A theatre phenomenon that plays to sold-out houses around Israel, and recently returned from a sold-out run at the Lincoln Center Festival, this drama based on David Grossman’s critically acclaimed novel explores the intertwining threads of love and family between Ora, Ilan, and Avram, who meet as teenagers in a hospital during the Six-Day War
in 1967.
Decades later, when Ora’s son volunteers to go to the Lebanese front, she escapes with Avram to the Galilee, clinging to the superstitious hope that if she can’t be found, she can’t be “notified” of her son’s death. In director Hanan Snir’s poignant staging, the characters’ ultimately aimless journey, with no defined destination and a constant intrusion of the past, becomes a conduit for the unrelenting sense of existential fragility at the heart of the human condition.
To the End of the Land is a story about love and unrequited love, about friendship and generosity between men, about parenthood and giving, and mostly about “family work” – the almost heroic effort to maintain the delicate fabric of family in face of the violence and terror, but also the beauty and warmth of Israeli reality.
David Grossman was born in Jerusalem in 1954. His books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. He is the author of nine internationally acclaimed novels, three powerful works of non-fiction, and a short story collection, as well as over a dozen children’s books, a children’s opera, and a play. Grossman has been presented with numerous awards including Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes et des Lettres (France), Prix Eliette Von Karajan (Austria), The Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation (UK), the Buxtehuder Bulle (Germany), the Sapir Prize (Israel), the Premio per la Pace e l’Azione Umanitaria 2006 (City of Rome/Italy), Onorificenza della Stella Solidarita Italiana 2007, Premio Ischia – International Award for Journalism 2007, the EMET Award 2007 (Israel), and the Albatross Prize, awarded by the Gunter Grass Foundation. Grossman was also the recipient of the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Booksellers Association in Frankfurt 2010, and France’s Prix Medicis for translated literature in 2011, as well as the Brenner Prize (Israel) in 2012. In 2013 he received the French Point award for most beloved book by readers and critics (To the End of the Land), and the Italian Fundazione Calcari for Lifetime Achievement. His new novel, A Horse Walks into a Bar, winner of Mann Booker Prize for 2017, has been published internationally in over thirty-five languages throughout 2016-17.
Hanan Snir is a graduate of the Department of Theatre Arts at Tel Aviv University and of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London.
He was a trainee director at the Royal Shakespeare Company under Peter Brook (1970) and directed at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London (1970-72).
He was a resident director at the Beer Sheva Municipal Theatre (1972-74) and was associate director at the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv (1977-82).
Since 1984 he has been associate director at Habima National Theatre, where he was artistic director from 1992-93.
He received the Israeli Academy Prize for Best Production, Best Director, and Best Translator in 2007 for Sophocles’ Antigone, and won Best Play and Best Director in 2015 for Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s Our Class.
He is a certified psychotherapist and holds a diploma in family therapy, psychodrama, and cognitive behavioral therapy, and a Master’s degree in counseling psychology from Boston University.
He has received numerous awards for his productions, most recently the Israeli Theatre Life Achievement Award in 2015.
In May 2017 he won Best Director and Best Playwright for To the End of the Land at the Israel Theatre Awards; the production also won Best Original Israeli Play and Best Actress in a Leading Role.
