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Putting The Best Face On
Impressionist Tuvia Tsafir is a one-man
Israeli Cabinet.
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38 FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 1989
J
0
ne of the impression-
ist/entertainer Tuvia
Tsafir's favorite skits
has never been seen in Israel.
"The Burning House," a
satiric piece with broadly-
hinted at references to Israel's
handling of the intifada, was
banned from broadcast on
Israel television.
The sketch begins with an
outside view of a house cat-
ching fire. Inside, Dad, Mona,
a soldier son, and a very
young son gather around the
TV to watch "Dynasty."
"Our situation is OK," the
family sings as the show's
opening credits roll. "Time is
working for us. But if time is
a worker, he must be an
Arab."
The young son notices the
fire licking the corners of the
house. "Don't worry. It's not
serious," his parents tell him.
Nonetheless, the soldier son
is sent to put out the fire.
"But don't block "Dynasty,"
Mom says.
The house is almost en-
gulfed in flames now. The
soldier tries to extinguish the
blaze with a club.
When next we see the fami-
ly together, they are sitting in
a gutted living room. "We're
still together," Mom says.
"Dynasty" comes back on
TV. Says Dad: "I told you the
fire would end and that time
is still working for us. We
proved to the fire that we are
right."
"That was a year ago and I
think it still works," says the
45-year-old Tsafir who played
the father. "We did it in the
first or second month of the
intifada."
He says the sketch was
banned not for political
reasons, but because the
television service's director
general said that Israel TV's
entertainment programs are
for family viewing, not for
satire. "All the same, I say we
have democratic television,"
Tsafir says.
This one incident aside,
Thafir still gets plenty of air
time for his impressions of
Israeli leaders like Peres,
Rabin, Shamir and Sharon.
One skit was a takeoff of the
"We are the World," video,
with the entire Israeli
political hierarchy taking
part.
"The public sees me as a
comptroller," monitoring and
publicizing the excesses and
transgressions of the high
and mighty," Tsafir says.
When Tsafir began his
career 15 years ago, he had
never done an impression and
considered himself an actor,
not an entertainer. A
graduate of the army's enter-
tainment troupe, Tsafir did
his post-graduate work on a
post-Yom Kippur-War
satirical TV series called,
"Nikui Rosh" (Cleaning the
Head). Tsafir describes the
show as part Monty Python
and part "That Was the Week
that Was," "but more daring."
It was the program's pro-
ducer who pushed Tsafir in
the direction of the imper-
sonations that have become
his livelihood since. Over the
years he has begun to rely
more on the tools of a craft-
sman and less on intuition
and inspiration to capture his
subject.
Shamir: Drawn out s's.
"In the early years it was
quick. Either you get it or you
don't. Like gestalt. You grasp
it all at once. But because I
see it as a craft now, I spend
more time learning the next
figure I'm going to imper-
sonate."
Sometimes Thafir meets his
subjects face to face and it
isn't always clear if art is im-
itating life, or the other way
around. '"At Abba Eban's 70th
birthday show, I gave him the
congratulations in his voice.
When the makeup girl made
me up, she made my hair
grayer than his really is. So
when she put on Eban's
makeup, she made his hair
grayer to match mine."
Over time, Tsafir has
developed a theory about
what makes political leaders
good candidates for imper-
sonation. "I see a political
leader as having charisma,
and he has some specific
characteristic, like a high
voice or a hard voice," Tsafir
Peres: Doesn't blink.
explains. "His leadership
• leads him to have something
special in his voice, or his
gesticulations. If you don't
have it, you aren't a leader. Or
if you are a leader, you have
to develop it."
Every person Tsafir im-
itates has a hook, onto which
the mimic hangs a voice and
mannerisms. And that hook
is often the key to the person's
inner being.
In the case of- Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir, it's
his jutting lower jaw. The jaw
exaggerates Shamir's gargly
speech and the s's at the ends
of words. Tsafir says he imper-
sonated Shamir long before
he discovered.the hooks, "but
as a craftsman I observe now
in more detail."
The key to former Prime
Minister Menachem Begin,
Tsafir explains is his hands
and lips. "He has beautiful
hands," Tsafir says,
demonstrating how Begin's
hands practically soared in
the air when he spoke. "When
he talked his lips and hands
were working beautifully, like
an actor. I believe Begin
missed a great theatrical
career."
The voice shifts subtly from
Tsafir's sabra accent into
Begin's hoarse rasp and
begins to extol the virtues of
peace in grandiloquent
cadences and heap praises on
the late Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat, as Begin was
wont to do during the Camp
David days. The lips are purs-
ed, like after sucking on a
lemon, the eyes fluttering
through very thick though
non-existent eyeglasses. And
those delicate hands, ever