Being Henry Darger

The late Henry Darger: Chicagoan, janitor, and author-illustrator of a 15,000-page novel about girls—many of whom are nude and have penises—rising up against their male oppressors, the Glandelinians. Discovered after Darger's death in 1973, it's not exactly light reading. So Dog & Pony Artistic Director Devon de Mayo directed and wrote a "script" for a promenade-style play adaptation based on the grand story, called As Told By The Vivian Girls, in which the audience decides what they see and when. The A.V. Club was there on opening night to file a minute-by-minute report on this choose-your-own-adventure première, gauging the ickiness along the way.

6:58pm: Upon arriving in the crowded lobby, you can hear screams from inside. Audience members, their faces covered with identical paper masks of smiling little girls, don't know whether to be alarmed or amused. Has the show already started?

7:01pm: Small groups are ushered by a nun in drag into a makeshift Sunday school classroom: "Welcome, my child!" One masked stranger mutters, "I haven't been called 'child' since I was a child." After reading a brief Darger bio, the nun informs the audience that they have free reign of the space for the next hour and 20 minutes.

7:04pm: Two groups occupy the main space of the theater: little girls in dresses performing manual labor and men in blue military garb yelling at the girls. Some girls scrub the floor with toothbrushes; others move stacks of paper-wrapped phonebooks (a recurring design theme throughout). Ick factor: As child labor goes, it's pretty innocuous. Sure, some of the girls are being led around on ropes, but they're loose ropes. Plus, the ladies don't seem to be too cowed, even when the men pick them up, sling them over their shoulders, and deposit them back in their "work" positions.

7:07pm: Just west is a roofless house with oddly placed windows, some of which can be lifted up to peer inside. Henry Darger (played by the utterly believable Gregory Hardigan) lurks inside, being harmlessly nuts.

7:11pm: A men's room around the corner is flooded with red light, and paper bodies sit in the sinks, on the windowsill, and underfoot. Ick factor: Relatively low. Anticipating a horror-movie surprise, some people push open the stall doors, waiting for something to pop out. Indeed, in the last stall, there's a—black chair. The horror.

7:19pm: Inside the upstairs ladies' room, a wailing girl kneels chained to a sink. "Let me out! I promise I'll be good!" Ick factor: Pretty high. It just feels wrong leaving this girl alone. How long does she have to cry before the stage manager releases her? What if she's actually being held captive?

7:34pm: With 50 minutes to go, all the characters seem to already be on repeat.

7:44pm: Sudden changes in music indicate something's happening. Indeed, the girls are meeting in their secret camp. After a good old-fashioned prayer (or five) they decide to go to war for their freedom. Ick factor: It's more unusual than creepy, really. All the girls are sweet and innocent—indicated by them doing cartwheels and flashing their undies.

8:01pm: Battle time! In the main space, the girls kick butt all over the place, much to the chagrin of the generals. Suddenly, something goes wrong and prisoners are taken.

8:05pm: A group charges upstairs to watch a general tie up and torture a girl. Ick factor: It's unnerving to watch a grown man intimidate someone dressed like a 7-year-old. Someone who reeks of beer knowingly whispers, "This is like Iraq."

8:12pm: Back on the battleground, there's renewed fighting, but no real bloodshed—yet. The music changes and the fighting inexplicably turns into a dance, complete with the girls mugging in innocent-little-girl poses. Darger wanders between them, imitating each pose. Ick factor: Oddly, this doesn't really register. Okay, it should be gross: Isn't this classic pedophile behavior? But it's somehow moving.

8:17pm: When Darger departs, the battle resumes with major deaths on both sides. Ick factor: As the men tear the girls' dresses off (revealing their drawn-on penises), the choreography gets a little, uh, rape-y, and hard to watch.

8:21pm: A Darger voiceover thanks his characters for "helping [him] understand the mystery of little girls." The entire ensemble enters Darger's tiny little house and goes to sleep. It's almost a letdown when the lights come up and somebody starts yelling for the audience to "move toward the south side of the building for the after-party!" Having seen various parts of the story—and missed just as many—everyone removes their masks and heads out into the night. —Laura Jacqmin

As Told By The Vivian Girls runs through May 25 at Theatre On The Lake (2401 N. Lake Shore Dr.).