‘To the End of the Land’ Is Israel’s Hottest Ticket

For the first time in its modern history, Israel faces no imminent strategic threat, its generals say. If Israelis should be feeling more confident about their security and optimistic about the future, then why have they been flocking to a play based on an adaption of To the End of the Land, David Grossman’s award-winning, deeply pessimistic novel about Israel’s future?

The play is the eighth co-production between Israel’s Habima, the national theater, and the Cameri, which owns a well-deserved reputation for cutting-edge work. Hanan Snir, a veteran director who worked with Grossman for two years to adapt his novel to the stage, compresses but faithfully renders the novel’s complex tale of love, flight, the impossibility of escape. The plot revolves around a triangle among Ilan and Avram, two best friends who love the same woman. Ora, the novel and play’s anchor and narrator, is a mass of contradictions—emotional and calculating, mystical and pragmatic, capable of great love and indifferent cruelty. Ilan is tough but brittle, a bit nerdy and deeply needy. Avram is highly intelligent and impulsive.

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