"LE PETIT CHAPERON ROUGE "- LE PRÉAU, VIRE, FRANCE

The story of Little Red Riding Hood. One girl stands in front of a microphone and introduces the story. The others perform the tale meanwhile. Little Red Riding Hood is a beautiful girl. She is very loved by her mother and her grandmother. Her grandmother is sick right now, so she is supposed to bring her a pot of butter. She gets on an imaginary bike and rides through the forest. The staging is light, funny and naive. Trees fall down in the background, Little Red Riding Hood's bicycle squeaks like frogs and she prefers to discuss with the wolf than to be scared of him.
And then I get scared.
The group of girls forms a semicircle, Little Red Riding Hood, now played by another, steps into the middle. A voice talks at her, "you have everything, a plan for the future, people who love you, a boyfriend, you're good looking, charming, you have everything." But all I see is a weight, an intangible pain on their shoulders. "Smile at life and life will smile back."
This is not the story of a slightly more modern interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. Every woman here is Little Red Riding Hood.
We are defenseless. Whether on the bus at night, drunk, whether in the shoe store, at work.
We are all forced to walk through the forest. And it doesn't matter if a safe home is waiting for us. Danger lurks everywhere in the forest, the forest is everywhere. And it's not us who should learn to protect ourselves, it's the world that should learn to protect us.
"Anger, anger." The group of girls has gathered in a cluster. My ears hurt, so much pain, so much sad power. The voices grow louder, scenes of violence. Words about ripping off clothes, wet kisses, cold spit on skin, blood running, grabbing hands on breasts, having lost access to the body through a dull stupor of shock.
A girl steps out of the cluster. She has tears in her eyes. Her words are fragile, cut like glass, splintering through the silence that is neither warm nor cold: "Look at yourself, really look at yourself." No matter how many times you feel you've overcome it, healed your wounds, are no longer vulnerable. It will catch up with you. You are vulnerable. It happens and it will happen again.

text by carla pugnat