The study of semantics has convinced Amedio that things only have relative validity, and that everything is changeable. So it seems, because while on an Italian holiday with his family, he conceives the idea that his aging wife should assume the role of his mother, and his daughter, who has an infant son, should assume the role of his wife and lover. His real mother, an elderly invalid, dies just as this conceit begins to take form, and, inexplicably, the women placidly go along with this odd notion for a time, but eventually return to their former roles.

Next Time the Fire

A group of actors meet with little money in a unofficial theatre in Naples' Spanish Boroughs. Director's plan is to travel to Sarajevo, still under siege, to stage a classic Eschilus' play about civil war in Tebe. While they rehearse in the theatre cast members come and go and another kind of war goes on every day in nearby streets of old Naples.