Adventures In Slumberland (script)

Photo: Steve Wagner

NEMO: Can I help put up the tree? I want to go out into the street and sing carols and see all the people!
MAMA: No, no, no.
NEMO: I am missing everyone! They are missing me!
MAMA: Nemo, no one misses you, you are no-one.

Adventures In Slumberland was my first script for Talespinner Children’s Theatre, an adaptation based on characters created by the legendary comic strip artist and animator Winsor McCay.

Perhaps you are old enough to remember the animated film of the same name, which was released in 1989. If so, you have a poor idea of what the original comic strip (Little Nemo in Slumberland) was all about, trust me, my short play had little to do with that.

The great animator Hayao Miyazaki actually had a hand in that film’s production for a very brief moment before walking away. Among other problems he had with the production as it was developing, he reportedly could not get behind a story that literally takes place in a dream, because that means it isn’t real.

And he’s not wrong. You go to sleep, think a lot of amazing things, but in the morning you are still the same person you were when you went to sleep. None of it actually happened.

This, and other issues, were foremost in my mind when creating this play. If the protagonist is a five year-old boy, how might a dream actually change him?

And as it was to be a holiday play, shouldn't it all take place on Christmas Eve? But if the action takes place over the course of only one night, we would miss out on all those hilarious waking moments which concluded every single McCay Slumberland comic strip. I needed to resolve that issue, too.

Then there are all those so-called “Easter eggs” I was aching to include; nods to other pop culture references to Little Nemo, including those found in the comic book Sandman, lyrics from Genesis, and that more contemporary animation with a character named "Nemo." (Chennelle calls them Easter eggs, someone else might call them copyright violations.)

One of my favorite parts of McCay’s strip is how he was able to accurately depict what a dream looks like, how a dream works, how people talk in dreams. Also how maddeningly repetitive or frustrating they can be. Nemo spent years trying to reach the Princess, always failing just before waking -- because that’s what happens in dreams!

But meeting the Princess is a MacGuffin, not the actual goal of the adventure. Neither is finding Santa Claus. I loved including Santa Claus, but he’s not the main event, either! I am so subversive.

My first children’s play, Adventures In Slumberland, is a forty-minute, honest-to-goodness, Joseph Campbell-inspired hero’s journey toward self-actualization and personhood.

And it’s now available in paperback and eBook. Please share and enjoy with the literary manager of your local children’s theater, college or school.

Dead Wake (book)

"It was 2 p.m. on the afternoon of May 7, 1915. The Lusitania had been struck by two torpedoes in succession and was sinking rapidly ..."
- Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary (1922)

Fred Spear

Years pass, history accumulates, and as momentous events (those which appear to affect the widest number of people) occur writers will write about them, later writers will write about them, and still later writers will write about them, each either striving to create a more accurate account of just what happened, or to press a specific point of view about just what happened, or maybe just to make a buck.

Erik Larson has written several books that I should have read already, including Lethal Passage which traces the history of a single handgun (this, written twenty years ago) and In The Garden of Beasts, about the American Ambassador to Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. Each of these interest me a great deal.

What I have just completed is Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, his most recent work, an account of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. Released to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the tragedy, Larson sheds new light on the sinking from the point of view of passengers who survived - and also from those who did not - as well as from the captain of the U-boat which destroyed it, and those in British intelligence who were monitoring the seas as best they could with early 20th century technology.

With this book he seeks to add to the historical account corrections, most significantly the fact that the German sub "U-20" had by its own account fired only one torpedo, not two. Survivors reported two explosions, in obvious succession, and their assumption was understood. However, British intelligence had intercepted U-20's communique about their attack and chose never to set the record straight. Even Winston Church, at that time First Lord of the Admiralty, intentionally repeated what he knew to be false in one of his books.

Larson does not solve the mystery of what actually called the subsequent blast, though he does have a well-educated theory which has much to do with the physics of calamity. Regardless, why did the British government perpetuate this significant falsehood? No doubt because if firing one torpedo at passenger liner with 2,000 innocent souls aboard was at that time unthinkable, firing two is worse.

This is hardly the only piece of misinformation perpetuated by British intelligence, and a good deal of Larson's work implies (though he never proves this) that they allowed the Lusitania - which had more than 100 Americans on board - be destroyed in the hopes of bringing the United States into the war.


While this plan, if true, may ultimately have been successful, it did not happen straight away. Woodrow Wilson had run a successful reelection campaign in 1916 based in part on his promise to keep the U.S. out of the war.

Cartoonist Winsor McCay, who had lofty and admirable ideas about the power of the new field of animation, was deeply affected by the event. He was at that time working for William Randolph Hearst, who also sought to avoid war with Germany, and compelled McCay to create anti-war editorial illustrations for Hearst papers.

McCay spent his own money to create what was at that time the longest animated cartoon - Sinking of the Lusitania - a photo-realistic recreation of the tragedy, which was of course not captured on any film or through photography. This was also the first time cartoon animation had been employed to depict serious, historical subject matter. He and his team took twenty-two months to create the work, which was released in July 1918. By that time, the United States had already been at war with Germany for more than a year.

Agatha Christie's second novel, The Secret Adversary, begins with a prologue set on the deck of the Lusitania as it was sinking. No mean feat, creating a fictional moment with which to begin a thriller set in a familiar historical context, one already well-reported at that time a mere seven years later. The ship sank in eighteen minutes, I would have imagined complete panic. Larson's book informs me that until the final moments a great many were relatively calm, and so Christie's brief exchange no longer feels unrealistic.

More on The Secret Adversary to come.

Pogo (comic strip)

Okay, in the past three days I have experienced as many shouts out to Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. (August 26, 1913 – October 18, 1973). The documentary Dear Mr. Watterson (Joel Allen Schroeder, Director 2013) is playing at the Cedar-Lee, and so my son, who loves Calvin & Hobbes, wanted to see the trailer, which includes this brief comment from Berke Breathed:

My initial impression when I saw him was, the guy's making it harder for the rest of us. Because he's setting ridiculous standards of excellence that hadn't been seen since the 'Pogo' years.

And he was right. Like many comic strips, Breathed's Bloom County was facile and derivative and a complete rip-off of everything that had come before. Calvin & Hobbes may in fact be in the top 5 greatest comic strips ever made, but Breathed's unnecessary use of the word "ridiculous" before the phrase "standards of excellence" only serve to undercut the compliment, and betray a certain well-deserved shame for his own limp work.

What are the 5 greatest comic strips of all time? Well, before Calvin & Hobbes began its run a Pogo collection was released (The Best of Pogo, Fireside 1982) and foreworded by Doonesbury scribe Gary B. Trudeau, who described Pogo creator Walt Kelly this way:

In my opinion, Walt Kelly had only two peers in the pantheon department, Winsor McCay and George Herriman ('Krazy Kat'), and of the two, only Herrimann could write as well as he could draw ... Kelly, however, was a triple threat; 'Pogo' was beautifully drawn, exquisitely written, and enormously popular.

McCay's weakness as a writer would later be echoed by Bill Watterson himself, though I find it difficult to separate McCay's unfathomable inventiveness from the process of writing. His dialogue can seem less than sophisticated, but as I described in my interview with Dee Perry last week, since most of his work is a representation of dreams, it only makes sense that the dialogue is broken up and non-linear, like snatches of what you heard the day before being processed by your subconscious.

Then again, if you ever read any of his personal correspondence, you would also know that Winsor McCay possessed poor grammar and used what can respectfully be called creative spelling.

To sum up, however, this morning I came across this status update from my university movement professor:

I called him on his Pogo reference, but then my eight year-old told me it is actually Pogo possum's friend Churchy the turtle who is triskaidekaphobic.

For the record, I echo Mr. Trudeau's suggestion that if there is a "pantheon" of cartoonists, it should include Herrimann, McCay and Kelly, but also Watterson and inevitably Schulz, whose writing and popularity are unquestionable, and whose drawing skills are deceptively masterful.

But three Walt Kelly references in as many days, just as I have been introducing my son to his work is a little unsettling, and also thrilling, especially when the comparison is made to Winsor McCay. If there is one character who would slip easily into the Okefenokee Swamp it would be that of Flip Flap, whose slangy American vernacular echoes that of Kelly's band of swamp critturs. 

 

Talespinner Children's Theatre presents Adventures In Slumberland by David Hansen, Nov. 30 - Dec. 22, 2013.

Adventures In Slumberland (performance)

Steve Wagner Photography

Adventures In Slumberland opened a week ago, on Saturday, November 30. The houses have been well-attended, the response from children (and adults) has been very positive. And we have gotten some great attention in local media.
  

Director Ali Garrigan and I had a lovely conversation with Dee Perry at IdeaStream this week. I get a bit tongue-tied by Ali keeps things pretty grounded as we discuss the psychology of Slumberland. Excuse me for saying so, but listening to this interview really makes me want to see this show.

Also, we never mention that fish. Also, too, we remember to mention Santa. You forget what kind of impression he makes, but children have been spotted leaning forward, wide-eyed when the man with the bag makes his brief appearance.

  CoolCleveland "If you have kids, you need to check this out." - Sarah Valek Review

In her warm and enthusiastic review, Ms. Valek does point out that this Talespinner show (and she has seen all of them) "doesn’t have as strong as a storyline as past performances." I can't disagree with this, and excuse me for saying I meant to do that but that was one of my plans for Slumberland, that it resembles the episodic nature of a comic strip while also, eventually, getting somewhere.

Rave and Pan "It's quite a treat." - Christine Howey Review  

Christine Howey mentions that Imp "speaks in a non-identifiable foreign tongue," and that was thrilling to me, because (and I believe Ms. Howey actually got this) Imp was a character I was most concerned about. McCay's original version is a grotesque racial stereotype, but while most adaptors have chosen to just leave him out, I thought he filled a necessary role as third. Third Marx Brother, third Stooge, or my case, third child.

Lauren B. Smith as Imp

Imp exists to embody the strange, unfamiliar nature of Slumberland, but that also means to know things that the outsider (Nemo) cannot know, and to comment on things without being understood. The children understand Imp, without actually understanding the words. Lauren is so marvelous with the character, and communicating Imp's language, it is flattering that Howey refers to it as a "foreign tongue" when all it is is entire sentences in English written backwards.

The play script of "Adventures in Slumberland: A holiday play of Little Nemo" by David Hansen and adapted from the works of Windsor McCay is available from Amazon

Little Sammy Sneeze

HE JUST SIMPLY COULDN'T STOP IT
HE NEVER KNEW WHEN IT WAS COMING

Winsor McCay's first successful comic strip for the New York Herald was Little Sammy Sneeze. Like Slumberland's final image of Nemo waking up, the gag here was basically the same. Sammy sneezes, in doing so ruins something, and then he is beaten, kicked or otherwise driven from wherever he has caused his destruction.

Contrary to the subhead -- "he never knew when it was coming" -- he knew when it was coming for a good long while, and so does the reader, it's everyone else who is oblivious for four dialogue-stuffed panels. In one classic strip Sammy sits all alone, and when he sneezes he breaks the panel lines which crash around him. Meta McCay!

There is reference to Little Sammy in Adventures In Slumberland, which opens at Talespinner Children's Theatre this Saturday.

Talespinner Children's Theatre presents Adventures In Slumberland by David Hansen, Nov. 30 - Dec. 22, 2013.

Slumberland: All Aboard for Dreamland

Adventures In Slumberland is the first script presented to Talespinner Children's Theatre which already included a few songs, chosen by the playwright.

All TCT productions include music and singing -- live music, produced with instruments played by the performers or using their voices. To date these songs have been discovered or created through the rehearsal process. And though I was prepared to yield to whatever fantastic and beautiful design ideas Ali and her crew would create, I wanted Slumberland to be in some way tied to the time-period of the comic strip itself.

Some of the dialogue includes period slang (though there are a few intentional anachronisms) and there is a certain turn of the 20th century "popular" music that I truly love. It's the kind of waltz-y, music box stuff you hear at the carnival, or on the Kimball organ before summer movies at the Palace.

All Aboard For Dreamland

Von Tilzer/Sterling (1904)

Performed by the "Adventures In Slumberland" company

Because this story is a dream, which takes place in a fantastic space, I was delighted to find so many Tin Pan Alley melodies of the early 20th century were themselves about remarkable places, or taking fantastic journeys in modern contraptions.

The first attempt to get Nemo to Slumberland is punctuated by a spirited rendition of All Aboard for Dreamland by Harry Von Tilzer (A Bird In a Gilded Cage) and Albert Sterling. The "Dreamland" of the song was in fact part of Coney Island, an attraction known for its wild animal acts and "freak" shows, a place where cartoonist Winsor McCay would no doubt have felt right at home, as he spent his early professional years creating posters for circuses and side shows.

Like many such travel songs (Come Take a Trip In My Airship is another, and in our performance sung by Santa Claus himself) the lyrics suggest a romantic adventure, replete with kissing and spooning and other indecent performances. I took the liberty of adapting such lines to reflect a more platonic experience, description of these intimate acts replaced with the enjoyment of candy.

Come Take a Trip in My Airship 

Ren Shields (1904)

Performed by the "Adventures In Slumberland" company

Sources: 

The Parlor Song Academy

Wikipedia

Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (book)

Zenas Winsor "Silas" McCay (c. 1867? – July 26, 1934) is the greatest comic strip artist of all time.* This I already knew, but I learned a whole lot more from John Canemaker's biography.

Yes, I knew McCay started at the New York Herald and later brought Little Nemo to the New York American, where he changed the name of the strip to In The Land of Wonderful Dreams. What I did not know were the circumstances or why his later dream-like comics were not as noteworthy as the work he did at the Herald.

McCay drew several comics at once for the Herald, including Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, which was like Nemo in that it dealt in dream imagery, but in this version the protagonist of each strip is a different, unnamed adult each week, who have troubled dreams, some of which are grotesque or downright horrifying. One is buried alive, their sleep mistaken for death, another drained of blood by a giant, opportunistic mosquito.

All William Randolf Hearst knew was that Winsor McCay was the preeminent cartoon artist in the America (indeed McCay was -- a star, a name, someone famous in his own time) and so he wanted him for the American. What he did not want were the comic strips. Hearst wanted the greatest comic draftsman to illustrate his worldview and send it across the world. In time he insisted that McCay concentrate solely on editorial cartoons, and paid the spend-thrifty artist enough to get what he wanted.

One other fascinating and not-generally-known aspect of his life and work is what he contributed to animated cartoons. He did not, as some had said and McCay himself often repeated, "create" the animated cartoon, but he was very good at them and pioneered many techniques which brought them from simple curiosities into the realm of serious storytelling.

Whereas someone like Georges Méliès would create fantastic images of non-realistic worlds, McCay aspired to use cartoon animation to document realistic events which could otherwise not be presented to the eye.

In 1918 he released The Sinking of the Lusitania, a photo-realitsic record of what contemporary accounts reported at the time was how the great ship was destroyed and sank. Debates continue as to whether this ship, which was secretly transporting munitions to Great Britain was a legitimate military target. Regardless, this is a surprisingly affective short -- in spite of two goofy fish "seeing" the oncoming torpedo and getting away quick.

It struck me as particularly troubling that this man, who contributed so much with his pen, was overcome with horror at the moment of his death, believing he was experiencing his greatest fear. He had suffered a brain aneurysm, and first felt his right arm -- his drawing arm -- paralyzed. He shouted out to his wife Maude, "It's gone, mother! Gone, gone, gone!" With that he fell to the floor, and died.

One of the more surprising discoveries in this book is an illustration not by McCay but one of his contemporaries and good friends, Ap Adams. The author does not give the rendering a title or an indication of its context, nor does he understand or feel necessary to explain its origin.

New York American cartoon by Apthorp "Ap" Adams
April 26, 1936

Father Time stands over one man as he progresses through his life as crying child, a schoolboy, young man with a handwritten love poem, a soldier, lawyer, old man and complete senescent. These are, of course, the seven ages of man as described by Jacques in Shakespeare's As You Like It.

I will be writing a great deal more about the Seven Ages in the months to come.

*But don't tell Bill Watterson that.

"Adventures In Slumberland, a holiday play of Little Nemo" is available in paperback and eBook.

Little Nemo In Cleveland

Just prior to switching from the New York Herald to Hearst's New York American newspaper, in 1911 Winsor McCay sent Little Nemo, Flip and Imp on an airship tour of the United States, stopping in all the major American cities. Guess where they landed in March? Cleveland!

NEMO: We ought to have a good time here next week! Cleveland is a great city!

In the panel above, we see a photo-realistic image of the Public Square (pre-Terminal Tower) facing east. See the Soldier and Sailors Monument, Superior and Euclid Avenues stretching out to the horizon. If it were not for those three significant landmarks, the place would be unrecognizeable, none of these building still exist and so many were yet to be built. Even the May Co. building would not be constructed for another three years.

NEMO: Cleveland is a beautiful city!

A young volunteer leads Nemo around and shares a raft of statistics. For example:

"Cleveland has three thousand streets; over 300 miles of sewers, an' 200 miles of paved streets. We have sixty thousand dwellings, 18 big hotels, 3000 factories employing sixty-five thousand people! There are seventy-five public schools, 5 high schools, one thousand and five hundred teachers and 60,000 pupils!"

:::Sigh:::

The American Chicle Co. You're welcome.

The one-hour stage adaptation "Adventures In Slumberland" by David Hansen is available for reading at New Play Exchange.

This post has been updated.

Winsor McCay's Slumberland

This video was made of our second (out of three) performances last Saturday night, Sept. 8, 2012 at the Cleveland Public Theatre PANDEMONIUM benefit. The theme for the event was The House of Dreams.

The Parish Hall on the CPT campus was the fellowship hall for the adjacent Romanian Orthodox Church, which is very small, no doubt the congregation at one time required additional space for social events -- the Parish Hall is much larger than the church itself. But it’s not that large, either. At one end of the hall is a little stage, which CPT has made look absolutely lovely, with a new red curtain, neatly painted trim, a black back wall, the wood floor has been finished, and professional lighting. But as you can see -- it’s tiny! It’s so cute.

Nemo & Princess!

There were eight of us backstage, waiting in the limited wingspace. The hall itself was divided in half by a divider, which did not stop sound from travelling from the art exhibit on the other side of the hall, but I do love hearing all the sound coming in from everywhere on this video, it gives a sense of all the activity going on beyond the stage.

Marian made this video from one of the sixty-five available seats. I encouraged her to sit up close, you can just make out the “moon” light crafted by Ben Gantose -- which was a bonus, when we can in for tech. Love that moon!

Valerie plays the part of “Imp” which my daughter (who plays the Princess) describes as actually more like a monkey in McCay’s original. I will take some time before correcting her, McCay’s Imp is actually a grotesque African caricature.

Also, the original King Morpheus is a giant of a man, burly, bald, bushy-bearded, stripped to the waist with gold bands around his bulging, muscular arms. I asked Keith to dress like Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus, so there’s a little geeky joke there for you.

Prior to each performance, Valerie handed copies of the original strip to members of the audience. Before our third and final performance a man came in, greatly excited. He asked Valerie if this was really based on Little Nemo -- the cartoon handout confirmed this -- and waited after to talk to me about it. He was delighted to find that it was a legitimate adaptation, and not some kind of gag.

I found the music on YouTube, a fan of old timey music boxes has a series of videos playing their Edison wax cylinders and 78s. These recordings are from 18 ½ inch metal disc music boxes, including In the Good Old Summertime, Amoureuse Waltz and Come Take a Trip in My Airship.

Read the complete, five-minute version of Winsor McCay's Slumberland and the one-hour, full-length Adventures In Slumberland at New Play Exchange.

Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and his Moving Comics (1911)

On April 8, 1911 this short film (popularly known simply as Little Nemo) directed by Winsor McCay and James Stuart Blackton had its debut. Only two minutes are actually animated, and the moving images repeat, and while fanciful, are of course very simply compared to anything we are used to. However, when you consider that McCay drew all four thousand pages himself, by hand, you have to admire his time, effort, and outstanding creativity.

This was not the first animated film, that honor goes to co-director Blackton, whose Humorous Phases of Funny Faces was released in 1906.

Talespinner Children's Theatre presents Adventures In Slumberland by David Hansen, Nov. 30 - Dec. 22, 2013.

Bill Watterson on "Little Nemo"

Nemo is reacquainted with 1908 ... and meets 1909.

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo In Slumberland takes place entirely within the subconscious imagination of a small boy during the early 20th century. Only the last panel takes place in what we call the "real" world, or sometimes the first panel -- though sometimes that is hard to tell. Is he asleep yet? Mmmmaybe.

Because it takes place in dreams, Nemo has little control over the bizarre things that happens to him. And bizarre they are. Such a fantastical and graphically exciting landscape of possibilities also make one remember the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, created by Cleveland Heights resident Bill Watterson.

The difference is, Calvin's adventures are the conscious, wide-awake production of his imagination. But the final panels depicted here are another example of an abrupt, disorienting and humorous (for the reader) reintroduction to the "real" world.

A book of Little Nemo reprints from the late 1990s, The Best of Little Nemo, was sorted by theme and each "chapter"given a preface by, well, every single comic artist who has ever touched my soul -- Watterson, Charles Schulz, Maurice Sendak, Chuck Jones and Art Spiegelman.

An Incredible Ride To the End
An appreciation by Bill Watterson (C) 1997.
from "The Best of Little Nemo" Published by Stewart, Tabori, & Chang. pg. 195.
"Considering that, in a cartoon, anything can happen that the mind can imagine, the comics have generally depicted pretty mundane worlds. Sure, there have been talking animals, a few spaceships and whatnot, but the comics have rarely shown us anything truly bizarre. Little Nemo's dream imagery, however, is as mind-bending today as ever, and Winsor McCay remains one of the greatest innovators and manipulators of the comic strip medium. Nobody did fantasy like this before, and very few have tried it since.

"To be perfectly honest, however, I admire Little Nemo more than I actually like it. McCay was clearly more interested in his stage than in his actors, and a stage, no matter how grand, can't carry a play. The inventive visual effects notwithstanding, I can't read the strip without thinking how much more enchanting Slumberland would be if the characters, rather than the backdrops and costumes, advanced the story. Regrettably, the characters are cardboard dress-up dolls, devoid of spunk or wit.

"You know something is wrong when a man of McCay's obvious composition and drafting skills draws such pathetic-looking dialog balloons. The balloons themselves often impede the visual flow of the panel, and McCay rarely allowed enough space for the words. Were the words a complete afterthought? At best, the dialog is a series of exclamations and explanations made redundant by the pictures. With the possible exception of Flip, every opportunity to use a character's voice to reveal his personality is squandered, and I think the strip suffers for its unimaginative writing.

"I also find McCay's artwork more impressive in its industry than in its character. McCay's pictures are fancy, but they lack either whimsy or guts. His palaces, cityscapes and boulevards are sterile facades, and his Art Nouveau line keeps everything flat and decorative. Slumberland, like its inhabitants, is more surface than substance.

"That said, the strip is still one incredible ride. Every page is a marvel of design and ornament. The constant invention, the playful distortions, the subtle coloring, the panoramas of architectural splendor...never has another comic strip taken such full advantage of the visual possibilities for surprise. Eighty years after the strip was drawn, it not only continues to delight and awe, but it also provides a long forgotten glimpse of how exciting a comic strip can be."

Huh. "Devoid of spunk or wit ... unimaginative writing ... more surface than substance." In spite of its moments of praise, this is apparently some definition of the word "appreciation" I wasn't previously aware of.

This shirt is pirated.

"Adventures In Slumberland, a holiday play of Little Nemo" is available in paperback and eBook.

In The Night Kitchen (book)

When Dobama Theater Artistic Director Joyce Casey asked me to curate a late-night series of performances for teenage and young adult audiences, it didn't take me very long to choose a name for the project.  

The play I was currently writing, The Vampyres, was set in a goth-themed coffee house called The Night Kitchen. There a couple allusions to children's books in the play, in particular books that went to dark but dreamlike places.

When Dobama's Night Kitchen started I was twenty-seven. I had already put on the trappings of adulthood -- marriage, home-ownership, divorce -- finding each an ill fit. I was in a new relationship with a woman who encouraged me to re-discover the childhood I had always been determined to scorn, deny and suppress. My mission was to create works which respected and celebrated young people, from their point of view.

Joyce kept trying to thrust This Is Our Youth upon me to direct for DNK. I have a lot of respect for Kenneth Lonergan. I really like his movie. But stories about wasted people acting wasted are really boring ... I couldn't get past the stage direction describing as one of the kids "expertly rolls a perfect joint." Really? That must have been an amazing joint. I think it was eventually produced at Beck Center, but anyway.

We had a basement after dark, when the adults had checked out, to be creative. That was dreamlike in itself. And for this guy in his late-twenties it was a race against the clock, I started getting delirious around 12:30.

In The Night Kitchen was published by Maurice Sendak in 1970. Since publication it has remained controversial, and for all the wrong reasons. Well, there's one reason, and it's between Mickey's legs. There's a boy running around naked in it!

Yes, well. There's a boy running around in my house, naked, pretty much every day, but I wouldn't call that pornographic, and I would have some pointed questions for anyone who does. The child doesn't read In The Night Kitchen and think it is sexual, only a sad and ashamed adult does that.

And there was never any nudity in Dobama's Night Kitchen either, unless you count that time Peer's junk fell out of his pee jays during The Realistic World 3, but I wouldn't call that sexual, either.

In The Night Kitchen was inspired by, practically stolen from the classic, early 20th century comic strip Winsor McCay's Little Nemo In Slumberland. That comic featured a boy's dreams where anything could happen, and did, on his fruitless quest to reach Slumberland to take his place as rightful playmate to the Princess. More on that later. 

Remarkably, I received the second volume in a large-format, collectible edition of the strip which includes at least one strip in which Nemo appears naked. Because in dreams, this happens all the time.

The being naked part. Not being eaten by a polar bear. At least, not to me.

Sendak's In The Night Kitchen also does not include any polar bears. But it does include three, gigantic chefs who may look like Oliver Hardy, but that only softens the fact that each sports a "Hitler" mustache and attempt to bake the obviously circumcised Mickey in an oven. Yes, there are far more disturbing things to trouble a person's sleep than a small child's genitalia.

So this theater project was named for an often-timed banned children's book, and for three years it felt like a cozy playhouse, a respite from the adulthood I thought I'd wanted. Leah, who was in her teenage years back then -- in fact didn't even start attending DNK shows until after I'd stepped down as director of the project -- once recounted to me the feeling of excitement she always had walking down those steps into the basement, it was like a vibration, maybe because the music was always played a little too darn loud, not knowing what was going to happen that night.

A surprise farewell to the Night Kitchen, June 1998.