The Labor of Life: Selected Plays

by Hanoch Levin, Barbara Harshav (Translator), Freddie Rokem (Introduction)

Israeli playwright and director Hanoch Levin was one of the most original and innovative writers of his generation. Although Levin is familiar within the Israeli cultural context―and despite the steadily growing stream of literary and theatrical research of his oeuvre ―there are few resources on his work available outside of Israel. The present volume, containing a selection of ten of his plays, is the first comprehensive effort to present this unique playwright and director to a broad readership. Levin's artistic credo was based on a constant urge to criticize Israeli society and its mainstream ideology while simultaneously confronting the basic human and existential issues of life and death. A whole generation of Israeli theater audiences has grown up on Levin's performances with all their paradoxical complexities. At this point, just a few years after his death from cancer in 1999 at the age of 56, it may not be possible to evaluate the full impact of his work. But this volume will contribute significantly to scholarship in this direction and to the appreciation of Levin's unique style.

Genres: Theatre, Plays

352 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2003

About the author

Hanoch Levin (1943-1999), one of Israel`s leading dramatists, was born in Tel Aviv. He grew up in a religious home in the Neve Shaanan neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv. As a child, he attended the Yavetz State Religious School. In the 1950s, his brother, David, who was nine years older than him, worked as an assistant director at the Cameri Theater. Hanoch attended Zeitlin Religious High School in Tel Aviv. After ninth grade, he left school to help support the family. He worked as a messenger boy for the Herut company and took classes at a night school for working youth at the Ironi Aleph middle school. There he joined a drama club. After serving his compulsory military duty, Levin began to study philosophy and Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv University (1964-1967).
At first he wrote poetry, but later concentrated on the theater. He became resident playwright of the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv and also worked with Habimah, Israel`s national theater.
Levin wrote 50 plays, 34 of which have been staged. His work includes comedies, tragedies and satiric cabarets, most of which he directed himself. In addition, he published five books of short stories and poems and a book for children. He received numerous theater awards both in Israel and abroad - most notably at the Edinburgh Festival -and his plays have been staged around the world. Levin was awarded the Bialik Prize in 1994.

Reviews

[Jackson Morgan]

THE TORMENTS OF JOB

[Lukas Sotola]

Some of the most powerful drama I’ve read in a minute. Video on some of these plays forthcoming!