Drawing from Darger’s writings, the script by Beth Henley (“Crimes of the Heart”) often returns to Elsie Paroubek, a real child who was abducted and killed in 1911. She inspired the character of the rebel Annie Aronburg in his magnum opus, “In the Realms of the Unreal” (full title: “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion”).
The martyred Elsie/Annie becomes a pivotal figure in the show, perhaps because she epitomized Darger’s outrage at her fate, since he believed that “children, especially all good and innocent ones, were more important to God than the grownups.” (Darger’s tombstone describes him as “Artist, protector of children.”)
Trying to explain Darger’s psychological mechanisms is an ambitious task, but the show feels halfhearted about this endeavor, as if acknowledging the impossibility of it. Despite a captivating immersive feel evoked by John Narun’s projections, Fred Murphy’s cinematography and Ruth Lingford’s animation, “Bughouse” does not suggest the scope and intricacy of Darger’s art — mostly he comes across as a peculiar old man muttering to himself as furtive figments of his imagination take over his physical and mental space.
The production is most effective when it is simply trying to suggest a tormented, mystical mind in small impressionistic touches, helped as well by Christopher Akerlind’s lighting design. Clarke, who has been creating unclassifiable dance-theater works since the 1980s with such pieces as “Garden of Earthly Delights” and “Vienna: Lusthaus,” remains one of the most visually driven directors in activity — a compliment, to be clear.
Here, she and the production designer Neil Patel place us in Darger’s cramped living quarters, a hoarder’s paradise of bundled-up magazines and grimy windows that provide glimpses of the outside world but also of what may be inside Darger’s head. Clarke and Kelly, who had worked together on the captivating “God’s Fool” (2022), inspired by the life of St. Francis of Assisi, are especially simpatico, forming a creative partnership of which I certainly would love to see more — they are not afraid to leave things unexplained and let a mood take over.
Discussion about this post