Rehearsals (חזרות) is a 2020 Israeli dramedy. The first season aired during November-December 2020 in Kan 11 channel. A surprise hit, the channel announced that the series will be renewed for a second season, although a series of scandals surrounding lead actors have since put it into doubt.
Playwright Iris and director Tomer are attempting to sell their play One+One, based on their real-life relationship, to major national theater Hamishkan. After a pitch meeting that seems to go poorly and a big fight, Tomer declares he wants to break up and leaves their apartment… only to be informed that the theater has decided to take the play after all.
Now broken up, Iris and Tomer must work on the play together, while also dealing with various forms of Executive Meddling – first and foremost, the Stunt Casting of two popular television actors, Ofer and Maya, in the lead roles.
Rehearsals is described as an “unromantic comedy”, while also satirizing the fraught, underfunded and underappreciated world of Israeli theater.
Rehearsals provides examples of the following tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Vera and Maya have a brief discussion about the play Medea and what it takes to play the title character. Medea was a breakout role in Israeli theater for Evgenia Dodina, Vera’s actress.
- Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Ofer’s hopes to return to the TV series are shattered when his character, which was previously Put on a Bus, is Killed Offscreen.
- Ambiguous Ending: Did Iris and Tomer get back together at the end of season 1?
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Ofer to Iris. Later, Tomer to Iris.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Alma, the actress who is cast as Nina in Grushowsky’s The Seagull. Grushowsky apparently preferred her to Maya due to her less-conventional looks, among other things.
- Bottle Episode: Episode 6 takes place almost entirely in the theater, over the course of a few chaotic hours.
- Brainless Beauty: Maya is a rather realistic version. She’s not Too Dumb to Live or anything, but certainly not very bright.
- The Cameo:
- Famous stage actress Gila Almagor appears as the Minister of Culture in episode 6.
- The lawyer in episode 9 is played by Noam Semel, director general of a real life major national theater.
- Casting Couch: Subverted. Shlomo tells Maya that in order for her to play Nina, the eccentric director of the The Seagull requires her and Shlomo (who plays Trigorin) to have sex for the sake of
Method Acting. Maya braces herself only for Shlomo to burst out laughing and call her an idiot for believing him. - Cathartic Scream: Iris tries to invoke this by having her brother drive her to a remote location so she can scream out her anguish over the breakup. Like everything else in the series, it doesn’t go exactly as planned.
- Cringe Comedy: Loads and loads of it. One of the first scenes is of Iris falling asleep during sex, and it only goes downhill from there.
- Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Star director Grushowsky is fluent only in German. Nobody thinks he’s stupid for it, but it makes the business of directing a play with a non-German-speaking cast a tad awkward.
- Extreme Libido: Ofer. Later in the season he’s identified outright as a sex addict.
- Freudian Excuse: Not explored in-depth, but Ofer seems to have some major daddy issues. It has to do with the fact that his father apparently cheated on his mother with her sister.
- The Generic Guy: Reut appears to be an amiable non-entity.
- A Girl in Every Port: Grushowsky describes his assistant/interpreter Kasha as having a guy in every port. While Kasha is somewhat of an Ethical Slut, the mean description seems to stem from jealousy.
- Grumpy Old Man: Veteran actor Shlomo tends to bitch a lot about the good old bad days, and causes scenes when he feels he’s not shown due respect.
- Innocent Bigot: Stage manager Sarel displays some casual racism towards Mizrahi Ofer, assuming he’s not familiar with Tel Aviv and recommending restaurants that will fit his “style”. Ofer, who lives in Tel Aviv, is noticeably chilly towards Sarel afterwards.
- Iron Lady: Vera Kurkin to a T.
- It's All About Me: Maya’s defining character trait. Tomer also has his moments.
- Love Epiphany: Inverted. Seconds before going onstage at the premiere, Maya realizes she doesn't love Reut.
- May–December Romance: Kasha and Grushowsky. Iris ungraciously describes them at one point as "grossing out the dance floor" with their sexual tension.
- Mentor in Sour Armor: Shlomo eventually becomes something like this for Ofer.
- Misery Builds Character: Vera, a great proponent of Tough Love in general, gives Maya a speech to this effect while explaining why Maya is not ready yet for her dream part as Nina in Chekhov’s The Seagull. Maya is apparently too young, beautiful and carefree to play a dramatic lead role.
- My Beloved Smother: Iris’ overbearing mother, who loudly and tactlessly interferes with her life. She also insists on dragging all her friends to the play’s opening night.
- Performance Anxiety: On the play’s opening night, Ofer, who has little experience performing in front of a live audience, has a panic attack and runs off-stage during the first scene. He is saved by the Power of Friendship, theatrical superstitions, and benzodiazepines.
- Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: In one of her lower points during the season, Iris practically kidnaps Tomer, begs him to come back to her and when he refuses, abandons him on the side of the highway. She gets over it pretty quickly, though.
- Rapid-Fire Comedy: How Dovele, the director who replaces Tomer in the production, approaches directing comedy. This contrasts with Tomer, who directed One+One as a slower, more thoughtful dramedy.
- Screw Your Ultimatum!: After a big fight with Iris, Tomer makes the fatal mistake of storming into Vera’s office and giving her a “it’s either her or me” ultimatum. Vera unceremoniously fires him.
- The Show Must Go On:
- Maya forgets about an important show and goes to a family meeting half a country away with her phone turned off. Vera and co. scramble to replace her, although she does make it eventually.
- When Ofer has a Heroic BSoD and runs off-stage two minutes into the show, Shlomo rises to the occasion like the seasoned veteran he is and holds the audience’s attention with an impromptu comedy routine while the Ofer situation is resolved backstage.
- Shrinking Violet: Karina, Vera’s secretary, who speaks in a tiny voice and seems constantly terrified of everything.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Yuvi can’t stand Maya’s self-involvement and even publicly berates her for it. They end up having an affair.
- Stylistic Suck: From the brief snatches we see, the hit series Maya and Ofer star in is hilariously bad.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Tomer and Iris are forced to work together on the play, even though they are recently broken up and bear quite a few grudges.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Sara, the neighbors’ kid who invades Iris’ apartment to watch TV and won’t take a hint (or an outright demand) to leave.
- Tomboyish Name: Inverted with Reut, which is pretty exclusively a girl’s name. It’s a joke about the region he comes from, which is known for its larger-than-average New-Age Retro Hippie population.
- Tropaholics Anonymous: Late in the season, Shlomo convinces Ofer to attend a support group for his sex addiction.
- Working with the Ex: The premise of the series, milked for maximum discomfort.
