»Vienna 1930: a young Jew dreams of a life in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv 2013: his grandson dreams about ›migrating back‹ to Vienna. Both are searching for a place to belong in a time of violence, as war threatens to break out. The background for this story is formed by the historical football team Hakoah Vienna, many of whose players left to help build the state of Israel. The story that we tell deals with two generations of the same family, with emigration and national pride, with football and masculinity.« Yael Ronen
With this outline for a performance, the Israeli playwright and director Yael Ronen and her brother Michael Ronen went to Austria in search of clues. Their family comes from Vienna originally, their grandfather was a sportsman in the legendary athletic club Hakoah (Hebrew: strength). Founded in 1909, Hakoah Vienna was an expression of the growing self -confidence of liberal Jews and the idea of so-called »muscular Judaism«. Like many of his teammates, Grandfather Ronen eventually threw away his Austrian papers and went to Israel. In this performance his grandchildren question how his Israel became what it is today, and whether they themselves should move away … or back.
Maxim Gorki premiere: February 1st, 2014 - A season transfer from the Schauspielhaus Graz.
