Hanoch Levin’s text — a “comedy in eight funerals,” written in 1983 — resonates with new force today. For us, it speaks about a world slipping from under our feet: strange, funny, alive, filled with people desperately trying to hold on to life and to one another.

Here, the audience becomes our neighbors, sharing a collective experience. It is a reflection on survival, on leaving and returning, and on what a new Israeli theatre can be — inclusive, fragile, and strong.

The performance is based on Levin’s play Suitcase Packers (“Orzey Mizvadot”) and his poetic texts from different years.

Duration: 2 hours 10 minutes, no intermission
Language: The performance is in Hebrew with Russian subtitles.

Suitcase Packers is conceived as a spatial journey across the grounds of the old Tel Aviv railway station, Mitham HaTachana — one of the city’s most compelling historical sites. We do not perform in a theatre building. We perform outdoors, among pathways and old structures, allowing the real environment to become part of the experience.

The location itself is both a protagonist and a statement, connecting us to the history of our theatre. In St. Petersburg, we worked on the grounds of a former brewery — a vast, “wild” industrial cluster that gradually became a cultural hub with offices, bars, and, most importantly, our theatre.

We left that space in 2022 and relocated to Israel. Now, our first Hebrew premiere — after three years of living here — takes place at a former railway station, a place that too has transformed into a contemporary cultural site filled with urban life.

For us, this is an important artistic and biographical statement: we continue to work in spaces that carry history and invite us to fill it anew with theatre.

The performance is site-specific, and much of it takes place outdoors.
Please dress according to the weather and wear comfortable shoes (there are short transitions between locations).

Age limit – 18+

Producer & Director — Dasha Shamina

Director — Roman Feodori

Set designer & poster artist — Sofya Matveeva

Assistant set designer — Sasha Khakhan

Photographer & visual campaign implementation — Evgenia Danilova

Assistant directors — Olga Verba, Aleksey Krizhevsky

Choreographer — Polina Dreyden

Translator — Ekaterina Nikolskaya

Technical director — Stanislav Shamshev

Lighting designer — Max Dov

Sound designer — Daniel Orlovsky

Video director — Ilya Delyatitsky

Producing team — Vadim Shtern, Maria Litovkina, Sofia Gromov

Shabtai Shuster — Boris Repetur
Bianca, his wife — Michal Weinberg
Nina, their daughter — Judith Korsoyutskaya / Polina Pakhomova
Bella, their daughter — Katerina Tikhonova

Genya Gellernter — Evgeniya Natanova
Elhnan, her son — Grigory Katzenelson
Zvi, her late husband — Gari Nofin

Munia Globchik — Ruslan Barabanov
Lola, his wife — Anna Dubrovitskaya
Zigi, their son — Shir Sayag / Itshak Hova
Bube, Munia’s mother — Tamar Karpov

Bruno Hofstetter — Boris Repetur
Tsilia, his wife — Michal Weinberg
Amatzia, their son — Nadav Erchik

Motke Tzchori — Noam Tal
Tzipora, his wife — Nastya Gordymanova / Alya Goldman
Avner Tzchori, his hunchbacked brother — Lev Levin

Angela Hopkins, a young American tourist — Polina Vingorodova / Polina Pakhomova
Alberto Pinkus — Nikita Oleynikov
Elisha Hooker — Gari Nofin
Alfons Housli — Gari Nofin

Prostitute — Alya Goldman / Nastya Gordymanova

Gravedigger I, Gravedigger II, Street Sweeper, Clerk, Two Orderlies, Two Orthodox Men — Company

Sofa Chudnovskaya — vocals, bass
Alexander Zarankin — keyboards
Anna Grinfeld — vocals, violin
Roman Belov — vocals, electric guitar
Sergey Kivin — drums