"Games in the Backyard" at Beit Lessin

A group of teenage boys invites a girl to forbidden games in a garden at the edge of the kibbutz. Group dynamics transform the seemingly innocent youthful encounter into an arena of humiliation. Edna Mazia’s play has become a seminal Israeli classic, placing the worlds of childhood and adulthood on intersecting plotlines, as the victim becomes the plaintiff and now they must defend themselves.

A group of teenage boys invites a girl to forbidden games in a garden at the edge of the kibbutz. Group dynamics transform the seemingly innocent youthful encounter into an arena of humiliation and gang rape. The play is based on the rape case in Kibbutz Shomrat, which shocked the State of Israel and completely changed the patterns of criminal and moral discourse surrounding rape cases. Its relevance has not diminished—in fact, it now seems more relevant than ever to a discussion of society’s values and morality regarding sex crimes. Like a sensitive X-ray, the fateful day is reconstructed: the day they changed from teenagers into dangerous criminals, and she changed from a curious girl into a victim.

“She’s a bad girl, Dvori. She likes playing in backyards.”

Cast: Carmel Bein, Amit Franco, Itamar Elbaz, Yaniv Shavit, Aviram Avitan

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Photo: Or Danon