melt even the most cynical of hearts.

A cake baker, Abigail informs Tomer that people always have birthdays. This is a sad tiny truth. No matter whom we lose and how, someone else will blow the candles and the world will keep turning even as our own heart breaks.

Hebrew theater points its mythical starting point to The Dybbuk, a play about a departed soul unable to let go of a young woman about to marry another man. Roughly a century after it was shown in Moscow, this universal theme is explored in a lighthearted, exceptionally well-made Beersheba comedy. It is a refreshing production, done with love, and deserves notice.

Until Death Brings Us Together is a Beersheba Theater production. Hebrew only. Shows will be offered from Wednesday, October 10, 5 p.m. with the final one given on Tuesday, November 5, 8:30 p.m. NIS 220 per ticket at the box office, NIS 130 via online purchase. 41 Rager Street, Beersheba. Call *2690 to book or visit https://b7t.co.il/