About the Project
The Tenant Haimovitz
A play for 8 actors written by Ariel Bronze
Co-Direction by marina beltov & Nataly Szylman
Duration of play: 70 minutes
Imagine a magical beach, the water is clear, the sun is caressing.
On your left lingers a line of elderly folk, on your right a huge factory coughs up black smoke.
All around, screams of pain shriek out of loudspeakers.
By your side are your crying Mother and Father.
A man sitting on your shoulders is peeing on your forehead. It tickles.
At your feet lays a beautiful woman who is tearing out your toenails, and behind you, sits your psychiatrist, yawning whilst asking you how you are feeling today.
So how are you feeling? Are you feeling at home?
The play, “The Tenant Haimovitz” is about the attempt of a young poet to remain true to himself and to his work, to survive in a world driven by interests that don’t serve him. He tries to fit into the system but the system tramples him.
In his first step toward starting his life, he decides to rent an apartment. The landlord takes advantage of his innocence and coaxes him into signing a contract. The new tenant doesn’t really mind the shabby look of the apartment; all he needs is a quiet place to write (and the price is right). But once the contract is signed, things start to go awry.
The tenant-poet tries to conjure up his muses, but, instead, out of the darkness come several apparitions to disturb him and interfere with his creative process. They demand his attention and expect him to behave according to their rules. They make it clear from the start that he is not alone; they are his new “roommates”.
Things deteriorate by the minute. The young poet loses control over the situation, while his new roommates relentlessly change the form of the place in which he lives. The apartment morphs into a beach, a government office, a mental health clinic, even his childhood home.
Each character represents a different aspect of society and forces him to change in order to fit in: a clerk at the Department of the Interior, who drowns the new tenant in bureaucratic red tape; a factory manager who demands that he fit into an assembly line; a rabbi, who tries to convince him to become religious; his dissatisfied parents; the doctors, who diagnose that he is mentally ill; and Citizen No. 1, who calls upon the poet to join the ranks and go off to war. Even the girl he falls in love with stands him up when their wedding ceremony turns into an exorcism.
The play’s interior world is an absurd and insane universe in which everything is exaggerated and overstated, but we are also exposed to the delicate inner workings of the tenant-poet, in moments of introversion and introspection. The work is paved with segments of movement and choreography that are a significant addition to the play.
Production Team
