Winnie Mandela's Football Team / Ruth Kanner Theatre

Based on a story by Dalia Rabikovitch

Vinnie Mandela’s Football Team is not exactly a football team—not really. And the stage work is not about football or Vinnie Mandela. At its center is the story of one woman trying to survive oppressive power structures. Nevertheless, the images of power, masculinity, and the unequivocal nature of victory that emerge from football games make their way into the story. Thus, broadcasts of World Cup matches also invade the performance and play within it at intervals, live.

Mythic forces meet everyday life in another story by Rabikovitch, author of Where Did Judge Y. H. Poraz Go?, featuring an apocalyptic vision of revenge by the woman who “neither forgot nor forgave.”

“Why do they call the group of boys guarding Vinnie a football team? Maybe they play football? But they play other games too; they devote their lives to Vinnie, and God knows what Vinnie gives them in return.”
—From the story “Vinnie Mandela’s Football Team”

About the Theatre

At the heart of the work of the Ruth Kanner Theatre Group is the place where we live: its colors, sounds, and stories, and the people seeking their existence, happiness, and future within it. The group’s creative processes draw primarily on literary and documentary sources, creating stage adaptations that attempt to express the nature of the landscape, the nature of humanity, and shifting perspectives on the local narrative. The group’s theatrical language weaves together movement, visual imagery, and work with speech acts. The group dedicates its work to creation that strives to reveal and give powerful expression to the profound struggles of human existence.

—

A stage work by Ruth Kanner, with Shirley Gal, Ronen Babloki, and Adi Meirovitz

Design: Kinneret Kish
Lighting: Shaked Wax
Music: Ilan Green
Production: Ayala Moses