A young woman with a chair on her shoulder stands next to a tree (or if you have no imagination, a lamp with artificial leaves). She points out all she has on: overcoat, hat, shoes, suspenders, shirt and pants; lists all her possessions: old hanky, radio, chair, lamp, pear. These will become, in the course of an hour, the whole world and everything in it. The chair a mountain range; the lamp a woman, a tree, a growing child; the radio an iron; the hanky a loveless man.
Using her voice, her body and these paltry props, Carls tells the story of Einer, a man who had nothing, not even a name. Adapted from Christine Nöstlinger's book of the same name, Carls makes Einer's rough journey over the mountains -- the bone-chilling cold, the moaning wind, the fleeing birds -- so real, that you find yourself leaving your seat to stand with him on the slanting cliffs of snow, wondering what he's got you both into.
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