The auditorium of Haifa's Leo Baeck School resounded with applause as three young women last night stood on the stage, bowing to the audience at the end of the school's production of Anat Gov's play, "Best Friends."
Marina Katzman, pale, with a smile of great relief, took her bow along with the other actresses. Some of the audience had tears in their eyes. Marina's parents, Alexander and Elena, had a hard time hiding their emotions. Marina Katzman had succeeded in dealing with a tough task - at age 24, while focused on completing her degree in industrial engineering and management at Haifa's Technion, she took to a high school stage, surrounded by five 17-year-old girls, to play a part she had rehearsed just three weeks. Marina agreed to take the place of her sister Elizabeth (Liz) who died one month ago in a terror attack. Marina never doubted for a moment that it was her job to play her sister's part.
At the Leo Baeck High School, they called Liz Katzman "Snow White." Katzman, a 12th-grade theater student, was a beautiful 17-year-old with startling green eyes, white skin and black hair that fell to her waist.
On Wednesday, March 5th, at 2:15 P.M., Liz was killed along with 16 other people in the terrorist attack on the no. 37 bus on Haifa's Moriah Boulevard. Yesterday, Liz was supposed to take her theater studies exam. The exam, the culmination of seven hours of studies a week over the course of three years, was a theatrical production. Students are tested on all aspects - acting, production, direction, costumes and music.
A team of six girls, of which Liz was one, chose to put on "Best Friends," a show still running at the Cameri Theater, written by Anat Gov and directed by Edna Mazia. The show tells the story of three years in the lives of Lili, Tirza and Sophie, four women in their early 40s, who meet after 20 years to try and figure out what caused their relationship to collapse. Using flashbacks, the women return to charged moments from their past - high school, romances, and their big fight.
Three students were to play the older women, three other students were to play the women in their younger flashback sequences. Liz chose to play the young Lili. Liz acted together with Roni Livneh and Chen Broeder.
It is still not clear what exactly Liz was doing that fateful day on bus no. 37 which exploded several stops after the station where she got off every day on her way to her home in downtown Carmel. Her friends and family suspect Liz was on her way to look for more costumes for the characters to be played by her and her friends.
On the seat next to Liz sat Tal Karman, a childhood friend who apparently went to help her look for costumes; she too was killed.
"The terror attack shattered the theater department," said theater coordinator Odeda Shaked. "The day after, we sat and talked. Roni and Chen, Liz's best friends, said they didn't feel there was any reason to continue with the production and were giving up the program. We thought about what to do. There was an idea to try to ask an actress from the Cameri who had played Liz's role to come and help, but we didn't even dare to try. Then Chen and Roni turned to Marina."
The Katzman family immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Liz's father, Alex, works as a material engineering researcher at the Technion and her mother, Elena, works in marketing. Marina got married three months ago. At the wedding, Liz sang a special song in the couple's honor. Light-haired Marina was the ambitious realist, while black-haired Liz was very spiritual, but no less ambitious. They were very similar, it is said at Leo Baeck, in their striving for perfection.
"I didn't hesitate for a moment to take on the role," Marina says. "I was very happy and saw this as a great honor. I never doubted that this would succeed. I was certain that this was the right thing to do." She also had the full support of her parents.
Lacking any theatrical experience ("Aside from an English play in second grade"), Marina showed up for rehearsals three weeks ago with students seven years younger than herself. She amazed the others by knowing all her lines by heart right at her first rehearsal.
"She got into the role very quickly," said Roni Livneh. "There were no technical problems, but there were great emotional difficulties to suddenly act with our friend's sister."
Among the students and parents yesterday sat an examiner from the Education Ministry writing down grades.
Yesterday afternoon, general rehearsals were held for all three plays set to be performed by the theater department. After rehearsals, the theater department put on their regular clothes, and the students and teachers got on a bus to the Haifa cemetery to attend a memorial marking one month since Liz Katzman's death.
At nine in the evening, Marina took to the stage. Her father Alex gripped a video camera that he did not lower from his eye the entire performance. Mother Elena was focused only on her daughter. Twice, her eyes clouded with sadness - once when the character Marina played took to the stage in a brilliant wedding gown and then in the final scene when the hall was darkened and the song "Que cera cera?" was played.
As the show ended and the curtain came down, the tension and sadness could finally be seen on Marina's face. "I don't think the role taught me more about Liz," she said. "I learned many new things about her from the work itself and from being with her friends.
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