The Rubber Merchants – Old Red Lion Theatre
A lengthy and absurdist look at commerce, love and sex, this revival of Hanoch Levin’s tragicomic play is brought to the stage by Gamayun Theatre and proves to be an uncomfortable and disquieting watch.
The Rubber Merchants is about staying safe, with Asya Sosis’s production attempting to merge “the absurdist comedy of Israeli literature, Ukranian theatre tradition and British styles of performance”. With a floor strewn with packing peanuts, a throbbing disco beat, and a constant drooling objectification of women, this play somehow struggles to hit its mark.
Yohanan Tsingerhai (sweaty, nervous, a borderline pervert around women, played by Tom Dayton), Bella Berlow (unpleasant and impenetrable, played by Hadas Kershaw), and Shmuel Sproll (a jaded would-be rock star, played by Joseph E...