Our over-communicative busy phone-lives are at the focus of Maklid/a (Typing), a fresh new comedy written and directed by Ronnie Brodetzky. Yariv Kook, Eti Vaknin-Sober, Omri Hacohen, Tal Blankstein Peleg and Ori Uryan inhabit a stunning variety of characters, all people you already know – or might meet soon when your phone vibrates.
The audience is taken on a roller coaster ride through a kaleidoscope of Israeli urban life. Kook inhabits two terrifically funny characters. The first is a gay man who texts a would-be-lover (Oryan) with awful, auto-corrected Hebrew. Using nothing but a goofy grin and a strength band, Kook creates a powerful ill-match for the articulate Oryan.
His second character, a flag-waving protester, parrots slogans about how – by standing on one’s head – public demonstrations against the government will bring change. When challenged, he slowly begins to remove dissenting voices from the social media group – until he is left alone.
In his 2022 book Stolen Focus, Johann Hari offers an in-depth examination into how new technologies are eroding our ability to concentrate, increase our mental exhaustion, and seem to expose us to a flood of texts, alerts, and vibrating devices. One key factor Hari points to is that the same technology could have been made differently: For example, social media apps could alert you when a friend is nearby and able to meet for lunch, instead of offering infinite scrolling content.
Maklid/a captures this tension right off the bat. It does not matter where we are: When we type words, we are already in anticipation of our next dopamine hit. Someone, from a stranger we might have a fling with to our next door neighbor, is about to respond. What will they say? We stare at the screen, fingers twitching in anticipation.
Performance composed of several sketches
The performance is composed of several sketches. These include a group for parents with kindergarten children, a family keeping in touch via phone, an actor chasing after his fees by texting the producers, a couple (Hacohen and Blankstein) attempting to fold laundry and raise kids while their landlord increases the monthly rent – and even an a cappella performance of the play’s song “Va’ad Habeit” (building overseer). In drag, the actors sing out the dramatic fate of how the woman who served in this position (Vaknin-Sober) is now retiring after eleven years only to discover that she is unable to let go.
Like Kook’s character, the people she attempts to sway exit the group – performed on stage by actors gracefully spinning to the backstage – until she is left alone feeling cheated out of all these years. It is a very funny scene, and a deeply cutting one.
Olim (new immigrants) might feel sympathy toward one from South America (Hacohen) who gently asks why is it vital to be so aggressive to a stranger who enters a kindergarten for a glass of water (Oryan in a recurring role). Vaknin-Sober, whose character gets nuttier as the plot progresses, is eventually holding a rifle, which shifts our emotion towards her from amused bewilderment to understanding when we learn she had a friend who might have been alive today “if only we paid more attention.”
To keep things light, she crudely refers to the Spanish-speaking man as Manchego, a Spanish cheese, and Paco, a generic name which shows her very-Israeli lack of regard to what his name actually is. Yet her tears of rage over the loss of her friend, her assurance to the entire group that “this is not Switzerland,” speaks volumes after the October 7 Hamas attack. She might be crude and aggressive, and a little unhinged, but aren’t we all at a time like this?
Maklid/a will be shown on Tuesday, March 19, at 8:30 p.m. and Tuesday, April 16, at 8:30 p.m. at the Tzavta Theater, 30 Ibn Gabirol St. NIS 69 per ticket. Hebrew only. 80 minutes long, no intermission. One sketch, with Kook playing a theater director who attempts to manipulate a minor into a sexual relationship, might be triggering. Call (03) 6950156 to book seats.