The clown's lost twin: Messianic moments in hanoch levin's drama

During the last decade of the twentieth century, leading Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin has returned several times to the issue of redemption and the figure of the Messiah, both heavily laden with political-theological meanings in Israeli culture. The article explores Levin's messianic moments as an alternative to the prominent Israeli discourses regarding messianism. Instead of entirely debunking the Jewish messianic tradition, as other Israeli playwrights of the period have done (and while scathingly criticizing it), Levin recharges this tradition with new political and theatrical meanings. Levin's drama includes a line of weak, seemingly "failing" Messiahs and, through them, asks questions about the conceptualization of dramatic time and the power structures of spectatorship, within and without the theatre.