WhoAfraidWolf (2000)

A group of actors and actresses travels through Italy and is expected in Rome. Caroline Redl loses her way in a forest while reciting the lines, "If I dress as a soldier, they will think of me as a soldier." Spoken in the twilit forest, the text attains a tremendous self-evident truth, and Shaw's 'Joan of Arc' becomes a young woman of today, stripped of all historical projections. The only question of importance is: Where am I? This 'where' soon becomes irrelevant for the others too, as they also lose their bearings. Rome belongs to the outside world that is gradually forgotten. But even before the actors arrive, Clemens Klopfenstein has drawn us into the landscapes in which times flows, vast spaces open up, landscapes in which driving itself becomes a state. It feels as if you could keep moving even if time were stopped. The actors - in pairs, a trio and a quartet - are stranded here in the cold and the snow. They wait, rehearse, improvise. It wouldn't be possible to explain Who AfraidWolf entirely even if you wanted to. That is its strength, presenting an open-ended event in an open space in a disjointed moment in time. The theatre texts attain a unique, imminent presence. Lies, freedom and the man in the machine; the alcoholic in 'A Night's Shelter' sees clearly, but is still imprisoned, 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' reflects self-destruction, 'Prometheus' reminds us of the dawn of Man and is still utopian. In a liberating landscape, language tears time apart.