Review: THE THIRD FLOOR Aims for the Top at Beit Lessin Theatre

Next month will mark 6 years since the summer of the social justice protests in Tel Aviv, major national events that spanned nearly 3 months and now have finally reached the theatre in Beit Lessin's new play The Third Floor, written by Dafna Engel Mehrez based on a story from Eshkol Nevo's novel "Three Floors Up" and directed by Maya Nitzan and Ella Nikolivsky.

This new drama contains a few topics in it, the first one being the 2011 protests during which the story occurs and the others are the issues which Dvora, a retired judge played by Yona Elian Keshet, who lives in the third floor of a building located in the middle of the protests' main street, Rothschild Boulevard, deals with. Dvora's story is eventually the main plot and includes both the changes in her life following her husband passing away and her broken relationship with her son who following a difficult childhood disappeared from her life due to a conflict with her and her husband.

Though simply by touching these rare subjects this play is quite groundbreaking, perhaps combining too many issues in one play prevented from the potential to dive deeper in each of them, as they all separately deserve. For instance, this gave the feeling that including the protests was a bit unnecessary and didn't add something too crucial to the storyline that they had to be kept during the stage adaptation from the novel, even if eventually the combination didn't feel entirely unrelated and the play was indeed touching and captivating.
Luckily, these possible problems with the story weren't too apparent thanks to the talented cast and especially the multilayered Yoram Tolledano and Ilan Dar who were charming and intriguing, as well as the excellent Yona Elian Keshet who gave a heartfelt performance and even improvised a greatly timed and well deserved remark to the audience following at least three phones that rang during the show.

It seems fitting to the young protests theme that the most noticeable members on the production team are young and either recent graduates or this is the first major production they worked on. They all did a tremendous work, especially Maya Nitzan and Ella Nikolivsky with their bright vision while directing the play together, and Shay Aaron with his smart, inventive and masterful set designs.

This entire production proves that in its case the national generation gap mentioned in the play is definitely not an issue as all its members created together what can easily be seen as yet another great and meaningful production from Beit Lessin Theatre.

For tickets and further information visit Beit Lessin Theatre.

Photo Credit: Kfir Bolotin.

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