‘Best Friends’ is playing at the 14th Street Y through the end of October.
By Rachel M.
A lot has changed in the world since I saw the English adaptation of Best Friends on October 5. This play, part of the Stav Festival (“stav” is autumn in Hebrew), produced by the Israeli Artists Project, had to take a pause for the last week as Israelis, Jews, and allies all over the world dealt with the aftermath of a massacre by Hamas. They are now ready to resume performances in the midst of an ongoing war, and coming out to see this show is a wonderful way to show support for Israel and its people.
Best Friends is an original Israeli classic, and was the winner of the Israel National Theater Award for Best Comedy in 1999. Written by Anat Gov (wife of Gidi Gov, who’s tragic death was loosely portrayed in the recent film My Happy Ending), it was the longest running comedy in Israel.
The dramedy tells the saga of a friendship between three women over three decades. Sophie, Tirzah and Lelly met in their high school bathroom in the late 1960s. From that inauspicious beginning, a life-long friendship was born. Now, twenty years later, these best friends are brought together when Sophie and Tirzah have not spoken to one another for nearly two years, and Lelly tries to reconcile the two by bringing them to discuss “a matter of life and death.” The friends are seen in all phases of their lives and friendship, with flashbacks throughout the years starting from their youth until their forties. Told with humor, heart, and biting wit in scenes that go back and forth in time, Best Friends is about three women who are forced to examine their friendship and discover themselves in the process.
Directed by Hamutal Posklinsky-Shehory, the production stars Addi Gefen, Yael Shavitt and Maya Shoham as the young friends and Karin Hershkovitz Kochavi, Maia Karo and Adi Kozlovsky as the adult women. All of the cast does an excellent job and the same actresses perform in both Hebrew and English on different nights — an absolutely amazing feat!
A great choice for a group of female friends to see together, the dynamic between the characters is so relatable. The challenges women face at all stages of their lives are universal and any audience will be touched by the story.
TV and City 