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The Schmooze

Hanoch Levin’s Jokes About Death

Crossposted from Haaretz

In the final scene of Hanoch Levin’s “The Suitcase Packers,” a comedy with eight funerals now revived at the Cameri, the surviving characters stand around “this cart” pulled by the gravedigger, holding the white-sheeted body of Henya Gerlenter. Her son Elhanan (Dror Keren, who has a Levinesque childish innocence) is possibly the only leading role; all others are supporting parts.

Image by Gadi Dagon

Here the usual eulogizer, Alberto (played by the clumsily charming Motti Katz) has died and — “This is how leaders emerge” — is replaced by Mottke Tsippori (played with ceaseless energy by Yoav Levy).

Mottke says: “…apart from hypochondria there had to be something else (in the deceased), things that didn’t get said, a life that didn’t get lived… God, you have given us funerals to remind us of our lives. Please don’t let us forget this cart and this sheet among the funerals.”

Read more at Haaretz.com

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