Purim Parody: Man playing serial killer, arrested for being a serial killer

Director Harry Hoskovitz was faced with such a situation in his play A Killer’s Delight, which has been showing for three weeks in Jerusalem.

By HAWN DODGERS
Updated: MARCH 12, 2017 08:56
Man in handcuffs - illustrative (photo credit: INGIMAGE / ASAP)
Man in handcuffs - illustrative
(photo credit: INGIMAGE / ASAP)
It’s rare to discover an actor murdered halfway through a production. It’s even more unusual to have three of your actors disappear.
Director Harry Hoskovitz was faced with such a situation in his play A Killer’s Delight, which has been showing for three weeks in Jerusalem. Based on the 19th century novel of the same name about a serial killer in Paris, it had been getting mediocre reviews. Then actors started disappearing.
First Ethan Derbowitz, who plays the foolhardy butler, stopped showing up to rehearsals. Then Eliza Cohen- Levy, the mistress of the baron, missed a Thursday show.
A month ago their bodies were found disposed of along the light rail line.
A strange coincidence? After a third victim, sound technician Morti Morgenstern, disappeared, the police began to suspect a serial killer was at work – but what kind of killer would murder actors and people involved in stage production? Over the weekend Jerusalem District police disclosed an indictment of the lead actor, Bob Wortstein, who plays the serial killer in the production. It seems that he was an actual serial killer who “matured” during the production because of his obsession with “getting to know the character.”
The director was not surprised.
“We knew that Bob was a serious method actor and had become truly devoted to the character. He was living on the streets to identify with what it means to be homeless. He would show up to the set stinking of gin and sewage.”
Police are now concerned that his killing spree may have affected other productions he was a part of in New York and London, but serial killer expert Menachem Boreman says that they shouldn’t be worried.
“If he came to killing because of the character, they should ask what other characters he has played. It seems the character triggered the killings.”
Worstein previous appeared in Romeo and Juliet, where he became obsessed with the female lead actor, threatening to kill himself if she didn’t run away with him.
“Fits the pattern,” says Boreman.
Show runs until the ides of March. Bodyguard recommended.