Habimah Theatre

Habimah Theatre (Habimah Stage Theatre), company founded in Moscow in 1917 to perform plays in Hebrew. Its first performance took place in 1918 and attracted the attention of Stanislavsky, who sent his pupil Vakhtangov (see VAKHTANGOV THEATRE) to direct the young company in Ansky's The Dybbuk, which opened in 1922 and became world famous. In 1926 Habimah left Moscow for a world tour, and achieved a sensational success in Europe. In the USA they were less successful and a split developed, a few of the actors remaining in America while the rest returned to Europe and set up a temporary base in Berlin. They were never to return to Russia, but having always intended to settle in Palestine (as it then was), they made their first visit in 1928, being seen in Aleichem's The Treasure and Calderón's The Hair of Absolom. After a further tour of Europe, during which Habimah presented its first Shakespeare production, Twelfth Night staged by Michael Chekhov in Berlin, the company finally settled in Tel Aviv in 1932 and in 1945 moved into its own theatre there, where it remained until 1970, being declared a National Theatre in 1958. From 1969 the company, already partly subsidized, was fully supported by the Israeli Government, whose appointees replaced the previous collective administration. In 1970 a performance of Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday in Hebrew inaugurated a new, comfortable, and well-equipped National Theatre building which stages Israeli and foreign plays.