The Whore From Ohio
nytheatre.com review by Michael Criscuolo
November 30, 2006
The Whore from Ohio, by the late Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin, is genuinely one of the strangest shows I have ever seen. It's advertised as a fable, which makes sense, since it's not rooted in any kind of familiar reality, and it aims to teach the audience a moral lesson. However, it does so in such an unusual way, that I'm not sure what Levin intended the audience to take away from this experience.
The play takes place in a nebulous, heightened location: imagine Waiting for Godot set in an unnamed, bombed-out urban environment, and you've got it. Hoibitter, an old vagrant approaching 70, who drags everything he owns around in an old wooden crate, dreams of buying himself a birthday present: "I want to fuck a whore," he tells us. "But, I don't want to spend the money." Soon enough, he gets his chance. Enter Brontsatski, a jaded, been-through-the-ringer street prostitute whose "ass is in a race against time." She charges 100 shekels. Hoibitter wants a freebie. The haggling begins. Eventually, Hoibitter's desires get the better of him, and he hands his entire savings over to Brontsatski.
Then, there's Hoimer, Hoibitter's son, who is also a vagrant. He constantly feels cheated by his father because he thinks Hoibitter is secretly wealthy and holding out on him. Hoimer dreams of a day when he will come into his father's vast inheritance, whatever it is. In the meantime, though, he can't understand why Hoibitter (who is impotent, by the way) wastes his time trying to get sex.
The title refers to Hoibitter's ultimate fantasy, a high-class prostitute who works in a mansion-size brothel in Ohio. He heard about such a place long ago, and it has held a firm grip on his imagination ever since. He is a man consumed by fantasies, of both the title character (whom he never encounters), and his long dead wife, whose image grows stronger in his mind as the play progresses. Fantasy, and the redemption it can bring to a person, is the overriding thematic element in The Whore from Ohio. Father and son each have theirs, and Brontsatski dreams of being able to survive financially before she completely loses her looks. Each person's dream keeps them going, but it's debatable how good those dreams are for them. That may be Levin's point, but viewers may also have trouble finding it under this morass of a play.
The biggest obstacle facing audiences who see The Whore from Ohio is figuring out what they're watching. Is it a comedy or a drama? Are they supposed to laugh at something funny, even if the play is a drama? Is there even a context for anything happening on stage? Basic plot elements like time and place are ignored, as are character origins and any sense of who these people might be outside the realm of the play.
The Whore from Ohio does have a couple of things going for it, however, namely a hungry sexuality that is absent from most American plays. These characters have libidos and want sex, no matter what their age; it's a huge part of their lives, and they're not embarrassed about it. They also take turns being greedy and selfish, but all without a trace of guilt—a refreshing and oddly endearing characteristic.
The production also boasts a rascally lead performance from Victor Attar as Hoibitter. His devil-may-care attitude and good comic timing make his portrayal all too human. Zishan Ugurlu has some choice deadpan moments as the been-there-done-that Brontsatski. Udi Razzin is a little wan and one-dimensional as Hoimer, but, for the most, the actors do a nice job making this trio likable.
And while Attar and his co-director, Geula Jeffet Attar, get across the idea of fantasy playing a central role in these people's lives, they are unable to convey exactly why Levin chose to present his message this particular way. Maybe that's a question that only the late author himself can answer. Either way, The Whore from Ohio is a work that puzzled me to no end, and I suspect it will affect other theatergoers in much the same way.
