Among the countless adaptations of Leo Tolstoy’s classic, this adaptation occupies a special place, telling the well-known story through actions rather than words.
Light and shadow are present at the same time in Anna brought to life by Efrat Ben-Tzur. Photo: Alexander Khanin
In the seemingly gloomy and dark world full of shadows, the light also shines following the concept of the Lithuanian director. Eternal values such as love and divine providence give meaning to life and strength to struggle. Tuminas’ direction – thanks to the humor that often counterpoints the serious events – is imbued with the hope conveyed by the following closing words of Tolstoy’s novel:
My whole life, regardless of what may happen to me […] it is full of the undoubted meaning of good, with which it is in my power to fill it.
The Gesher Theater was founded in 1991 by the director Yevgeny Arje, with a Russian theater company that immigrated from Moscow to Israel. In the beginning, they operated as a bilingual theater, staging their plays in both Hebrew and Russian. Nowadays, they play exclusively in Hebrew, but they still maintain a close relationship with the Russian cultural heritage. True to its name, which means bridge in Hebrew, the Gesher Theater wants to be an integrating force in Israel’s multicultural society in terms of both age groups and peoples. That is why, in addition to the works of their own Israeli authors, they also stage many world literary classics.
The director of the play is Lithuanian native Rimas Tuminas, who died barely a month ago, on March 6. The world-renowned artist graduated from the directing department of the Moscow State College of Theater Arts. Among Tolstoy’s immortal classics, Anna Karenina was not the first one he dreamed up for the stage: the performance based on the novel War and Peace was well received by both the profession and the audience.
He turns to the classics with palpable love and respect, but his productions rich in references and symbols, which encompass the entire theatrical spectrum, go beyond the original literary works.
Anna, who was brought to life by actress Efrat Ben-Tzur, does not appear on stage as a victim of circumstances in Tuminas’s directorial perception. She is not just a young woman who was forced to marry a man much older than her, and who is now trying to break free from this captivity. Both his fate and his character become much more complex than this. It unites the WOMAN: the tender mother, the doting wife and the extremely jealous lover. While he can be generous and kind to others, he can sometimes be cruel to the extreme. In his complex personality, light and shadow, pain and joy are present at the same time. As he himself puts it: “He should be killed. There are two women in me.”
As a director, Rimas Tuminas is brilliantly able to condense complex messages into simple movements. Its characters often express their thoughts and feelings with the help of actions rather than words. Right at the beginning of the work, this type of expression appears in the allegorical dialogue between Sztyiva, played by Alon Friedman, and Levin, played by Miki Leon, who is more thoughtful, calm and persistent, but at the same time less confident.
But Anna also shows the young and naive Kitty, played by Roni Einav, by stealing the hummingbird and then returning it, i.e. by actions, that if she wants, she can seduce Levin from her just as she did Vronsky at that time.
Another memorable example of conversation with actions is how Kitti gives Levin slippers after the wedding and not only furnishes them, but transforms their now shared home almost beyond recognition. The stage scenery, which is otherwise almost completely bare, reminiscent of a railway waiting room with its harsh benches, is filled with color and life.
Actions also speak in the scene when Levin, who longs for a simple, peaceful life, and his older brother Sergej, played by Yuval Yanai, who is passionate about socialist ideals, at the end of a philosophical confrontation, look up and down at the light of hope, love and faith that gives meaning to life. , a lamp also symbolizing the search for eternal truths.
Miki Leon (Levin) and Roni Einav (Kitti). Photo: Sergey Demyanchuk
In the performance of the Gesher Theater, in addition to allusions – for example, when Anna listens to an excerpt from Puccini’s Miss Butterfly in the scene set in the opera house – the parallels and contrasts appearing in the original literary work also play an important role. Women’s destinies can also be seen in relation to each other through Anna, Kitti and Dolly, played by Karin Seruya, who, in Rimas Tuminas’ concept, stands by her unfaithful husband, Sztyiva, more out of compulsion than out of love.
Unlike Dolly, Anna breaks out of the shackles and does not suppress her emotions. He succumbs to the seduction of Vronsky, a military officer with a determined, charming demeanor, more suitable for his age, brought to life by Avi Azoulay. However, he cannot find the happiness that he wants to build on the ruins of his previous life. Her husband, Karenin, the superficial, aging official who only cares about appearance and behavior appropriate to social status – who appears on the stage as a sufficiently petty-bourgeois figure in Gil Frank’s performance – is unable to arouse fire and passion. She would settle for respect, which Anna says was invented to cover the empty space where love should be. However, he fails to find this place on Vronsky’s side either.
Directed by Rimas Tuminas it doesn’t want to present a single truth, it doesn’t call anyone guilty, and it doesn’t slap the viewers’ own guilt in the face. Rather, it places the emphasis on forgiveness and the idea that happiness should be constantly strived for, even if we may never achieve it, and if it may not even exist.
