Wolf | Saša Stanišić | Ruhrfestspiele 2025

Director: Camilla Ferraz
Thalia Theater

Imagine your mother shows you a brochure. A vacation camp in the middle of the forest. You only really like trees as a wardrobe. But your mother doesn't get a vacation, so you're allowed to spend a week in the beautiful countryside with a group of teenagers and low-paid counselors. A great offer, but you don't feel like it. You share your cabin with Jörg, who likes to stay on the sidelines because nobody likes him. But he knows his way around plants and loves hiking. You're more interested in good stories. At night, moonlight falls through the window and a wolf sits outside the hut. A nightmare. Jörg is snoring and you are scared. Jörg is in trouble with Marko and his boys. He's a loser and has to put up with a lot. What can you do? Maybe the solution would be to stand by Jörg. Sometimes you get angry. And then what?

That's your story. You say: "My name is Kemi, by the way."

With "Wolf", author Saša Stanišić has written a gripping and intelligent story about bullying, which tells the story not from the perspective of the victim, but of a bystander. In doing so, Stanišić takes a sharp look at social interaction and, in addition to the themes of otherness, exclusion and friendship, also deals with the shame that arises when one does not intervene. Following his successful children's book series "Hey, hey, hey Taxi!", "Wolf" is the author's first children's novel. Together with illustrator Regina Kehn, Saša Stanišić was awarded the German Youth Literature Prize in the children's book category for "Wolf" in 2024.

Camilla Ferraz has adapted Stanišić's novel for the stage at the Thalia Theater. Her production has been invited to the "AUGENBLICK MAL!" 2025 festival, one of the most important theater meetings for young audiences. The director concentrates intensively on the characters in the story in the reduced stage design. The likeable trio of performers and the dialogues peppered with puns add a humorous layer to the story, which also tells of courage, solidarity and cohesion.

Age rating: 11+
Language information: in German