Hactuba (English: 'The Marriage Certificate') is the best known and most successful play of Ephraim Kishon, loaded with social criticism and full of healthy humor.

The play tells the story of the old couple Shifra and Elimelech, who cannot  find their Ctuba (an ancient Jewish contract delineating the obligations of the husband to his wife.)

 

Finding their Ctuba is a basic condition to enable the marriage of their only daughter Ayala to her fiancé.

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During the search for the ketubah, a conflict erupts between the couple. This causes the husband Elimelech to get involved in an affair with their neighbour Yafa.

The search for the Ctuba also leads to an ever bigger affair between Ayala and the kibbutznik Buki, who was called in to join the search.

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All well that ends well, and this is the case here, too!

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The play 'Hactuba' (The Marriage Certificate) was first performed on stage in 1961, in the Ohel-theater, written and directed by Ephraim Kishon  himself.

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Six years later Kishon directed the same play again in Holland, this time in Dutch, starring Sylvian Albert Poons.

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Now - fifty years later- we are closing a circle and bringing the play back to Holland. This time starring Michael Koresh, from the national Habima theater, IL, who was a favourite of the playwright Ephraim Kishon.

 

Over these fifty years there have been countless productions of the play, even in Yiddish. In 1980 the play was directed by Hy Kalus (1925-2012) at the Habima Theater, starring the First Lady of Israeli theater, Lea Koenig and actor Nisim Azikri.

In 2007 the play was performed in The Cameri Theater of Tel Aviv, starring Shlomo Bar-Aba. 

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More: www.hactuba.com

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