It is hard to imagine Israeli satire, humor and entertainment without Ephraim Sidon, 76, who as a writer, journalist, playwright and screenwriter has signed some of the most important works in the local culture, such as “Cleaning the head”, “This is it!”, “Close relatives”, “The cheeky” and “Reason for a Party” on the small screen, and over 40 successful books, for adults and children, including “Ma’ale Korhot”, “Ozo and Mozo from Kfar Kakaruzu”, the series of books “The Bible in Verse” and “The Angel”.
But Sidon actually started his career as an actor, in his 20s. “While I was playing, I saw that my friends were sitting in a pub drinking beer,” he says. “Then I said to myself: ‘Why do I need this?’, and I realized that it is much easier to get royalties for writing a play than to travel by taxi to all kinds of places to play in a play. Also I knew I wasn’t a great player. I liked to play, but I wasn’t that good at it.”
Head cleaning (photo: screenshot)On January 28 (at 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m.), a dozen years since it was first performed there, the Beit Lisin Theater will perform a new adaptation of the play “The Angel”, written by Sidon, directed by Tzipi Pines. The play is based on a book written by Sidon in 1985, which tells the story of an angel who descends to the land of men.
“I was living in London at the time after I received a scholarship from the book publisher ‘Ketar’ to live there for two years,” he says. “It was the first time I wrote prose because I always wrote in rhyme. It was a book with an idea for a play because it was very visual and had a lot of dialogue. I showed him to several theaters, and everyone wanted it. There were years when I made a living just selling this show from theater to theater. The stage story is much more powerful and visual than a book, and it’s more exciting. In addition, a children’s show must be engaging from beginning to end because otherwise you will lose the audience.” .
How did the idea for the story come about?
“The idea for the story came from Chava Elberstein: we talked about the fact that all of us, before we came into the world, were angels in heaven. The story of children being angels who become babies is found in several cultures. I liked the idea, so I turned it into a story about a friendship between two angels, who only send one of them to earth.”
How do you adapt yourself to the changing times as a children’s author?
“Children are children at all times.”
According to him, he started writing for children in general because of an “intervention on a restaurant”: “In the mid-1970s, I worked at ‘Nikai Rush,’ and the program’s animator was Yossi Abolafia. ‘Ketar’ publishing house wanted to open a new line for children, approached Yossi and asked him to illustrate it the first book. He asked me if I was willing to help him look for a book. I told him: ‘I will write you a story.’ Background in writing children’s stories, and my son was only one year old, and I never dreamed of becoming a children’s author. In order not to lose in the intervention, I wrote my first children’s book: ‘Ferdinand Fedhazor’s stories in a nutshell’, which was published in 1976. The rest is history.”
marginal effect
Sidon began his career as a satirist during his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem when he wrote for the student newspaper “Pi Ha’athon” and later for “Olam Haza”, together with his friends B. Michael, Kobi Niv and Hanoch Marmari. Later they created together, under the direction of Moti Kirschenbaum, “Cleaning” Rush”, which was broadcast between 1974-1976 and is considered one of the most prominent and influential satire programs in the country. “Doing ‘Cleaning the head’ in Israel of the 1970s was daring,” he says. “Television of the 1970s was not what we know today. The makeup artists worked on making up Tovia Tzafir Karbin for 12 hours. Muti managed to do the This thing. He was one of a kind. I miss him very much. He was a very close friend and a thoughtful person. He is missed.
Those were completely different years from today. Politicians used to have this thing called ‘shame’. Today they have no shame. In ‘Cleaning the Head’, the satire had power because the people we wrote about and criticized – were ashamed of it. Today a politician doesn’t care what they say, the main thing is that they spell his name correctly. Do you know how many proposals were sent to the Knesset and the High Courts to remove ‘Nikai Rosh’ from the broadcast schedule? A large part of the broadcast dates of the programs were delayed because the High Court was against them. At the same time, don’t tell anyone but the truth is that satire has no power. I don’t think a government rose and fell because of satire. In the past satire could annoy and people were afraid of it. Today it doesn’t exist, the effect is marginal.”
When did you feel you had a talent for satirical writing?
“I was a very political person. I came from a family of poor people and went to Shomer Ha’Tsa’ir. I thought that my way of protesting, as a citizen, was through satire, but I didn’t think that I would be a writer or a journalist. I mostly liked to write sketches and jokes for my friends.”
Another satirical program that Sidon is responsible for is “The Cheeks”, which was broadcast in 1996-2000 based on a British format that featured puppets in the form of politicians. “Unlike England, where there were 500 puppets, we had 10-12 puppets, and it was a hit from the first moment,” he describes . “When we made ‘The Cheeky’, do you know how many obscene offers we received from politicians? People were willing to pay a lot of money, the main thing is to be in the program.”
The cheeky ones (Photo: Eli Desa)Could a show like “The Cheeks” work today?
“Could have worked great. The advantage with dolls is that you are not limited, you can hit the doll and kick it, snooker it and go wild, which you can’t do to a human. That’s why it’s much more unusual and flexible.”
What’s the sharpest sketch you’ve written?
“I can not say. I wrote tens of thousands of sketches. It is precisely the sections that were less successful that are my favorites. There is a song called ‘Lahal’ah’ against molestation of women. It’s a song that when you hear it, you get punched in the stomach. There are sections that caused people to have a meltdown. Today the audience does not enjoy satire because people are no longer political. There used to be a thing called a party platform. Today do you know what platform each party has? Once upon a time, if you were a libertarian, and your daughter was dating someone from Mapai, you would tear her clothes and sit on her. Once upon a time, you would vote according to platform and ideology. Today it is different.”
Today, in the current reality, is it easier to write satire?
“No. Satire is born when you are weak, and you have no other way to face the government. Things have changed a lot, there used to be shame and the court had deterrence, whereas today there is no deterrence.”
What satires do you like to watch?
“There are not many options. I see ‘Wonderland’ and love them. There is also ‘This is it!’. They sing beautifully, but they are not satire.”
What do you think about the mass protests these days?
“I am in favor of these demonstrations, and I participate in them, and I think they should be even more aggressive and massive. These demonstrations are mandatory. Anyone who fears for Israeli democracy should come out and demonstrate. We are in a difficult situation in terms of the attempts to take over the court, and I support any protest or civil demonstration on the matter.”
A huge challenge
Last November, the new book of Sidon (as writer) and Danny Kerman (as illustrator), “The Song Thief”, intended for children, was published. “It’s a children’s book that has a lot of imagination and a lot of truth,” he says.
Also, next month will be the 40th anniversary of the first airing of Sidon’s mythological situation comedy, “Krobeim Krobeim”, which ran successfully for four seasons and countless reruns. “The truth is that none of us thought it would catch on like this, including director Yitzchak who who traveled to the United States specifically to see how the series ‘three in one apartment’ is filmed and directed and to draw inspiration,” reveals Sidon. “Everything was terribly pioneering, the educational television studios were very poor, and all the recording was live in front of an audience. The laughs in the series are not recorded, but are real laughs. We had to look for people who know how to laugh out loud. It was a huge challenge, because if it’s not funny and the audience doesn’t laugh, what will happen? We didn’t think they would like it so much that 40 years later people meet me and recite passages from there to me by heart, which I don’t even remember writing.”
Yoram Gaon, close relatives (photo: Reuven Castro)What is the secret of the success of the series?
“Good writing, excellent direction and great actors. What more is needed than that?”.
Would you like to write for television today?
“Yes and no. It may be that if I had or will have a stage and there was something that really annoyed me – I would write. I believe that I will write one or two satire programs for television.”