Winnie Mandela's Soccer Team / Ruth Kanner Theater

Based on a story by Dalia Ravikovitch

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

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

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

About the Theater

At the heart of the work of Ruth Kanner Theater Group is the place we live in: its colors, sounds, and stories, and the people searching there for their existence, happiness, and future. The group develops processes based primarily on literary and documentary sources, creating stage adaptations that seek 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 spoken actions. The group dedicates its work to creation that strives to uncover and give powerful expression to the profound struggles of human existence.

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

Set design: Kinneret Kish
Lighting: Shaked Vaks
Music: Ilan Green
Production: Ayala Moses