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Hard Love
By Motti Lerner
Directed by Jeffery West
Produced by Theatre Or
At Victory Gardens Theater
2257 N. Lincoln
Chicago, IL
Call 773-871-3000, tickets $30 - $35
Wednesday through Friday at 7:30 PM
Saturday at 8 PM
Sunday at 2:30 PM
Running time is 1 hour 50 minutes with intermission
Through August 20, 2006
Religious extremism and love conflict in powerful Israeli play
North Carolina’s Theatre Or has brought Israeli playwright Matti Lerner’s Hard Love to Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre. This two hander tells the moving, thought provoking story of two young ultra-Orthodox newlyweds who are forced to divorce when the husband turns his back on his Jewish religion.
We meet Hannah (Diane Gilboa) and Zvi (Jeffrey Blair Cornell) twenty five years later when Hannah summons Levi to the Me’ah She’arim section of Jerusalem when their children (from each second marriage) fall in love—a real problem when the boy is a secular humanist Jew and the girl is from ultra-Orthodox beliefs. The play points out the fact that Israelis have many ranges of religious beliefs and practices.
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Hannah and Levi have not seen nor spoken in more than twenty five years. Hannah must follow the strict rules and customs of the ultra-Orthodox which, among other rules, doesn’t allow her to either touch Levi or look directly at him since he was shunned. Both spare about the past, each trying to justify and excuse their behavior. Sparks do eventually fly as Levi, now a non-believing humanist novelist expresses that he still loves Hannah and would love to have her back. She moves from slapping Levi in the face to richly embracing him in an overwhelming explosion of passion bottled up for years. Act one outlines the difference from being ultra-Orthodox Jewish and being a secular humanist. The religious extremist has so many rules for everything in life, especially limiting the freedom of woman, that Hannah appears as both devout and sad. Lerner aptly demonstrates how fundamentalist religious traditions/rules are detrimental to women. When Hannah’s older second husband dies, she is freed to re-marry Levi.
Act two, set in Tel Aviv at Levi’s apartment two and a half months later, finds Hannah surprising Levi with a visit. She throws herself at him in a sensual manner. Levi is taken back since they did have sex on his visit to Jerusalem but why is she so sensual now? She explains that the rabbi’s have ruled that she can re-marry Levi and that she now is in favor of the children marrying. Levi is now against the kid’s marriage since his son is now practicing ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
When Hannah tells Levi she’s pregnant, he is first joyful then suspicious of her. Is she merely looking for a father for her baby or does she really love him? Hannah tells Levi that she’ll stay following most of the Orthodox traditions but he can live his present secular life style. Levi demands that in order for him to marry her the house must be free from God. He believes that God (religion) will eventually destroy the proposed marriage just like it did their first marriage. The ending is plausible and surprising.
Of course, the above is a general outline of the complicated twists Lerner expounds. This is an excellently moving and well acted work that contains a masterful performance by Diane Gilboa.
The struggle to believe in God verses denying Him and the stiflingly cruel anti-female rules of extreme fundamentalist religion are dramatically presented. The conflict between lovers from religious versus secular backgrounds is a source of conflict in Israel as in many countries. Lerner outlines these conflicts in human terms. This play will get the debate going.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: August 6, 2006
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