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The outsider artist Henry Darger spent 40 years working as a hospital janitor and, unbeknownst to anyone, creating a universe from his Lincoln Park studio apartment. Darger wrote a fantastical 15,000-page novel about the Vivian girls, prepubescent princesses who lead a revolution against child slavers, and he created a vast number of watercolor paintings and collages to illustrate the story—all of which he kept to himself until his death in 1973.
Dog & Pony’s stunningly ambitious, fascinating new performance piece is inspired by Darger’s work, and it’s appropriately expansive. The production uses every inch of the Theater on the Lake, often at the same time. Audience members are free to explore on their own—follow a pair of girls upstairs to their slave quarters, head downstairs to listen in on the bad guys’ strategy meeting or wander over and peek into a tiny room where Darger himself is creating the work as we watch it.
Vivian Girls certainly won’t be for everyone. Audience members are asked to wear paper Darger-girl masks (it works, we promise), and the choose-your-own-adventure style is sure to be off-putting to those who prefer a linear story (and, y’know, sitting down). For the explorers among us, though, the thrill of discovery is palpable, and it strikes us as something of which Darger would approve. In a play full of eureka moments, the most breathtaking is an interaction between the artist and his characters that illustrates, as well as we’ve ever seen, the joy of creating art.
