YAGIL ELIRAZ Director
Men's Business
Franz Xaver Kroetz (born 25 February 1946, Munich) is a German author, playwright, actor, and film director. His plays have been translated and performed internationally.
Kroetz is considered Germany's most popular contemporary dramatist of the seventies and early eighties. His plays from that period portray people who have been rendered speechless by their own social misery. Raging against the bunkrapcy of "enlightenment" and high culture, Koroetz brings, in a hyper-realistic style, characters that communicate (or miscommunicate) their physical needs, like food and sex and long silences, through their bodies rather than through clear high language.
Men's Business brings together two low status characters: Martha, a butcher lady, and Auto, a construction worker. Martha invites Auto to a romantic dinner. She is desperate to find true love, but he, after seeing her in her store, just wants to get laid. Is there a chance that Auto will fall in love and commit himself to Martha? How far is Martha willing to go in order to win Auto’s love? What starts as caviar and candlelight rapidly evolves to a dangerous relationship of attraction and rejection, in which both of them tests one another’s boundaries, until the surprising yet inevitable end.
-- Tmu-na Theater, Tel Aviv, March 2009
Reviews
“First of all, kudos to director Yagil Eliraz, both for the wonderfully realistic direction of the play and for the brilliant ‘cinematic’ solution at the end of the play. But the main achievement and power of ‘Men’s Business’ (and this, by the way, is also part of the director’s achievement) is the wonderful and powerful work, full of strength and passion, of the two actors.” Globes
“The main strength of the play, directed by Yagil Eliraz, is the impressive restraint of its two actors […] A small and worthy play, due to the intensive acting of the two, who with intelligent direction present a fascinating theatrical contradiction and perfect orchestration.” Ma’ariv
“Yagil Eliraz wrapped this hyper-realistic play in a stylized frame… so that the coarse violence is enclosed in a kitsch-cultural framework that emphasizes it.” Ha’Aretz
“The director gives the audience an experience of the kind that we usually don’t seek in the theater: discomfort […] A fascinating performance, which allows you to focus on the really important thing when you go to the theater: the drama.” Israel Post
“Yagil Eliraz designed the play as a series of very realistic encounters, but in a stylized layout, which gives some of the scenes poetic depth despite their decisive callousness.” HaBama online
Credits
Play by: Franz Xaver Kroetz
Translation: Shimon Levy
Set and Costume design: Dana TSarfaty
Original Music: Roy Yarkoni
Light Design: Erez Schwarzsbaum
Production Manager: Mickey Yonas
Actors: Nisso Khavia, Sara Von Schwarze