Holding a pitchfork and wearing a denim overall, Kobi Aderet reinhabits the difficult role of Uzai Hebroni in A Morning of Fools. Based on the 1992 same-titled novel by Yitzhak Ben Ner, this is a revival of the monodrama previously directed by Rena Baroch and now directed by Amitay Yaish Ben Ousilio.
The gas mask slung around Hebroni’s neck places us during the Gulf War, when Israelis were told by their government that duct tape would protect them from nerve gas. The air-raid sirens heard during the performance remind us of the horror of being terrorized, which sadly continues today.Ofer Kaldaron, the brother of Nisan Kaldaron, the technical manager of this performance, is still held in Gaza by Hamas. A large photograph of Ofer is placed among the audience seats whenever this revival is performed.
Hebroni is a functioning autistic adult from a military-farming family in an established moshav. While we are never told its name, it is very likely a fictional adaptation of Kfar Yehoshua, where Ben Ner was born and raised.Hebroni has a heart of gold, an uncanny talent for numbers, and a tragic personal biography that his mental condition prevents him from fully grasping. Much like Charlie Gordon in the 1959 classic Flowers for Algernon, there is a gap between the cheery manner of the protagonist’s confession and what the normative reader understands from it.
A large man, Aderet has no difficulty making us believe Hebroni could easily crush the bullies who torment him “if it wasn’t for my gentle nature.” Aderet is also a master voice actor; he gifts us with a moshavnik mannerism, a sort of farmer’s Hebrew seldom seen on television or on the stage, blended with the misusing of words – a tell-tale sign of his character’s autistic condition.
Hebroni has two brothers – normative twins who enlist. One is killed in combat; the other survives his service but commits suicide, unable to face the world without his other half.Hebroni, the only surviving son, is shunned by his father, a gruff ex-army man who informs his wife that he plans to take their abnormal son to the woods and shoot him in a mercy-kill.
Hebroni overhears this conversation and informs us of it, as well as his mother’s reaction.
“You take a pistol to your own head and end things if you can’t bear it any longer,” she tells her husband, “but you let him be. His face is like a mirror that reflects all the things we are not.”
Adaptation of Ben Ner's work to theatre
This is not the first time Ben Ner’s work has been adapted for the stage. His 1989 novel Small Mirage (Ta-ah-to-on) was adapted to the theater for the first Theatronetto Festival in a widely acclaimed, one-man show by Rami Heuberger.
Like Morning of Fools, that work was also written as a series of monologues and dealt with an outsider: Holi, an IDF soldier who follows orders in the Gaza Strip and, inexplicably, begins to reek.
Back then, the book was reprinted by the Ministry of Defense and offered to soldiers as part of Tarmil Publishing House under editor Yisrael Har. Heuberger was asked to revive the monodrama at the Cameri Theatre; it ran for more than 200 shows. Some were performed for high school seniors about to enlist, followed by a panel discussion between the creators and the would-be troops and their teachers.
While watching Hebroni and his refusal to seek shelter from rockets as the sirens wail, we must consider if this brave act of uncaring self-annihilation is, in a way, a mirror reflecting our own foolishness.
Hebrew only. 60 minutes, no intermission. For information about upcoming performances, call (08) 998-5175.
