Subscribe to Print Edition | Thu., July 09, 2009 Tamuz 17, 5769 | | Israel Time: 23:23 (EST+7)
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Best friends
By Zipi Shohat
Tags: Israel News, Cameri Theater

"A Warm Family," the Cameri Theater's latest production, written by Anat Gov and directed by Edna Mazya, is a bittersweet comedy, that reflects an amusing if sometimes painful image of the Israeli family. The marvelous Rivka Michaeli plays the lead role of the mother, who cannot bear the news that her daughter will miss the Passover seder, a Job-like pronouncement that causes all sorts of demons to emerge. It is the best play Gov has written to date, and with Mazya's direction, the audience gets a brilliant show, both funny and moving.

Mazya and Gov began their professional collaboration at the Cameri a decade ago. Some of the theater's biggest hits are the fruit of their work: "Best Friends" ran for 700 performances amd told the story of three female friends from their teens to womanhood, "Lysistrata 2000" for 500. "House Husband" (about a retired pilot who drives his family nuts) and last year's "Oh God" (in which the Almighty goes into therapy) have enjoyed 558 and 230 performances, respectively, and are still part of the repertory. The demand for tickets to "A Warm Family" is so great that 250 shows were sold to theater subscribers around the country before the play even had a chance to debut.

What is the secret of your success?
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Gov: "If there is such a thing as a secret - because you never know what will succeed - I can say that our work process is painstaking. We try to be as meticulous as possible about the truth. If you arrive at a particular truth, everyone identifies with it."

Mazya: "There's more. I think Anat really understands 'Israeli-ness' - contemporary Israeli identity. She understands it by observing from the sidelines, but also as a person experiencing it from within. This quality encourages the audience's profound identification with things they see in themselves, which the show displays for them."

Until they became best friends, Mazya, today almost 60, and Gov, 56, moved in similar circles, but each was surrounded by her own group of friends. In 1989, when Gov was a writer for the "Yes, What?" television series, she called Mazya and suggested she write some episodes. Mazya wrote one, but Gidi Gov - Anat's husband, a popular singer, and the lead in the series - was apparently unimpressed by it. Mazya was deeply insulted.

"I turned the table over, as if to throw it on him, and left. I said I did not want to be involved with that family," Mazya says. "The night of the debut of my show 'Vienna by the Sea' at the Haifa Theater in 1991, the telephone suddenly rang. 'This is Anat Gov, don't hang up,' she said. 'I just want to wish you good luck.' Our friendship began with that call."

"I had just begun to write a play for the Khan Theater," Gov says. "The basis for our friendship was writing and remains so to this day. We went shopping together for the first time just a few days ago."

For 20 years you've spoken solely about the theater?

Mazya: "No, there's one more thing. What brought us together, especially at the beginning, was the fact that we both lost parents at a young age." (Gov nods in agreement.) "Our mothers died of cancer when we were 22. We dealt with this loss through humor, not by saying 'oy-vey.'"

Gov: "We share 'orphan' jokes that an outsider wouldn't understand."

Mazya is a cafe person, showing up at 8 A.M. Gov joins her only because Mazya "dragged me into this, especially during rehearsal periods." Gov says her own world exists mainly in the space "between my breasts and the stove" - as one of the characters in "Best Friends" says.

"She's very family-oriented, cooking every day," says Mazya, who is impressed by this quality in her friend, "and I eat three meals a day in restaurants." Gov maintains that, "Edna once knew how to cook, but forgot."

Mazya reads the newspaper with her morning coffee, but is not a news junkie like Gov. "Once a week she asks me for an update on the current situation," Gov reveals, and Mazya adds: "I call to ask what she thinks about, let's say, the prime minister's latest speech. She tells me and I immediately adopt her view. She determines my politics."

How many times a week do you talk on the phone?

Mazya: "Now that we're doing a show together, all the time. But it may happen that we don't speak for an entire day. It's an open friendship - like an open marriage."

Gov: "Right. If she sees me talking to someone else, she says, 'Great, I see you already have a new girlfriend.'"

Until her divorce five years ago, Mazya lived with her family on Moshav Tamrat in the north, and before that in Nahalal. After her divorce, she moved to Tel Aviv, where she lives alone in a lovely apartment on Michal Street, totally independent. Gov, by contrast, is more tied to her family.

Gov: "Gidi is smart enough to understand that it's worth his while to be accepting [of our friendship], and Edna knows that if Gidi enters the house when we're talking on the telephone, I will cut her off in mid-syllable. I say, 'The senior official is here. Bye.' [I get back to her] when Gidi gets busy with something else."

Mazya "is the foreign minister in our relationship," Gov continues. "I get her all worked up and that lets off steam. So it seems quite natural that we appear to be good cop and bad cop" - which Mazya agrees with.

Asked how she gets her friend "all worked up," Gov says: "Let's say that something about Omri [Nitzan, the Cameri's artistic director] or Noam [Semel, the manager] is bothering me at the theater, never mind what exactly. I start in on Edna, complaining, 'What chutzpah they have!' Edna enjoys it. She loves to quarrel with them a little so there will be some action. Not me, though."

Mazya: "I like to go into the office to create a mini-scandal, but only with strong characters. I've never done it with weaklings. I like to be the strongest of the strong."

"We're both rebels," Gov sums up, "but with her it's directed outward and I'm more introverted."

Right-wing roots

Both women come from right-wing, nationalist families. When they talk about their backgrounds, Gov emphasizes that "in this matter, I trump her, because I am seventh generation here, from Safed."

Gov was born in Tiberias to the wealthy Meibar family; she has a brother and a sister. Her grandparents were ultra-Orthodox Jews, but her parents were secular. When she was three, the family moved to Tel Aviv.

"My father didn't know how to manage in the big city, and when I was 12 or 13, the money ran out," she recounts. "His outlook on the world was right-wing. Near the end of his life, when he was ill, he wanted to vote for [rightist politician] Geula Cohen, but said to me, 'I'll vote for whomever you want, because you're staying on here.'"

Mazya, whose maiden name is Kotlowitz, is an only child. Her mother was a member of the Lehi pre-state underground militia; her father commanded an Etzel underground cell in South Africa. For political reasons, they entered into a fictitious marriage, but then fell in love. After years of traveling between South Africa and Israel, they settled here. Mazya's parents raised her to be self-confident, she says, and "made a fuss over every word that came out of my mouth and thought it was really brilliant."

When Gov was hospitalized with a rare illness two years ago, Mazya visited her every day, taking her outside, IVs and all, so she could smoke. "I waited like a good girl," Gov reports, "in my wheelchair, with my bag and cigarettes, for her to take me into the garden."

Says Mazya: "The way she managed in the hospital was an inspiration. She didn't moan and groan, her spirits were good and she cheered everyone up. She's simply a person with both feet on the ground. Today it's all behind her and she's even gained 16 kilos ... And when I was getting divorced, Anat helped me deal with everything. She's a peacemaker and aspires to spreading goodwill."

Gov says she feels lost in the theater without Mazya. During the rehearsals for "A Warm Family," when Mazya was abroad for three days, Gov sent her text messages nonstop. "She called me in Switzerland and Germany, saying, 'Never again,'" Mazya remembers.

What do you most appreciate about each other?

Mazya: "Anat's courage, based on a profound Buddhist understanding of existence rather than a lack of awareness - a kind of acceptance I strive for but only partly reach. I have no doubt that she's a better person than I am overall. I have more faults."

Gov: "Facetiously, I'd say she knows how to pick cafes. She drags me around for hours abroad, until we find the completely perfect place and I'm nearly dead from traipsing around. But seriously, I have to say I have never encountered in any other human being such a lack of ill will or such an ability to give credit where it's due."

The twosome have a hard time answering when asked what they fight about. "It's a fact that we haven't had a fight in nearly 20 years," Gov says, and Mazya agrees, although some disagreements emerge later in the interview.

One subject on which they never disagree is family: Both are in close contact with their children. Mazya has two - Mikey, 34, manager of a sporting-goods store, and Elisheva, 28, director of the nonprofit New Spirit organization - and two grandchildren. Gov has three children: Danielle, 30, also a mother; Yotam, 28, a musician and barman; and Ra'anana, 20, a soldier.

As opposed to Mazya, who imagines the worst if, say, her children don't answer the phone, Gov says she is not a worrier: "We were in the midst of rehearsals for 'House Husband,' and Edna's son didn't answer the phone. She lost her concentration, her mind was somewhere else ... I stopped the rehearsal and took her to his apartment. He wanted to kill her, but she felt better, and we picked up where we left off."

"My children can't stand this about me," Mazya says. "I tell them that I make my living from my imagination, which sometimes leads me to unpleasant places."

Both women started in the theater at age 40. At the time, Mazya, was writing film scripts ("Drifting" and "Bar 51"); Gov wrote for television ("Yes, What?" and the popular "Zehu Zeh!"). They both nursed the dream of becoming theater actresses. At an early stage Gov realized this would not happen; one of her teachers at the university, Nola Chilton, encouraged her to give up the profession. "She saw that I preferred going to rehearsals of the band Kaveret over acting class, and said: 'If you aren't crazy about acting, escape while you can.' It was some of the best advice I ever got."

Mazya, in contrast, still longs to act on stage, even as an understudy for someone else. "There's this tiny role I'm plotting to understudy for," she says, "but Omri [Nitzan] isn't showing signs of agreement."

What was the formative experience that brought you to the theater?

Mazya: "A Cameri visit to Russia. I accompanied them as a friend of actress Sandra Sadeh. There was something about the trip, perhaps the visit to Chekhov's grave, that prompted me to sit and write 'Vienna by the Sea.'"

Gov's reason is more prosaic: Her neighbor Eran Baniel, then artistic director of the Jerusalem Khan Theater, suggested she write a play.

Professional collaboration between the women began in 1999 with "Best Friends," Gov's second play and Mazya's first directing effort. Mazya was 50 at the time; Gov was 46.

It is somewhat of a miracle to begin something new at such an age and to succeed, especially in an era that belongs to the young.

Mazya: "To me the miracle lies in the profession called writing. As you grow older you have more to say and more experience. What does a 20-year-old have to write about? Young people don't know anything, they don't read and they aren't educated."

Since "Best Friends," Mazya has directed all of Gov's work. Mazya says they essentially direct together, that Gov "sits here, clinging to this vein" - Mazya points to her wrist - "the whole time." Gov says Mazya "breathes down my neck and pushes: 'How many pages have you written? What have you accomplished?'"

Gov takes her inspiration from her immediate environment, her characters are the people around her: family, friends, the neighbor next door. "House Husband," for example, was inspired by her husband Gidi, during a period when he worked less outside the home. Gov says she writes about "whatever gets on my nerves." Mazya's plays, by contrast, deal with political and social issues.

During their collaborations, director Mazya is sometimes cruel to playwright Gov. Mazya: "My teacher is Omri [Nitzan], who directs my plays. I learned this from him. We are working now on my new play, 'Aristocrats,' and we have sharp arguments, but it's all for the good because he's an excellent dramaturge. So now I'm doing to Anat what he does to me, but she really listens."

Gov: "She's always telling me: 'You should thank me that you are not working with Omri.'"

You both get preferential treatment at the Cameri. Every one of your plays is staged, not something to be taken for granted in the theater.

Mazya: "Plays are put on at the Cameri only if they are good. The minute they fail - and it's bound to happen - we won't get the same treatment."

Gov: "Omri returned a phone call today after five minutes, but the day will come, for sure, when he'll take half a year to call back. I'm taking this into account ahead of time."

To be a successful playwright in Israeli theater is good business.

Mazya: "There's a rumor that we have big bank accounts, so let's get things straight. Writing takes place over a span of two years, and the royalties [10 percent of ticket sales] are for the period during which the show runs. You can't live off that for the next 10 years."

Gov: "It's a nice feeling during those months. You really do live well. I'm not complaining."

Mazya: "Actors make more. Not everyone, but those at the highest levels."

Next month Mazya is celebrating her 60th birthday at a yoga workshop in Turkey. "It's trendy these days to be old," she explains.

For her part, Gov does not make even the slightest effort to hide her age. Her hair is white and there's not a trace of makeup on her face. In contrast, Mazya pulls out a mirror from time to time during the interview and reapplies lipstick.

While Gov insists that "it's a real achievement to succeed at this age," getting older does bother them both a bit. Mazya feels that her "memory is weaker and I sit with people and tell them the same story more than once. So I tell my actors: 'Remind me if I've told you this already.'"

"Old age is a very disagreeable experience and I aspire never to reach it. You have to quit while you're ahead," says Gov, who has been conducting a kind of running dialogue with God for many years - a dialogue that formed the basis for her play "Oh God," staged by the Cameri. Mazya prefers the Psalms: She reads them when she has a wish that needs fulfilling. If the wish is significant - for example, connected to her children - she reads all five books of Psalms.

And if it's just a small wish?

Mazya: "Just the first book."

Gov interjects, revealing that "once Edna stopped smoking, for every cigarette she smoked, she had to read Psalms. You can imagine how many cigarettes she was smoking; she knows them all by heart."

Both women are sure their partnership will go on for another decade. Where do they see themselves then? Gov hopes to be in the same place. Mazya insists that is impossible, and sees herself in an ashram.

Gov is surprised: "Until recently she was saying she wanted to live on the ice, in Alaska. But Mazya insists: "I tired of the Alaska idea. Now it's an ashram."

Gov gives in: "If she goes to an ashram, I'll have to visit her, but I don't think she will."

Mazya: "I can dream."
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